Canterbury to Yorkshire

After Salisbury, we headed off to Canterbury. We saw the place where St. Augustine of Canterbury set up the first Christian mission to Britain after he was sent there from Rome. Nearby is St. Martin’s Church, the oldest, still-worshipping church in the English-speaking world. In the evening, we got some fish and chips take-out and enjoyed it in the green space at another nearby church.

The next morning, we went to Canturbury Cathedral for their morning service and then headed north to Scotland.

Our plan on the first day in Scotland was to see the castle in Edinburgh. Unfortunately, we didn’t take into account that the fringe festival was going on and the place was a tourist zoo. All tickets were sold out. We decided to head over to Stirling to see the castle there.

We were staying in Dunfermline, just north of Edinburgh, where Queen Margaret of Scotland, who is the person our church in Winnipeg is named for, lived. We saw the abbey she founded and the place where she was laid to rest.

We said goodbye to Scotland, rented a car at the Edinburgh airport, and headed south to the district of Yorkshire. That afternoon we spent a wonderful two hours at some ruins along Hadrian’s Wall, the wall Emporer Hadrian built to protect their territory in Britain from the “barbarians” in the north.

Our home base in Yorkshire was a house in a small village called Dalton. From there were made a number of day trips. The first was to a creamery in Hawes where they make cheese. The next day we went to see Raby Castle.

Tomorrow we head south to London.

Oxford and Salisbury

Some of you have been looking at the same blog post on your browser homepage for a long time. Perhaps you’d like something else to look at.

Our first days on our trip to the UK were spent in Oxford and Salisbury. Oxford is known for its prestigious university and has been a place of higher learning since the first European universities were created in the 13th century. We stayed in the dorm of Mansfield College, which is a relative newcomer on the scene, having been established in the 19th century, and took the opportunity to explore some of the many colleges and important historical sites associated with the city and university. Here you can see us on the tower of the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, having a look at the city from above. It wasn’t Lyndon’s favourite activity—he’s afraid of heights.

After a day and a bit at Oxford, we headed off to Salisbury. We made the trip by train. For whatever reason, the trains were all extremely busy. We almost didn’t fit our on last one, and didn’t even have room to take our backpacks off.

Salisbury is an old city near some of the oldest sites of human activity in the UK. We took the shuttle bus out to the Stonehenge, which is believed to have been built 4500 years ago. It’s hard to believe that a pile of stones could attract so many tourists! That evening, we went to a choral evensong at the Salisbury Cathedral. The next day we toured the cathedral as tourists. What an amazing place.

Homeschooling

Our blog has been sorely neglected for nearly 2 years now. Much has happened since that camping and canoeing excursion on Caddy Lake. We completed a kitchen renovation. We began the work of finishing our basement. The goal was to have it done last summer, but it is still in-progress. Perhaps this summer. We took a 3-week trip to the west coast. We purchased another revenue property, renovations on which are very nearly completed. And last, but not least, COVID-19 happened.

Our work lives were pretty much unchanged by the pandemic restrictions and so adding homeschooling to the mix was, and continues to be, a challenge. Many balls have been dropped along the way. About a month or so after school was cancelled for the kids, I pulled out some retired hardware and made some work stations for the kids in the dining room. Mornings now look like this.

Impromptu Excursion to the Caddy Lake Tunnels

It’s mid-August and that means that the end of summer is fast approaching.  This realization prompted me to complain that we hadn’t put our canoe in the water yet this year.  Pam suggested that, since she had most of the week off and since it was supposed to be cooler for a few days, we load up the camping gear and go see what canoeing the tunnels at Caddy Lake is like.  Neither of us was feeling particularly energetic, but we did it anyway.  Nobody was sorry.  We all had a great time.

We set up camp on Monday evening and starting paddling about mid-morning the next day.

We paddled through to the second tunnel and then stopped for some lunch.

The weather was perfect.  There was some cloud to cover the sun and it wasn’t too windy.  With some food in our stomachs, we headed back through the tunnel from North to South Cross Lake.

Half way back, we stopped to do some fishing.  K caught her first fish.

After getting over his jealousy, L was again able to enjoy himself.  We got back just before supper.  The trip was about 13 miles.

It’s Starting to Look Like a Kitchen

We’ve been camping for the last week and will be leaving for another week tomorrow.  Thought I would quickly post some pictures.

The last days of June and first days of July were a scramble.  We wanted the flooring in the kitchen to match that in the rest of the main floor, but nobody sells that kind of flooring any more.  We had to call around and then pay twice as much as for other hardwood to get our matching 2″ oak flooring.  On top of that, we had to sand and finish it ourselves.  With our uneven floors, installing it was a challenge.  This was almost a full day’s work.

As is often the case when you try something for the first time, you get the hang of it about the time that you are finishing it.  I learned a few things along the way and the rest of the floor went in much quicker.  I was also dealing with a gimpy back.  On the day I was sanding the drywall I woke up with a sore back and could hardly bend over far enough to put my socks on.  Fortunately, it got bit better each day and allowed me to finish what I had to do before the cabinets came.

The cabinets were delivered on Tuesday after the long weekend.  Although the installer still needs to come back to fix one or two things, we are really pleased with them. We think they look great.

We managed to decide on countertops before we left to camp with the Friesens and ordered them on Tuesday.  Today I spent most of the day fiddling with under-cabinet lighting.

Still on Schedule

Last week and this week has been about covering the walls.  This included the itchy job of putting in the fibre-glass insulation and then installing the vapour barrier.  Before drywalling, we all signed the plastic.  Maybe some future renovator will read our messages.

I decided to rent a drywall lift for the project.  Don’t think I’ll ever attempt to drywall another ceiling or upper wall without one.  No more balancing the sheet on one’s head while fumbling with the drill and screws to get it attached.

After three days of mudding and taping, today was sanding day, everybody’s favourite day in a renovation project.  Apparently I have learned some things about mudding and taping along the way.  Today I (the sander) was grateful to myself (the mudder) for making the job as painless as a day of sanding can be.  The only complication was that woke up this morning with a gimpy back.  Good thing the sanding was mostly an upper body activity and didn’t require a lot of bending over.  We’ll see what it feels like tomorrow when the hardwood floor is supposed to go in.

Last week, the kids and I took the opportunity to make a quick trip to Bird’s Hill in the evening after supper to escape the heat.

I Passed My Tests!

So two weeks ago I was a plumber and this last week an electrician.  While the self-imposed deadlines took some of the joy out of the work, it’s still fun to run a new water line or wire a new circuit.  Here are some pictures, which I know all of you have been waiting on pins and needles to see.

Yesterday, I got the good news that both the plumbing and electrical pass inspection.  The inspector seemed particularly impressed that all of my fixtures had proper venting.  Now the walls can be insulated and drywalled.  Yay!  Anyone want to come and help?  I need to have the drywall on by the end of the weekend.

The range hood, however, is proving to be the bane of my existence.  We want it to be able to exhaust outside, but a stud was in the way and so I had to do some framing.

I thought I was good to go and then I discovered that the conduit for the main electrical line to our metre and then to the breaker panel was in the way on the outside of the house.  Now I’ll have to run my ducting into the cabinet so I can make some bends and turns.

 

A Patched and Squeak-free Floor

Can you guess what this is?

This is the product of a day’s work for two people.  It’s the pail Pam and I used to collect all the nails and staples we pulled from the floor.  With a bit of patching and some screws, we now have a squeak-free floor that is ready for finishing.  We haven’t quite decided on a finish, but we are leaning toward hardwood.