{"id":4607,"date":"2017-02-17T23:42:53","date_gmt":"2017-02-18T03:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=4607"},"modified":"2017-02-17T23:42:53","modified_gmt":"2017-02-18T03:42:53","slug":"project-52-week-35-part-two-more-of-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=4607","title":{"rendered":"Project 52, Week 35, Part Two – More of England!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s time for Project 52<\/a>, Week 35!<\/p>\n

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35 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday<\/a>, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m covering the year I was 35 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d June 14, 1999, to June 14, 2000.<\/p>\n

But the years we lived in Europe seem to be impossible to condense into one blog post, so I’m giving in and posting multiple parts each week. Last time, I only got through the first day of our vacation in England, when we roamed around Dover Castle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We spent that night near Dover, and the next day, July 17, went to Castle #74, one of my favorite castles of them all, Bodiam Castle — certainly the most beautiful castle I’ve visited.<\/p>\n

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All around the castle are fields complete with sheep. And this castle has a moat (unlike most German castles where we lived.)<\/p>\n

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And a rather amazing thing — a year or two ago, while working in the Virginia Room on genealogy, I learned that the knight who built Bodiam Castle was my direct ancestor. (This is true for thousands of other Americans, mind you, but I thought it was cool.) He wasn’t a very nice guy, and killed lots of people in France, but he did build an exceptionally beautiful castle.<\/p>\n

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After visiting Bodiam Castle, we went on to Castle #75, Battle Abbey (which was fortified), where the Battle of Hastings was fought! The battlefield had a guided audio tour, so we could get a feel for how the battle went.<\/p>\n

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The audio tour took us all around the battlefield.<\/p>\n

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We gained an appreciation of how sloped the ground was.<\/p>\n

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And the tour brought us back around to the Abbey<\/p>\n

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This stone marked the spot where King Harold was killed in 1066. Believe it or not, my eyes got misty when I stood on this spot — because I’d recently read The King’s Shadow<\/em>, by Elizabeth Alder, which tells Harold’s story. It was silly, because if Harold hadn’t lost that battle, I’m sure I wouldn’t exist — the majority of my ancestors are English, with plenty of Norman blood. But the story was so powerful, I couldn’t help but mourn for Harold.<\/p>\n

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Here’s Jade (then called Josh) listening to the audio tour.<\/p>\n

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We went to a tea room in Hastings, where we had lunch and some fun with the statuary.<\/p>\n

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Next, we headed to Winnie-the-Pooh country! We visited the town of Hartfield, where A. A. Milne lived and explored the countryside where Christopher Robin used to play.<\/p>\n

Here’s the Enchanted Place at the Top of the Forest!<\/p>\n

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And the Poohsticks Bridge! The Poohsticks Bridge!<\/p>\n

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That night, we drove to where we’d rented a self-catering cottage in Wisbech, in the middle of the fens. It wasn’t the most picturesque spot itself, but it was very central, for all our further travels.<\/p>\n

On the 18th, we headed East. First stop was Castle #76, Framlingham Castle.<\/p>\n

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Framlingham had another audio tour. It was mostly a shell wall, which we could walk around. Framlingham had something like 17 chimneys (added later).<\/p>\n

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The view over the wall was lovely.<\/p>\n

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And here’s the inside:<\/p>\n

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Sheep dog trials were happening in the field next to the castle! We watched for awhile from the wall.<\/p>\n

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Our next stop that day was Castle #77, Somerleyton Hall — more of a grand palace than the ruin that was Framlingham. But the grounds were simply lovely.<\/p>\n

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This tent was actually a tea room.<\/p>\n

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And the grounds had a labyrinth!<\/p>\n

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Josh made it to the center first.<\/p>\n

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That covers the second and third days of our England vacation!<\/p>\n

I did mention that England was one of my favorite places, right? I’d like to say it was my second-favorite vacation of all our years in Germany, but hmmm, our Bavaria vacation was great, too. (Tied for second, maybe?)<\/p>\n

So anyway, next up will be Cambridge, London, more castles, Oxford, more castles, and the seaside. (Perhaps not all in one post.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s time for Project 52, Week 35! 35 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m covering the year I was 35 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d June 14, 1999, to June 14, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-project-52"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}