The Rambling Corgi

Saturday brought beautiful sunshine and a corgi gathering at Argus Ranch for the Cascade Coursing Clubs CAT event. Evanwhit PWC was well represented with 7 dogs running. Many legs were earned, a great potluck shared and multiple Halloween costume contest prizes won!

Wow- what a trip. We had a great time. Crufts was all we'd hoped, if not even bigger than we expected. For everyone who'd like more pictures of the breed winners, I've included a link to the Pastoral group here http://www.flickr.com/photos/thekennelclub/sets/72157626124341373/detail/ Other breed winners can be found by doing a search for Crufts 2011 "your breed here". This year Crufts decided to charge for access to their video feed- blah, or I'd provide a link. The Mary Ray performance can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sjfOBDOc3U England is a history buff's dream. I could easily spend a month in each of the places where we only could afford to spend a day. Do it if you get the chance!

Birmingham- Moor St Train Station Last train trip before packing the bags to come home- Stratford Upon Avon. The entire center of town is a pedestrian zone with lots of shopping, eating and historical information regarding William Shakespeare. The home where he was born has been restored and many archaeological digs have been done in the region. A museum with research material for scholars is right next door. All of his writing is available for sale as well. Stratford itself is a small town so it was a very relaxed day all around. I got home at about 3:30pm just in time for tea and cakes with Julie. By the end of tea Barb and Jan had talked Julie into taking us all into town to visit thrift stores- you can't trust these two if there's a bargain to be had! Luckily it was late in the day so we couldn't get to very many shops before the sidewalks were rolled up at 5pm. Shakespeare's birth home Shakespeare So packing is the priority for the evening! See you all so...

The Eye Our host at Elm Cottage kindly dropped us off at the Birmingham Airport train station bright and early. It took about 2 hours to get to the outskirts of London where we transferred to the "Tube" to make our way to the Waterloo tube station and our first attraction of the day, "The Eye". They make 14,000 pounds every time that beast makes a full rotation- what a money machine! It's certainly a remarkable view from the top. Have a look at the scale of the wheel compared to the building it sits next to. Each capsule holds about 20 people for the 45 minute, single rotation ride. It never stops rotating. They just open the doors and you get in or out as it goes past the platform slowly.You're locked in from the outside for the duration of the ride. That made me pause for a moment. Just as you get off the Eye you walk past the pier for the Thames River Cruise, so we hopped on. The Eye Parliament from the Eye Black-friars Bridge  The down-ri...

Today was a lazy day of recovery- slept in, sat out in the sun and watched the birds at the feeders in the garden. We did one small trip back down to Coventry to pick up a couple of small woven images for a birthday present, at the Coventry Cathedral. Everywhere you go there are many curious little sculptures. Today I found an elephant high up on the wall over two huge doors on the side of a building- I love it! There was no title or explanation, just a lovely little elephant head. Quirky......

Town Gate, Warwick Castle Castle Entrance Warwick Castle Guard Barb and I visited Warwick Castle today. We took the bus to Coventry, then switched buses to go to Warwick. Jan took the day off back at the B&B. What an amazing sight! It's hard to believe that anyone would build such a huge place for ANY reason. They've done a great job of presenting the castle fully furnished and decorated as it would have been "in the day"- from dungeon to state rooms. Even the smallest details- like the wood carvings on the walls was very beautiful. The first sight of the castle is pretty impressive- you walk around a corner of shrubbery and there it is- massive! It sits on the River Avon- but no moat is in evidence. I don't know if it ever had one. It doesn't appear like it now. Throughout the displays they dressed very realistic looking models in the clothes/ armor/ or tools of the period. It oftened seems like their eyes were looking at you. With the complex...

Bath Cathedral Today was our first cross-country train ride. We took the bus into Birmingham where we transferred to a train to Bristol Temple Meads. There we changed to another train to Bath! After days of solid gray, it was actually sunny! Our first activity was a bus tour of the entire city- cool! A really great way to see a new area. We then headed for the Roman Baths were they had a good self-guided tour using the hand-held, dial up the topic, recorders. We spent quite a bit of time there. Our next stop was the Cathedral for me and shop with gifts for Barb and Jan. The cathedral was the largest we've seen so far and very ornate. It's walls are covered with what amounts to grave stones from down thru the ages. I got intrigued with the carved images of children especially. Roman Baths Some were really beautiful. I could easily spend a month in Bath photographing. It's difficult to do it justice. There are some very large steeple chase races going on right now so t...