30 Rent a car: yell at your wife

I confess. Not very loud and I think only once but I did speak a bit sharply with Penny, the driver, as I navigated our route across the north of England two weekends ago. However, it was not my fault nor was it Penny’s. It is the British highway department. Do you want to know why we won the war for independence? It is because the British are evidently incapable of using a compass. They have these roundabouts everywhere. If you have been to Lowes in Liberty you have seen one. Now imagine that roundabout on steroids. They have 3 to 4 roads intersecting at a big circle so there are 6 to 8 options as you go around the circle (sometimes more than once although that is not supposed to happen). This is not a particular problem if you are aware of which route you wish to take. Indeed, it is a very efficient way to keep traffic moving at intersections. The problem comes in when you have to figure out, from reading the signs, which route you want to take. Now in the compass literate USA the sign would say I-35 North or I-35 South or I-70 East or I-70 West. But without resorting to that simple logic we are forced to name a town that is somewhere between 3 and 200 miles down that road: A-1 – Doncaster or A-1 Peterbourgh. Now from where I am on the A-1 how am I supposed to know which option to take!!! You cannot always just use a compass and take the northern route because if it happens to be a dual carriage way and you don’t recall that you are driving on the left you will wind up turning north and going south. BUT I AM NOT BITTER!!! It was in that context that I may have stressed a bit too strongly to my lovely wife: “TURN HERE!”

We did rent a car and we did manage to get around to some places we wanted to go and we had a good time.

But before we get to the weekend let me share with you some of the activities of last week. On Monday we were entertained by the “Nottingham Foresters Morris and Sword Dancers” and the “Greenwood Step Clog Dancers.” It was quite the evening. This was a group of men (doctors, lawyers, and such) who get together and dance. The dancing involves wearing bells on your legs and waving scarves and jumping a great deal. It also involves laughing.












Then there was a dance that involved sticks and banging them together and then on someone else’s stick.

The woman’s group was much more relaxed with tap dance moves wearing clogs (wooden sole shoes). We were told that the wooden soles were made because they were more durable and water resistant that leather soles. They were worn by poor folks who would entertain themselves at a factory by dancing without moving from their place at the factory (keeping time with the machines).




Then the men came back and performed a sword dance with a sword that looked like a very small two man cross cut saw that lumberjacks might use. These were held between a circle of people (each holding one end between people on both sides of the dancer). Then they proceeded to twist in and out and between each other without letting go. Fun to watch.

The last event was a Plough Play. A short and funny play that had something to do with marriage and the devil. (I am not making this up.) The costumes were a bit outrageous.

On Wednesday night we had the talent show. The students did a great job. There were dancers and singers and poems and comedy. One quartet of guys did a fabulous job of singing “kiss the girl” from the Little Mermaid. Then a great rendition of a song called “The Girl in 14G” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRNRbq76Bxw which I was not familiar with but which was very cute and Amanda has a great voice. A good time was had by all

The Road Trip

On Friday October 19 we drove to the Peak District which is about 2 hours north and west of Grantham. We decided to visit Chatsworth House which is the home of the 12 Duke of Devonshire whose name is Peregrine Cavendish. The house has a long history starting in the 16th century. There is a nice history at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatsworth_House.
Let me show you a few pictures:

The house is located out in the country with very little around it. That is quite different from many of the stately homes where the towns and cities have grown up all around them.



The Duke’s duck was present.


The house is surrounded by incredible gardens including a very nice maze where we encountered some very giggly tourists from Norway. We started in but got lost right away and made our exit as soon as possible.




The next day we traveled to Samford which is just a ways from Grantham and went to another stately home. It was nice as well. But after touring Devenshire it was a bit of a step backwards. It was a bit nicer than the Owens estate in the US but only received a 8 on the 10 point wow-factor scale. The Owens place gets a -4 on the scale.

The following weekend we went on a school field trip to London and were given a great tour of St. Peter’s Cathedral in London. Which is (in my opinion) not really a church but a monument to the British nation. Nothing wrong with that if you don’t call it a church. All the British war heros are buried there and have monuments. We learned that Lord Nelson (Naval Hero who won the battle of Trafalgar) died some years later and was on ship in some place far away. In order to preserve his body to be buried back in jolly ole England they put the Admiral in a vat of wine where on the journey home he soaked up so much wine that when they got him home he was so bloated that they had to cut him up to bury him.


We also saw Wicked on Saturday night. That was a lot of fun. The music and voices were great and the plot was very entertaining. It is the story of the witches of Oz before Dorothy arrived. The wicked witch of the west was not always wicked and was highly misunderstood. Glenda was a ditzy lady.

Ray