hope for the best , prepare for the worst

fans of the bourne ultimatum will recognise this quote from the movie. as the CIA operatives were debating whether bourne was hostile or friendly to the agency the chief dropped this line and the decision was made to eliminate him
as i prepared for our first challenging walk of our pilgrimage, crossing the pyrennes, i might have hoped that a more devout or pious sentiment would occur to me. unfortuntely it was this dour comment that came to mind.
we did have to prepare for the worst because just as we set out it started to rain, then the wind blew. at one point we discussed whether what we were experiencing was hail or sleet or snow. the jury is still out on that one. i seriously thought i might get frost bite at one stage. half of my mouth seemed to go numb and i was imagining my life with half a mouth on my face. my hands also went beyond stinging freezing
i should point out that we were advised not to go this route because of the likely bad weather even though it is more scenic. the advice was right about both. the vistas were magnificent and despite the conditions we have lived to tell the tale.
hospitality had been fantastic. we stayed at a farmhouse our first night and had a long and delicious french farmhouse meal there. tonight we are at roncevalle and staying at a pilgrim hostel which is comfortable and warm with plenty of facilities
goodnight all

ce n´est pas difficile ambulater dans la citie de paris

le metro, l´autobus, le boat et le pied
we had, i guess, about 24 hours to do paris and we gave it our best shot. we arrived via the eurostar at 1100 am, used the metro to get to our hotel freshend up and then went out
i guess the best thing abut paris is the river. it helped us to find ourselves all the time. when we got lost (an alternative title to this blog was being lost in paris) we just found ourselves again by getting to the river. being lost in paris doesn't really matter anyway becuse it it all great. definitely on the list of places to come back to.
we visited the louvre. the things that made an impact were the reliefs of darius I- the colours, the size, pristine condition, the size. we searched all over for michalangelo´s dying slave. when we had finaly given up and went looking for the mona lisa we found the slave (probably a lesson in life there). also humarabi's code. didn´t expect to find that there. it is mind blowing (for me anyway ) to see something that i spent so much time staring at photos in text books at school. well now i've really seen hamurabi's code
another good thing about visiting the louvre was that it was excellent training for our pilgrim walk. the louvre is 700metres long and by the time you've been lost in it as many times as we were you have covered a lot more than 700 metres.
the following day we took an open bus tour and saw all the iconic spots. we hung around the eiffel tower for a while and took a lot of photos then went for a river cruise.
paris does not disappoint. it was beautiful when we expected beauty. relaxing and fun when we were just walking around. i think it would definitely be fun to work on my french and try to talk to people a little bit. i thought i might have been a bit ho hum about the eiffel twer but really seeing it is stunning.
we will be back. or have i already said that?
sorrry no photos. no place to put in the card

our day in london

people take pilgrimages for all sorts of reasons. i heard of one person who made a pilgrimage to a place that she knew about because she did a jigsaw puzzle of a particular scene. it so captivated her that she had wanted to visit the spot ever since she had seen this place in this puzzle
i think of London chiefly in terms of stories that i have read or movies that i have seen and i think i have been wanting to come here ever since i started to read about it.
travelling into London brought my first memory.
as we came into Waterloo station i thought of the movie Waterloo bridge. Waterloo bridge is an old tear jerker that i remember mum and i watching (google it if you want a plot outline) and crying over many years ago.
84 charing cross road was one the most charming books i have ever read. it is the account of correspondence between an American book collector and the owner of a rare book store in charing cross road, London and here was i within walking distance of charing cross road.
the skylines of chimney pots evoked Mary Poppins. Greenwich village had me looking out for Horatio Hornblower. when i saw the public housing blocks around London from the train i kept wondering if we were in Sun Hill, home of The Bill. everything i know about police work i learnt on The Bill
i should settle down though and tell you what i really saw. our goal for our first day in London was to do a walk around to acquaint ourselves with the layout and how best to get around. we found the iconic spots such as Buckingham Palace,
Trafalgar Square,

St Paul's Cathedral

and Piccadilly.



our friend Richard was with us for the day. he helped us with some of London's secrets. his daughter, rosemary, is a barrister and has her office in the temple area of London so we found ourselves in one of London's inner worlds. we ate at temple inn (the site of, amongst other things the first performance of Shakespeare's 12th night) and walked around temple church which featured in the da vinci code. because of its old London look it is frequently the scene for filming all kinds of historical dramas.

we've only scratche d the surface of this great city and we are off for another day tomorrow

a brilliant week

we have spent the last week in the south of England.we made it as far south west as torquay and spent a night in lyme regis so we have now had a taste of British seaside life. it was very pretty and we had to take this shot of the beach huts

a highlight for john and a new experience in cold for me was attending the football match between reading and ... can't remember their name but according to reading supporters they cheat a lot and can't really play soccer (so perhaps their name doesn't really matter). reading is our friend Richard's team. they wear blue and white, they have a mascot called Kingsley who was very entertaining throughout the game and, whilst they will not win the premiership in their league they now have a very good chance of not being relegated at the end of the season because they have been winning a lot lately the following day john was given the choice between more time spent in contemplation of Jane Austen or a castle that would tell the story of a different femme-fatale. he chose Ann Boleyn so off to hever castle for us. this was quite a homey (not as in home-boy more as in domestic) castle but the grounds were truly on a dramatic scale. even in the winter (not spring yet) the scope and the setting made it a fantastic place to be.
a view of hever castle

the lake at hever castle

Thursday saw us off to Canterbury cathedral. this was where Thomas Beckett was murdered. he was made a saint and, as the repository for his bones, the cathedral became a site for pilgrimage. this assured the prominence and prosperity of both the cathedral and the town. the spirit of pilgrimage still seems to be in the essence of the town.

we had a lovely talk to one of the the cathedral chaplains who bid us 'come as tourist but to leave as pilgrims'. we waylaid a cathedral guide who explained to we ignorant free-churchers the purpose of cloisters and a chapter house and the differing functions of a dean and a cannon.

did you know that the archbishop of Canterbury- the leader of the anglican world must ask the Dean of Canterbury Cathedral's permission to come to the cathedral because it is the Dean's church and not the Archbishop's?

this guide sought us out later, as we had identified ourselves as Baptist, and told us of the location of a Strict and Particular Baptist church just outside the walls of the cathedral. of course we went to find it so in one day visited a massive center of worship with an international profile and one of the smallest places of worship it is possible to imagine. we weren't able to go in but did take a photo.

must find out what Zoar means or perhaps one of my blog followers can tell me. there's a challenge.

one more church

in complete contrast to all the other churches we have visited/attended we went to the Riverside baptist church in Exeter last Sunday morning. our day started slowly and we had really given up on going to church that morning as we thought we only had time to do a quick circuit of the town before tackling a fair bit more driving for the rest of the day. the thought of trying to find a baptist church just seemed too much. after once more negotiating ring roads and yet another park and display car park we emerged from the car park to see a sign for the riverside baptist church adjacent to the car park, worship having started just a few minutes earlier. of course we went in
this was chapel worship . just a couple of families and some older couples. hymn singing with gusto, king James version of the bible, fervent spontaneous prayer and warm hospitality. it was mothering Sunday and the minister preached the most sympathetic sermon on the subject of the mother of James and john seeking preferential seating for her sons in the kingdom of God that i have ever heard. he also made an interesting connection with the preceding parable suggesting that the story of the landowner who gave the same payment to all his workers regardless of when they started may have prompted her request.
he also mentioned cromwell as a hero. only the night before i wrote on the previous blog that i was yet to hear a favourable word about cromwell. here it was.
on the wall of the church they had displayed their membership covenant. i've never seen anything like that before. it must have connections with earlier baptist Church membership coveneants. i know there were standard covenants that baptist churches have used in times past and it was very interesting to see one that was still given prominence in their church life. they were very happy for us to take a photo hence the photo at the top of the blog. turns out they are an independent baptist church
we felt very at home and thank the riverside baptist church at exeter for their welcome

churches we've visited

this is outside york minster. the statue is of constantine who was declared emporer of the roman world from here. we went to church that morning and enjoyed the service. we have noticed the connect between rulers and the church in all the churches we've visited and this statue seems to make that point very strongly.

we visited chester cathedral and were staggered at its age. perhaps one of the oldest we've seen. it's beauty has survived the iconoclasts of cromwell (on all the tours we've done he's never spoken of in favourable terms) and it seems to be a vibrant christain presence in the town. this banner is one of a series they had in the cathedral and they were beautiful. the church's original saint, st etheldred, became a saint because she was trying to make the ducks in the town behave and they were not responding to her renowned abililty to communicate with the animals until one told her that one of her nuns had killed one of their number. she was able to then resurrect the duck and not only was peace restored to the town but she was on her way to sainthood. on such such fragile origins do churches begin

i've been unsure of what to say about the churches we've visited because they have been so diverse and each with a story to tell ranging from quirky to profound. this has to be one of the more significant we have visited. this isvholy island or lindisfarne. the place where christianity came to england. first from st aiden and then st cuthbert. the island in the background became a castle and the building in the foreground is the remains of a bendictine abbey. there are no remains of the original huts the missionary monks first lived in

our day in bath

this one was too good to leave out. it is our afternoon tea at the jane austen centre. more about that below. it more properly belongs in my section eating aour way around britain

this one's for you joel. our time in the roman baths exhibition was really absorbing. the romans' engineering feats and commitment to leisure were fascinating. it must have been an amazing complex in its day

i learned about doric, corinthian and ionic columns in high school and thought about them again in ephesus where their features were explained there. here in bath it was pointed out in our tour that the famous royal crescent buildings also feature the 3 classifications of classical columns. doric on the ground, corinthinan on the next level and ionic on the top level. or is it the other way around? still trying to get them straight in my head. as you can see spring is trying to break through

taking the Mr D'arcy special in the regency tea rooms at the jane austen centre in bath. tea consisted of cheese and cucumber sandwiches(crusts off), scones with jam and cream and slices of cake. apparently a typical recreational day in bath was staged in meals. there was morning coffee, lunch, high tea, a 6-course dinner and then a lavish supper. the day finished araound 11 pm and then you were ready to take the waters again by 6 in the morning. leisure was a rigorous regime in those days

eating our way around england

1. best hot chocolate in a village in the cotswalds. close second was the buttery in oxford


2. best pub meal in the harkers pub, chester. voted most loved pub in britain 2009. i had lamb casserole. john had a steak burger


3. best fish and chips tonight in bath. it lived up to its claim to be the best in south east england


4. fruit cake and a slice of wensleydale chees in a tea room at knaresborough


5. chester cake from chester


6. black pudding for breakfast at the pub in knaresborough (only once)


7. mushy peas with our fish and chips in a pub at stratford-on-avon


8. yet to find a lemon squash that would come close to what we think is a lemon squash. john has been convinced to drink smirnoff mixers, lemon cordial (orange squash is apparently orange cordial) lime and soda and lemon lime and bitters

a ploughman's lunch in an english pub

we've been in england for 3 days now. we were picked up at the airport by our friends, richard and christine budden, and have been wallowing in english hospitality ever since. yesterday we went to church with them in the morning and after british roast beef for lunch spent a rainy afternoon planning our assault on britain.

i woke to wish our friends happy first of spring to be told that english spring doesn't start until the 21st march. the weather said something different, however, because we spent the most glorious sunny (if chilly) day driving in the sussex countryside.

we visited the ruins of slaugham place (photos above) where richard and christine's daugher celebrated her wedding recently. there were snowdrops in bloom. we have so far seen gold and purple crocuses as well.

then it was off to lunch in the pub followed by village after with village with brooks running through, village greens, cobblestone streets, white cottages with thatched roofs (I'm certain i found milly-molly-mandy's house) pony trails, jonathon creek's windmill house and more.

the adventure continues as, having made arrangemetns for car hire today, we begin our solo tour tomorrow starting with oxford .

photos of the caves in cappadocia

frescoes in the cave monastaries

the fairy caves

our walk through the valleyof the caves

our cave room 'the honeymoon suite' in urgup

back at the legend hotel

after our stay in tarsus we returned to istanbul and the legend hotel where we headed straight into the city for more sightseeing. we walked through the haggia sophia, down to the grand bazaar then to the waterfront and back into sultanahmed where we found a beautiful artisan's bazaar. in the middle of this bazaar was a mosaic museum where we lingered for a while before returning to the hotel for a rest followed by more sightseeing, a haircut for john, souvenier purchases, dinner and bed photos are of the view accross the haggia sophia and the chyros on another churchwe found in the area