We got home yesterday afternoon.
Flights were on-time and uneventful.
I had fears about clearing customs at JFK even with Global Entry.
No worries:  We were through customs and had our luggage within 15 minutes of deboarding.  In PHX our bags were the first ones on the carousal.  Kudos to Virgin Atlantic and American.

The blog now goes to sleep for awhile.

 

Short post.  Yesterday was our last full day in Oxford.  This morning we drive to Heathrow and catch an afternoon flight on Virgin America to JFK.  Quick overnight at the airport and on to PHX tomorrow.  This will be the last post except for a short “we’re home” post.

We had a great walk around Oxford again yesterday.  Anyone planning to come to the UK should visit here.  It’s a fascinating city.  We visited Oxford University’s Ashmolean Museum, one of the world’s best.  The special exhibit at the moment is on “America’s Cool Modernism, O’Keefe to Hopper”.  It the only part of the museum for which you have to pay.  One painting was by e. e. cummings.  Who knew he could paint as well as write uncapitalized poetry?  Here are some random photos from the last day.  No time for captions, but I’ll add some while at Heathrow..

Click on the gallery below to bring up a scrollable window with full size pictures  –  the gallery preview  show just thumbnails of the pictures

One last picture from the Ashmolian.  I have titled it “Tom Brady Deflategate”, a double entendre.  If you get it, honk.

It’s been a great trip, but time to go home.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures  –  the gallery previews show just thumbnails of the pictures

It’s Saturday afternoon.  Last night’s dinner at Moya was visually pleasing and delicious to eat, so I’ll subject you to some more food pictures.  Skip them if they make you hungry.

Saturday morning was cloudy but it turned out, contrary to the forecast, to be a beautiful sunny day.  Hi Ho has the day off.  We walked and walked and rode the Hop On, Hop Off bus, and walked.  We visited the combined Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum.  FABULOUS place.  A bit of everything: real dinosaur tracks outside, great dinosaur skeletons, a picture of Elaine with a secretary bird (her favorite bird from our safari in Kenya lo those many years ago), an indoor beehive with a glass escape tunnel for the bees to come and go, and so much more.

We had lunch at Pret a Manger (which, incidentally, has been sold to a Luxembourg investment group for £1.5 billion – Pret plans to give every employee of the huge chain £1,000 when the sale finalizes.).  We had beers at the Chequers, a delightful old downtown pub.  And we ventured around Magdalen College, one of the 30+ colleges that make up Oxford University.  Magdalen has been educating students since 1458.  Great tree in the yard planted in 1801.  And we visited the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, the church of Oxford University since the 1200’s – great black and white stained glass windows.  It was a long day.

OK, galleries galore to document the day!  No captions today.

Oxford Rooftops

Pitt Rivers  Museum & Museum of Natural History

Magdalen College of Oxford University

The University Church of St Mary the Virgin

Random Oxford Scenes

Dinner tonight will be at Cuttlefish, right across the street from Moya where we ate last night.

 

 

 

Short post today.  On Thursday night we had cocktails at home as the sun made a rare appearance.  It was nice enough to walk to dinner at Ditto.  Great meal!

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Sunny Finish in Whitby (from our balcony)

Great Meal at Ditto

Appetizers
Joe: Cured Sea Trout, Cucumber, Fennel, Chives, & Buttermilk
Elaine: Rolled Lamb Shoulder, Potato Puree, Feta, Garlic, & Peas
Mains
Joe: Duck Breast, Carrot Puree, Couscous, Red Onion and Soy Honey Sauce with a side of Roast Chautenay Carrots
Elaine: Pork Belly, Cauliflower, Crispy Cheddar and Curried Cream Sauce with a side of Warm Peal Barley Salad
Dessert
Shared: Baked Lemon Cream, Coconut Snow, Blackcurrant and Almonds

The drive to Oxford should have been just over four hours but it was more than five as we hit a six mile backup on the M40 due to an accident.  We arrived and checked in at our B&B for three nights, the Coach and Horses, room 8, same as last year.  Great big room with comfortable beds and a huge modern bathroom.  We walked done the street to the Angel & Greyhound Pub for a pint or two.  Dinner was at Moya Slovak Restaurant that we enjoyed last year.  Then a walkabout and a good night’s sleep.

 

So, we spent a relatively quiet final two days in Whitby.  We did some walks about town took a short drive to Sandsend, had some more fish & chips, and generally enjoyed the town.  This morning we hot chocolate and scones with clotted cream and jam in a little cafe near the harbor.  At the next table were two women from Holbrook, AZ, both teachers.  Red for Ed!!  Outside of the day in Edinburgh, we haven’t seen many Americans and no one from Arizona.  Tonight we have our last Whity meal at Ditto, an exeptionally good restaurant that we discovered last year.  Tomorrow morning we off on the five hour drive to Oxford where we will spend our final three nights in the UK.  Oh, and Hi Ho has a boo boo.  I grazed a post leaving a supermarket parking lot.  No serious damage, but I submitted the requisite accident form.  Glad we have £0 deductible insurance from Peugeot!  Always best to get £0 deductible coverage when in Europe (imho).  Some pictures and we will check in on Saturday from Oxford.

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Elaine’s Gallery

Joe’s Gallery

Read about the Wreck of the Rohilla pictured above here.

No fog or rain on Tuesday morning. Hi Ho got back to work, and we drove about an hour south to Nunnington (population: 360) to visit the National Trust’s Nunnington Hall. One would think all the estates that the National Trust administers would be similar. And, in a way, they are. A beautiful home and a nice garden. But each one is different and enjoyable with an interesting history. As a bonus, it was delightfully sunny for the drive and for our time at Nunnington.
Nunnington Hall has been the family home of several families back to 13th century. The Hall that exists today was built in 1680, most recently lived in by the Rutson/Fife family. It was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1952 with the family retaining the right to live there. The last family members decided to move out in 1970. There are family pictures throughout, and it looks like it was a great place for kids to grow up. There is a family of peacocks living on the grounds. We saw several. In 2007 Bluey, head of the peacock family, died under suspicious circumstances. (??) There is a painting of one of the last children to live on the estate painted by a French painter. When it was delivered, the girl’s skirt was above the knees. That was a no no, and the painter had to come and add on to the skirt to make it acceptable.

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The Hall also hosts exhibitions. The Carlisle Collection of miniature rooms and furniture is housed here permanently. In photos (below) the rooms look real.

And there is currently a stunning exhibition of the award winners in the British Wildlife Association’s photography competition. Photos of the photos below.

We had soup and sandwiches in the cafe and then viewed the gardens

Then we heading back to Whitby. After cocktails at the appointed hour (5:00 PM), we dined on locally made pies, meat for me and chicken for Elaine, served with salad and wine.

Then we ventured out for a rare night out after dinner. Nothing too exciting, mind you! Just a short distance from our home at the Metropole is the Whitby Pavilion which includes a cinema. We saw the 7:30 showing of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. A writer forms an unexpected bond with the residents of Guernsey Island in the aftermath of World War II, when she decides to write a book about their experiences during the war. We spent three days on Jersey, Guernsey’s sister Channel Island, a few years back, so the story was interesting to us. The Channel Islands, just off the coast of France, are Crown Dependencies of the UK, and, as such, they were the only part of the UK that was occupied by the German Reich during WWII. The movie was excellent.

Monday morning was foggy and wet. Nonetheless, we decided to take a ride for the day to Bridlington, about 27 miles south. That’s an hour’s drive on the back country English roads. Our first stop and main reason for going there was Bondville Model Village. We have rarely visited England without visiting a model village, so add them to the things the English like: tea, gardens, dogs, fish and chips, old estates, etc.

Frankly, the model village was not up to the par of some of the others we have seen. The best was probably Babbacombe in Bristol. Bondville is designed for kids, and the kids there were having a great time. We enjoyed watching them and chatting with parents and grandparents.

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We then circled back into town and part near the church, the Priory Church of St Mary. This was a surprisingly interesting church that was being lovingly cared for by volunteers with whom we had interesting conversations. They currently have a project/exhibition commemorating the soldiers of the Green Howards (see next section) who gave their lives in World War I. They are creating cardboard cutouts in the shape of a soldier for each of the soldiers who died in the War. The picture of the memorial board shows how many there were. The Priory is most of what’s left of a huge medieval monastery.

Nearby the Priory is the Bayle Museum. In the Middle ages, the Bayle was the entrance to the 900 year old Augustinian Priory. Now it;s just a gatehouse in which you can visit the three floors and see exhibits from Bridlington’s past. Perhaps the most interesting part was to learn about the Green Howards. The Green Howards were (are) the Yorkshire Regiment of the British Army. They have a storied history.

Then it was time for lunch. We drove down to the waterfront/harbor area and parked. We went into a pub and ordered beer and wine and perused the menu. Luckily, it wasn’t appealing, so we finished our drinks and moved on. I say luckily because then we happened upon Bridlington Spa, the city’s theatre and cultural center which contains a nice cafe. They had a lovely buffet for just £4.95, and it was absolutely delicious. Just the ticket with more beer and wine. And it overlooked one of the prettiest beaches in the UK. While we ate, we watched the RNLI lifeboat being launched. According to the servers, it was not a drill. The lifeboat went out and was circling around, obviously looking for something. We will never know what as they were still out when we left.

Back to Hi Ho and home. It was actually dry and not very foggy while we were in Bridlington, but home in Whitby, there was rain and fog. Tomorrow the weather should improve. Dinner at home was simple: grilled cheese and ham sandwiches.

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Another quiet day for Hi Ho.  It was totally fogged in when we got up at 6:30, but the fog dissipated early on.  Still, it was an overcast day.  We decided to walk down to Pannett Park, just ¼ mile from the Metropole.  Pannett Park is home to the Pannett Art Gallery and the Whitby Museum which “houses a stunning variety of collections and artifacts”. There are also panoramic views of the town and Whitby Abbey from the museum terrace.

The Whitby Museum is the highlight here.  While it’s not a huge museum, it has a fascinating collection of, well, a bit of everything: geology exhibits, fossils, stuffed birds and mammals, clocks, porcelain and ceramics, jet (more below), maps, photographs, pressed flowers, whaling history, navigational sciences, shipping history, ship models, clocks and watches, coins, medals, toys, dolls, doll houses, weapons, costumes, ships in bottles and light bulbs, and last but not least, the Hand of Glory (more below).

Pictures will tell most of the story, but a few words about three things:

1) Whitby Jet is a type of lignite, a precursor to coal and is considered a gemstone. Jet is not a mineral, but rather a mineraloid. It has an organic origin, being derived from decaying wood under extreme pressure.  Whitby jet is the fossilized wood from a species of tree similar to the Chile pine or Monkey Puzzle tree.

2) Ah, the Hand of Glory – a new one on me – is the dried and pickled hand of a man who has been hanged, often specified as being the left (Latin: sinister) hand, or, if the man were hanged for murder, the hand that did the deed.

“Old European beliefs attribute great powers to a Hand of Glory combined with a candle made from fat from the corpse of the same malefactor who died on the gallows. The candle so made, lighted, and placed (as if in a candlestick) in the Hand of Glory, would have rendered motionless all persons to whom it was presented. The process for preparing the hand and the candle are described in 18th century documents, with certain steps disputed due to difficulty in properly translating phrases from that era. The concept inspired short stories and poems in the 19th century.”

3) There are a group of model ships that were all carved by French prisoners of war during the Napoleanic War out of bones from the meat rations that were served to them.

Then we walked on down through the Park and  into town again.  Today is the last day of England’s school break week, and people have already apparently started home.  While still busy, it was much less crowded than yesterday.  There was no line at Trenchers as there was yesterday, so we decided to stop in for fish and chips.  We enjoyed them here last year.  Trenchers has a take out counter but the restaurant section is large and .very well appointed.  The fish and chips are unbeatable.  They also serve draft Staropramen beer, so I had a pint.  Staropramen is the second largest brewery in the Czech Republic and is now owned by the Molson Coors Group.

On the way home we stopped at a pier-side seafood stand and bought little pots of crayfish, mussels, and langoustine tails that we will enjoy as the main part of our dinner at home tonight.

Cloudy but dry Saturday in Whitby.  It’s a day off for Hi Ho as we decided to just do a walkabout in Whitby.  Some have asked about our digs here, Apartment 31 in the Metropole.  The Metropole was a luxury hotel built in the 1880’s that eventually fell into disrepair.  It was then transformed into luxury condominiums.  From the Metropole, we walked down to the top of the West Cliff which stands high above Whitby Town.  There is a statue of Captain Cook and a whalebone arch   (I didn’t get a picture – click the link to see some great ones.) that was a gift from the Anchorage, Alaska, a twin city with Whitby.  We stopped for nine holes of miniature golf.  I won by two strokes but Elaine had the only hole-in-one.  Then we walked down Skinner Street to the main town.

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I stopped into the Post Office to pick up a new SD card reader that I ordered from Amazon.  We had a cup of hot chocolate at a market.  We saw the Bark Endeavor moored at the dock where it to be fitted up to become a permanent tourist attraction opening in July.

Then it was walk down the Pier Road which, I swear, really is Revere Beach 1955: food stands, penny arcades, rides, and even a clairvoyant.

On a whim he hopped aboard Whitby’s Hop-On Hop-Off bus and did the complete circuit around Whitby.  W eventually hopped off where we got on and walked up the steep West Cliff and back to the Metropole for lunch and naps.

Poor Hi Ho didn’t get the whole day off as it was raining and we had to drive to dinner rather than walk as planned.  Dinner was at Mademoiselle’s, a new bistro that wasn’t here last year, but it gets fantastic reviews on Tripadvisor.  We concur with the reviews. It’s an eclectic French bistro.

Kir Royales

Révélation Pinot Noir from France

Elaine:

Starter: Päté de Campagne (Course country paté, toasted broíche, pear chutney)

Main:  Saumon Grillé avec Sauce Hollandaise et Asperges (Grilled sumon with hollandaise sauce and aspaagus)

Dessert: Pavlova aux FraIses (Meringue with strawberries)

Joe:

Starter: BouÍllabaisse (Provençal seafood soup with fennel garlic, & orange)

Main: Boeuf BourguÍgnon (Beef casserole with red wine, mushrooms, bacon, & mashed potatoes)

Dessert:  Crémeux au chocolat aux framboises (Chocolate cream with raspberries)

After dinner the rain had stopped, so we had a little walkabout before driving home to bed.  Wow, we were actually still up when it was dark out!  (Sun is up by 4:00 AM and it stays light until after 10:00 PM in northern England.)