The Queen's Birthday and Other Important Stuff

Today our plans were to walk the village and go to the church to find the mice.  There are 11 of them in the church.  We were doing laundry and trying to get things together to pack and were dealing with KLM and baggage and pickup service in Amsterdam.  By the time we were done with all that and ready to go out to walk it was 11:30 AM.  We had heard the church bells ringing but didn't know why it was going on so long.  We walked up to the church and a lady sitting on a bench in the church yard said it was called pealing and it was for the Queen's birthday and they were being rung by hand and it would go on for 45 minutes!  Then they would go on to another church in another village and do it again several times today.  But the amazing thing is that we walked up to the church and there was an elderly gentleman sitting there and he started to chat us up as they say.  He was the most delightful person whose name was Keith and said the ringers should be done soon and then we could go in.  The woman in charge who is a neighbor we found out whose name is Pam was the one sitting in the churchyard with her husband listening.  Then she came and was telling us about how it's done and the process you must go through to do it.  Read Kay's blog for the details but when they opened the doors we got to meet them all and celebrate with a glass of wine with them!  What an experience to be a part of that!  They all left for lunch and left us to find the mice which we did with the exception of one that we had to read the clue to find.  The pictures will show how hard it was to find them. 

Shrekie knows I love them and left me this this morning.

John lives in another village and comes to help them peal!

They did it for 45 minutes straight

This is Keith who was telling us all about the church

The English church furniture maker used the mouse as his trade mark

We then walked to the Shop on the hill and got a couple things then walked to the Red Lion for lunch.  It apparently is under new ownership and Felicity wasn't sure about the guy because she said he was rather rude to her the day she went.  He was very pleasant and we had the pulled pork sandwiches which were very good.  We walked back and checked out our lambs on the way through the pasture.  They have grown so much since we have been here that they are practically teenagers now and don't run and frolic like they did when we first got here.  Oh on the way down the hill from the Shop, there was a sign wishing the Queen a Happy Birthday so Kay and I were singing happy birthday while walking and the next thing this lady pops up from behind a wall where she was apparently gardening and she was laughing her butt off at us...crazy Americans.  We handled the second load of clothes then got in the car to visit or revisit some spots.

House behind the church

Beautiful house on the village footpath

Manor House Entrance

We had lunch here today

This is Jack...the pub owner's dog

Our sheep have grown up!

We had tea in Broadway then drove to Snowshill and on to see a Bluebell field that Felicity had told us about in we thought was Whereford...where fore art thou Whereford?  Sadly it was Whichford which we finally found and they were having a big party there with lots of sports cars...relics and more motorcycles than cars and everyone was drinking beer.  We decided to pass on the celebration on our quest to find the Bluebells.  We never found "the" Bluebell field but did find one.  Another goal met today when I actually caught the Magpie...yay me!

Center of picture midflight is a Magpie...gotcha!

That is him sitting in the tree

We think this is some kind of weird scarecrow

The party at Wichford...my other photos didn't turn out

 

The Bluebell fields

 

 

One of the gardens at the top of the hill

Sunset tonight

Kay chasing the sheep

Victoria's Secret property

We decided to go to the top of Ilmington to see the sunset tonight since it is supposed to rain tomorrow.  We took a photo of the gate that leads to the property where the Victoria's Secret guy's estate is...you can't see the house from the road at all.  The sheep that are in the pastures up there had lambs that were about the size the ones close to us were when we first arrived.  Kay and I laughed and laughed watching them jump and kick and run around...so darn cute.  It got so cold and windy up there that after an hour we had to come home because it was almost dark and we were frozen.

It was such a wonderful day....who would have thought we would have had more fun than the Queen did on her own birthday?  Well done us!