As I have mentioned, Cambridge is so close, yet in more than a year, we had not managed to do a tour there . . . so we fixed that this October. A friend used to give tours, and he was kind enough to give a tour to our little home ed group. He did a “Christian History Tour of Cambridge,” and it was amazing – learned so much about the reformation and people in the history of Cambridge. It is breath-taking to think that our lives today have been directly affected by the things that went on in these buildings and in the places that we walk by on a regular basis.

One of the things we miss most about living in the mid-west is the you-pick farms. We love having fresh, local produce – local as in we picked it, local. We love being able to can or freeze loads of fresh strawberries, peaches, and homemade applesauce. So when we found this little treasure last fall, we were all delighted! We found this apple orchard that is open on weekends in October. It is up on a hill and has beautiful views of the surrounding areas, and the sky seems to stretch on and on forever! We visited again this fall and were again delighted.



The apple varieties are different here. In the big groceries we can get granny smith, gala, pink lady, golden delicious and a few other familiar varieties. In general, they are okay – probably shipped from afar. But several of the local markets and our little gem of an orchard carry the British varieties that are new to us. It seems to us that the British prefer a more tart apple, and most of the varieties we have tried here are full of flavor! We tried Spartan apples for the first time this year. They are dark, dark red on the outside and bright white on the inside – picture perfect and super crunchy. The quintessential cooking apple here is the bramley. They are laughably large – think softball size, maybe a bit larger! You can literally make a pie with two, maybe three, apples! They are mostly green and super crisp and tart! When baked they hold their shape but become soft . . . and super yummy. I might be ruined. We’ve already decided that we’ll have to grow bramley apples when we move back to the States!
The last half of October brought us visitors from seven times zones away! Handsome’s parents visited; oh, it was so good to see family and to get to show them around our new home! Below: some of us went out for a cream tea! It was yummy!

Handsome and I celebrated 20 years of marriage this year! Hard to believe! Handsome’s parents watched the kids for a day while we took the train to London. We started our day at Borough Market, where we wandered up and down each row marveling at the stores and stalls, the bread, cheese, fruit, veg, spices . . . and so much more. It was a feast for all the senses. {For a few of you family members who got spices for Christmas, this is from whence they came!}

And once we had exhausted Borough Market and all of it’s goodness, we took the Tube to Covent Garden, below. This was one of the places that jen really enjoyed when she studied in London, so it was great fun to get to take Handsome there. We finished up the date with a walk through Chinatown and dinner at a little candle-lit Italian place upon which we stumbled as we wandered.

We took Handsome’s parents to the Cathedral at Ely. My favorite part of the day: watching the kids decipher the pictures on the ceiling, trying to figure out which Bible story each picture was.



Some friends here recommended a trip to the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne and Bamburgh Castle; after looking at it online, we scheduled a trip as soon as we could – it worked out so nicely that we were able to go while Blake’s parents were visiting! It turned out to be such an amazing trip!
Lindisfarne is a tidal island, so after checking the tide tables a billion times, we journeyed across to the island by car at low tide, were we were “trapped” until the tide went back down six hours later. We did not lack for things to do – what a magical place it was!
We visited the ruins of the abbey on the island where keep-away was the game,

toured the castle and the nearby lime kilns where the kids had a great game of tag,

played on the rocks at the coast – as the tide came in, we spotted sea anemones opening up, coming back to life! (so cool!), and left just after the tide was low enough to allow us to cross. You can see that some of the road was still covered, but really, Mom and Dad, it was safe!

Then we spent a day at Bamburgh Castle. This is a picture of Bamburgh from the beach below. We all agree that this is our favorite castle from the outside – so magestic! (For what it is worth, our favorite inside is Dover Castle.)

The place we stayed was right on the coast of the sea, and because daylight hours are so short, we didn’t have to wake up early every morning to see the sun rise over the rocky coast. It was stunning! One morning there was a pod of dolphins playing in the water just off the coast! And one morning the tide was low enough that we were able to carefully pick our way down to the seaweed covered rocks and explore the tidepools (called rock pools here.)

