And the Lord said, "Noah. . ."

Certainly, that most famous of boat-builders must have experienced just such rain as we've seen here in Northern England in the last couple of days when he set about constructing a sanctuary from the rising waters. Here, as in biblical times, it just keeps coming down.

Resisting the temptation to set the GPS for some place like Greece, Concetta and I put aside our plans to explore the length and breadth of Hadrian's Wall this morning, and instead decided to visit the local museum dedicated to the Roman town of Corbridge. You may remember that the reason we're here in Northumberland is that my great, great, great grandfather lived in Corbridge in the 1820s. Eighteen some odd centuries before Paul Brown helped bring three children into the world in the tiny town, the Romans were busy establishing a frontier garrison between the conquered Bretons and the hated and feared Picts and Scots to the north. Though we were unable to tour the actual archaeological site due to the downpour, the museum was one of the finest I've ever seen. Archaeologists have found just about anything and everything you can imagine, including a wooden box with a soldier's third century armor inside. They've found beautiful pottery, glassware, medical instruments, gaming pieces, carved stone tablets and statues, food prep items, and thousands of equally interesting things. All were expertly displayed and clearly explained. Just wonderful.

After our museum trip in Corbridge, we moved on to the village of Hexham where we visited The Abbey of St. Andrew, first begun in the 8th century. It wasn't quite as grand as the churches and basilicas we saw in Rome in 2006, but the carved stone Gothic arches were truly magnificent and the stained glass windows took your breath away. The open-beamed wooden ceiling towered above so many stories that I found myself wondering just how those 8th century craftsmen worked way up there. Very impressive!

Our respite from the rain was short lived and when we emerged from the abbey we discovered that, if anything, it was raining even harder. We decided it was time for a tea break. Spying a cafe just down the block, we huddled under our umbrellas and made a dash for it. Then for the next hour we enjoyed fruit scones, strawberry jam, and that ever wonderful (and plentiful) English drink while we watched the sea of umbrellas flow by outside.

Casting about for some other "dry" diversion for the balance of the afternoon, we decided to check out the local cinema which happened to be showing a film we hadn't yet seen, "The Duchess." If you haven't seen it, we recommend it. Some fine acting by Keira Knightly, Ralph Finnes, and the rest of the cast.

After the movie we emerged from the theater to discover that the rain had tapered off to a slow drizzle. Feeling in the mood for soup on such a cold, rainy night, we prowled the tiny village of Hexham until we spied a sidewalk sign indicating the sought-after item was on the menu.

"Potato Leek," the waitress said, in answer to my query about the day's fare.

When the soup arrived you can probably guess the way the conversation went. "What kind of soup did they say this was?" Concetta asked, after she'd tasted the first sip.

"Ah, potato leek," I said.

"Doesn't taste like any potato I ever cooked," she said. She made a face.

"Eat it anyway," I said. "You don't want to hurt their feelings."

As you can see, finding tasty (even readily identifiable) food here in England is just about as difficult as most folks advised us it would be. Breakfasts seem to be the easiest meal for English cooks to master, so maybe we could just eat nothing but breakfasts for the next month. The strawberry jam is especially good and I could probably live on jam and bread if I had to.

We're back at the B&B now, sitting in front of a cozy fire, reading and filling out our journals. Everyone else is out attending a wedding and we have the house to ourselves. So, let it rain, let it rain, let it rain. I got a little better with the driving today. Still a little trouble with the left-handed shifting. But our trusty GPS, however disdainful it sounds when I make a mistake, faithfully guides us to and fro down these tiny country lanes in search of adventure and I expect tomorrow is going to be another exciting day.

ciao, tutti.

Edinburgh Castle

This morning we were surprised to find that southern Scotland was enjoying yet another day of (mostly) sunshine when we went down to breakfast. It had been raining off and on since we arrived and we were hoping to have at least a pleasant morning for our visit to the historic Edinburgh Castle. The castle is perched high above the city on a volcanic outcropping that reportedly dates back millions of years. We're told that the first evidence of early man on the mount dates to about 800 B.C. and by the look of the stone work there, it appears that the Scots have been building things atop that rock ever since. If you're into military history, Edinburgh Castle is the place to go. They have several very fine military museums there complete with vintage weapons, uniforms, and colorful artwork -- enough to keep you busy for several hours. At one exhibit they even allowed us to try on some of the Scottish military regalia from days of yore. That's me in the fusilier's furry hat there. Afterward, we got to see the room where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James VI of Scotland, the future James I, King of England.


Our mission to the castle completed, we made our way back to the Straven Guest House where the Mini sat packed and ready for our trip to Northern England. For this vacation to the UK we bought a Garmin Nuvi 370 which comes complete with maps of Europe. Wow! What a cool piece of gear. Even though our Northumberland B&B didn't have an actual address to enter on the GPS, we just set the B&B's postal zip code into the machine and it literally took us door to door, from Edinburgh, Scotland to Hexham, Northumberland, England. The only mistakes we made were when I didn't follow its commands closely enough, at which point it reacted instantly to my mistake and said, in a somewhat disdainful voice, "Recalculating."

I'm continuing to adapt to driving on the left side of the road, though it's hardly relaxing. There's no such thing as putting one hand on the steering wheel, draping the other arm over the adjacent seat, and cruising. No, it's almost like playing one of those road-racing video games. The roads are as narrow as your average person's driveway with the roadside hedge sometimes growing right up the pavement's edge. Road signs are either too small to be seen from a moving vehicle, too low to escape being covered by foliage, or missing altogether. As with most countries, drivers here aren't very patient with folks learning to drive, no matter how old they are. They pass on hills. They pass over double lines. They pass on blind curves. Usually they do all three at once if they can manage it.

Naturally, in this particular video game, those weren't the only hazards I encountered today. Almost as soon as we got into the car in Edinburgh it started to rain. They only time it altered from that condition is when it rained even harder. And, Since road builders of these driveway-sized roads in rural England seem to prefer the roller coaster-style, uphill/downhill style of construction, the little Mini Cooper spent much time hydroplaning through the low spots. By the time we got here just before dark I was more than glad to park the our faithful Mini and pry my fingers off the steering wheel.

But what do you think? Our very congenial hostess, Margaret met us at the door with a smile, a cup of tea, and a cozy living room graced by a crackling fire to relax and drink it in. The forecast for the weekend calls for more rain. But what the heck, we have the fire, we have our books, and if the tea and scones hold out, we'll be just fine. If you don't see us in a month, just forward our mail.

ciao, tutti!

We go sight-seeing in Edinburgh

Yesterday when we arrived here in Edinburgh it decided to rain. It didn't rain hard, but hard enough to make you want to find a nice, warm pub where you could park yourself next to a nice pot of tea and watch the umbrellas go by. Today it was beautiful, not a trace of rain, and big, fluffy clouds drifted across the azure skies all day long. The first thing we did was learn the bus system, which turned out to be quite easy. From our B&B we rode to the old part of Edinburgh on a city bus which runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. From there we bought tickets for the sight-seeing buses that tool around and give you a general, narrated overview of the city. We got off the bus near Edinburgh castle (which we're actually going to visit tomorrow) and toured the Scotch Whiskey Heritage Museum (they had samples - yum!) and the Heritage Weaving Museum. After that, we got back on sight-seeing bus (you can hop on and off as much as you like) and went down to the docks area to visit the Queen's Royal Yacht. We were having such a splendid time that we completely forgot about lunch, which may be a first for me. Actually, the breakfast this morning at the B&B was so wonderful and so filling that I scarcely missed lunch at all. Homemade yogurt and porridge, waffles and fresh fruit, English marmalade. What in heaven's name might you want besides that besides good old American coffee, which they also conjured up. Bless them, one and all!

Once done with our sight-seeing tours, we walked back into the old part of the city and found a nice restaurant where I proceeded to make up for my missed lunch. Naturally, I had shepard's pie, which was darn good, and a nice pot of tea. Concetta had the salmon which was good as well. After dinner, we managed to find the right city bus and rode it back to our B&B without a single problem. The transit system here is absolutely marvelous, comes every 20 minutes, and runs literally all the time, day and night, 24-7. The buses are clean, the patrons well-behaved, and I saw nary a single spot of graffiti on the whole fleet. Pretty amazing city. Two of the photos are of our visit to the Royal Yacht. The third is the view of the city from Edinburgh Castle.

Once back in the room I managed to round up the inn keeper and asked him to help me connect to his wireless internet. He had given me the magic password the night before but darned if I could make it work. Fortunately for my blog-crafting needs, a local neighbor with an unprotected network afforded me unlimited access to the outside world (thanks whomever you are) and I was able to do my writing.

Tomorrow we must say goodbye to Edinburgh and head south for the Scottish border country, specifically the village of Hexham, Northumberland, where the hunt for my ancestors will begin. In the 1820s one part of my family tree, the Browns, was living in the border region in the village of Corbridge. Our B&B in Hexham is located only a half dozen miles from Corbrige which was originally founded by the Romans and has been continuously inhabited since. I have scheduled four days in the area, which should give us ample time to explore Hadrian's wall, visit nearby Newcastle-upon-Tyne where the Brown patriarch was a machinist in the 1820s, and generally enjoy the peacefulness of rural northumberland before we move on to the north of Wales. And by the way, north Wales, in the county of Flintshire, is where the Davis name is reported to have its earliest beginnings I understand. So, be sure and stay tuned.

We arrive safely in Edinburgh

Well, here we are finally at our first B&B in Scotland. We arrived here without much in the way of trouble or inconvenience and our luggage showed up right along with us. Right now it's raining, just to make us feel welcome, but when we got here the sun was shining -- not like in Nevada, but shining nevertheless. Pictured here is Concetta next to the Mini Cooper we rented. I think it's probably a blast to drive, but so far I've been so nervous driving on the "wrong" side of the road I've scarcely noticed. It's a six-speed gear box, as they call it, which is neat. Driving on the left side feels pretty natural once you do it for awhile. We practiced by "pretending to be lost" while exiting the airport. We just drove in circles for about 30 minutes while I got the hang of it. Finally, once we figured out the GPS (and fed it the correct address) we found our way to the expressway and off we went. Soon after we arrived in Portobello, the location of our B&B.

The trip almost didn't get off the ground -- literally. Our Reno plane was well over an hour late taking off, which allowed me to deduce one thing for certain: Boeing 767s do not operate on LINUX. How do I know this? Well, when we wanted to take off from Reno yesterday the plane refused to "boot up" properly. Three times they shut the systems completely down, and three times they powered it up before we were ready to pull away from the gate. From this I deduced that the 767 must run on Windows which still requires such foolishness. They told us that all the systems just refused to come online. Ah huh. Those of you from Technology will certain be familiar with that scenario. I stopped short of asking the crew if the cockpit had a memory card reader.

Anyway, since I always insist on a two-hour layover between flights we managed to make our connection in Salt Lake City with twenty minutes to spare. But things were indeed tense there for awhile.

A word about babies: Crying -- even screaming -- babies are a fact of life on airliners. It's best to be prepared. We bought Bose "noise-canceling" headphones to isolate us from unavoidable background clutter. They don't actually cancel all noise but still do a darn good job if you crank the volume up on your IPOD or airplane sound system. We had an ornery little critter on two of our four flights who probably drove his nearest neighbors to harbor thoughts of homicide by the end of the ordeal.

But that's not the only problem with airline travel. You may be as close to heaven as you're ever going to get when traveling at 35,000 feet. However, inside the plane things are not so heavenly. In an effort to use fuel as conservatively as possible, flights are more packed than ever before. Every seat is taken and every square inch of overhead bin space is taken as well. Best to make sure you arrange to get on the plane early so you can stow your gear. Otherwise, you may have it under your feet for several hours. I suspect that the way airline pack folks into those aluminum people-movers should probably be monitored by the Geneva Convention for evidence of cruel and unusual punishment.

But hey, there was one thing that wowed me. The seat-back computer displays for games, TV shows, and Movies is absolutely terrific. You can punch up your plane's progress on the globe, watch any one of a dozen movies, listen to CD albums, and compete in a trivia game against your fellow passengers, all without leaving your seat or straining to see. That's way cool!

Anyway, we're here and we just had our first dinner in the UK. Afterward, Concetta said, "what kind of soup do you suppose that was?"

"I can't place the taste," I said, "but it was green and it was hot."