Last month's facial hair - the lower lip fuzz. I have to admit this was kind of annoying so I am glad it is over. Stay tuned for next week's blog to see December's style.
On Sunday we met the Freys at Lincoln to see the Lincoln Christmas Market. You can check it out online at http://lincoln-christmasmarket.co.uk/. Lincoln is an older city (over 2,000 years of history per its website) that has a castle and cathedral. The market itself was comprised of 4 sections of wares comprised of over 250 total stalls. We were there from just after 10 AM to just after 4 PM with most of the time spent walking or standing in place. Needless to say we were all happy to sit down on the coach seat for the ride back to our cars. A fun day spent in an old city - right up my alley. Weather was good, dry most of the time. The rains were not heavy and didn't last long which was fine with me.
The Market had a Park and Ride set up to shuttle people from a distant field to the city centre which meant OUR FIRST DOUBLE DECKER RIDE! We sat in the second row on top as you can see in the pic. The ride was neat, we gently swayed as the bus turned and stopped.
One of the four sections was inside the castle walls. We are not in the castle yet but you can see the walls in the background.
Cannon outside the castle, I forgot to check the bore but I am guessing about six inch cannon balls.
The castle entrance. A loud speaker blared instructions for the castle area. One of the instructions was to follow the one way traffic path. They should have said the inefficient and confusing one way traffic path over the loud speaker. There was an entrance and an exit to gain access inside the walls which is where the signage began and ended. Once you were inside there were four rows of stalls and you were pretty much on your own.
Typical pic of the stalls - cozy would be an apt description. The castle itself is in the distance. The goods being sold included meats, cheeses, Christmas trinkets, clothing, jewellery, etc.
The castle area exit. No matter where I take pictures Lori manages to get into a lot of them which is funny since she is usually trying to do the opposite. Hoods up for sprinkling rain.
The Lincoln Cathedral (http://lincolncathedral.com/). This was immensely huge and ornately decorated inside and out. Easily the most impressive cathedral I have been inside. One bummer of the trip was the Magna Carta not being available. There are four original surviving versions of the Magna Carta. One is in Lincoln; the others are in Salisbury Cathedral, Westminster and the British Library. The MC is being displayed in the castle dungeon but the castle itself was closed for the Christmas Market. That was definitely my Dan Stine extreme self restraint in the face of surmounting adversity moment of the week.
The tour group outside the Cathedral main entrance.
The nave. I took a bunch of pictures but none will be able to capture the scale of the building or the detailed masonry/wood construction.
Quite a few old people just laying around.
Just to large of a place to document in pictures.
Stained glass windows were colourful, detailed and abundant. Reminded me of Holy Cross at home.
Info on the cathedral.
St. Hugh Choir seating.
Decorative pulpit. I would be to distracted by the figures above and below the speaker to listen.
More stained glass.
He must have been important, his plot was roped off and he had a plaque on the wall (below).
Not sure if this person was important or rich. Maybe both.
Big stained glass.
Facsimile of the Magna Carta.
Close up for MC history.
So if the people in the tombs showing the person laying on their backs are actually on their backs, is this guy entombed in this pose?
Outside view of different side of cathedral.
A bonus section was the English Heritage site Medieval Bishops Palace Market. No pics because it was a smaller place and was either extremely crowded indoors or raining outdoors. The theme there was medieval era gifts but they did have some modern trinkets. Karl saw some cloaks, swords, knives and long bows he would have liked.
Steve Frey pic of the day - I bet our dog Bear would love to suck on those pig ears. Steve, Karl and Kalle tried the pig and said it was good. It just looked funny seeing a pig's head and foot cooking under a delicatessen grill counter.
Since I am tardy in posting this week I can add that Monday morning we had frost overnight. Not the first time we've had frost but it hasn't happened very often. One sign that the weather is changing. Another sign is me breaking out the winter jacket to pick up Kalle after school. Overnight temps are reaching 0 Celsius (hopefully most people know 0 C = 32 F) while day temps are around 6 - 8 C (42.8 - 46.4 F). How are y'all liking the snow back in the U. S. of A.?
English Telly - I wasn't sure how I would cover this subject. We have Freeview now which is like using an antennae. I say like because the TV has to have Freeview programmed on it to use the antennae. We do not have permission to install a satellite dish so our options are the antennae or cable. Neither of the cable providers had packages worth paying for so we are sticking with the antennae for now. Lori found some new programs on iTunes for NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, Bones, and a show for Kalle so we do have some new US shows. Freeview shows current British shows and a range of US shows. The movie channels show a variety of US movies - black and white Bogarts and similar, color John Wayne Westerns and similar, recent superhero or action movies, recent chick flicks, and everything in between. The US TV shows are a couple years old (big advertising campaign for the "new" USA network Covert Affairs series) with no option of getting current US shows. The British programming is similar to US programming in that there are shopping shows, game shows, reality shows, comedies and dramas. There are less reality and comedy shows here. There are also a lot of 70's and 80's US and American shows. Ironsides, Fall Guy, and Father Dowling Mysteries from the US; The Professionals, Sherlock Holmes and The Saint from the British. There are also a lot, and I mean a lot, of British detective type shows which is okay for me since I like detective shows. I also like the British period pieces which are either dramas or detective shows. Overall the TV is okay for me and terrible for Lori. We have also figured out what to watch after 9 PM if the kids are around. After 9 they do not censor ANY language or images. Lori stumbled upon a medical procedure show that was showing close ups of post op sex surgeries. I think that was the point where she quit watching British telly. Thankfully I was not around. Part of the living overseas experience I guess.
Thanks for listening,
Jay Seppanen
I had to brush up on my Magna Carta history - too bad it wasn't there - would've been quite the thing to see! Great Cathedral pics! It had to be amazing in person.
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