We got up Saturday and had Dutch Babies (thank you dad for the pictures, just the prompt that I need), a longtime favorite from home. They were much bigger when they came out of the oven, of course. One of the kids announced the event. Mom and Dad brought an ample supply of coffee beans, and reintroduced the habit of grinding beans in the blender, and we had coffee just like home every day, and almost never made it ourselves the entire two weeks.
While I tried driving Dad to the big Tesco out of town, and then a relatively close computer store, Mom took the kids to our neighborhood park. We made it to the stores okay, and the smaller store had the cord we were looking for at about a fourth of the cost of Tesco. I made one wrong turn, at least, and we ended up coming back by the park just when Mom and the kids popped out of the pathway, so they got a ride home.
The next morning Mom and Dad and I visited the local Friends Meeting. It is a nice sized place, with about sixty members, and more history than I realized. (As a friend of mine from Philadelphia said, I knew the Quakers came to the US from England, it didn't occur to her that any stayed back in England.) I had stopped by a few days earlier, and was able to introduce mom and dad to one person. The people were very friendly and showed us the library. The meeting was a little on the preachy side. Everyone siting bible verses.
Hi Angie!! We took this picture for you, the kids thought you would like it.After we returned, Mom and I took the kids to the zoo just out of town. It was a small-town zoo at a big city price (in dollar terms), but also intimate and something that was on my list of activities. We took a picture of one of the tortoises who was being especially social for our babysitter, Angie who loves tortoises. The weather was nice and the kids were well entertained. I think its safe to say the highlights were the lion and the playground.
The playground was nothing unusual, but the kids do enjoy them. They had races akin to crab races we saw at the Oregon Coast once. They cheered on their shoes as they raced down the slide.
The lion, on the other hand, was a bit of a surprise. The setting is a little unusual in that you really walk almost right up to the lion in the cage. There was a mother nursing a couple of cubs, with a couple of other cubs napping nearby, and the apparent father pacing back and forth as they often do.
This picture did not require a telephoto lens.The kids along with most of the observers noticed that this lion was peeing pretty regularly when he got to one end of his walk. Typical bathroom entertainment, until he stopped mid path, lifted his leg and sprayed in our general direction. He must have sprayed at least 10 feet away and six feet high. We all felt very lucky to be dry. Got a pic of the lion, but not at the offending moment.
2 comments:
How wonderful of Barb to organized these memories for us. I only can add a few thoughts. What I noticed about the Meeting was that the theme of sharing during the service was about discerning what is "true." It was probably a coincidence, but it made an impression on me since we were surrounded by a culture of Newtons, Darwins, Dawkins', etc. My general impression of Cambridge was of a place where a very high value is placed on knowledge and the pursuit of education.
The zoo was also more like a "garden" as it was named. The foilage was almost as interesting as the animals. I also noted that almost every animal had a patron who apparently funded the maintenance of the animal and was thereby allowed to name it. Of course the patron's names were displayed along with the animals'. There was also information as to the status of the species' survival, i.e. "threatened" or "endangered" etc.
Terri
Interesting. Sarah and I went to Quaker Meeting in Edinburgh. Unlike times I've been to meeting here in the states, there they had a "program" sort of thing. Not much, but the theme of the day was "change" and so most offerings were on theme that day.
deb
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