I got the chance to go see Ivanov. It's a play by Checkov. Which means that it was necessarily rather sad, but still, it had Kenneth Branaugh as the main player. He's a well-known Shakespearean actor, and some of you may remember him for his role as Gilderoy Lockhart in the Harry Potter movies. It was really pretty terrific.
Saturday we went on a country walk, led by Bro. Chittock, a very nice old man from our stake. We took a train out to Kent, which takes about 45 minutes or so. This is a view from the train station. It was a lovely foggy view.
One of our first stops was an old castle. You see plenty of old things in England, but a lot of them have been kept up and added on to over the y. This particular castle has been left in its original state, so it's somewhat of a ruin now. Very cool though.
It was another beautiful day. The country side was beautiful. Of course.
Lovely fields with some sort of tracks through them. I think this was across from where the golfers were whacking balls towards us.
I think my favorite part was the wild hedges of blackberry bushes growing along the road. I've read about people collecting berries from bushes and making a meal out of it, on occasion, but now I understand the appeal of it. Those were the best blackberries I think I've ever had, and they just grow wild for miles. A lot of times when you buy berries from the store, they tend to be tart. But these (so long as you picked the ripe ones) were nice and sweet, and just waiting to be plucked.
We happened upon this Anderson shelter, left over from WWII just sitting in the wood. They used to have these half buried in everybody's backyards, and when the bombing started they'd all go out and sit in them, sleep in them, whatever, till it was over.
This building has something to do with hops, and mkaing beer. You can't actually see the white wind hood on the top of the chimney very well, but it's to keep the wind from blowing the smoke back down the chimney.
This is a hops plant.
And this is a field where they grow the hops. Though there's not many hops here in the fall.
A very pretty river with a train bridge in the background.
Another pretty water and light shot, with branches hanging down into the water.
I'm standing in a corn field!
This is a stile. They have lots of them so you can get over the fences and such. It's also how Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester meet.
And, the lovely train tracks home. By now of course the fog had quite disappeared.
Sunday we went to church. Most people get lost the first week. We got lost the third. Thought it wasn't really our fault. They tend to do a lot of work on the tube and rail lines on Sunday, and the train that normally takes ust to church decided to take a different route last Sunday. So after we'd been sitting on the train for about half an hour, we thought, gee, we've been on this train for a long time... and none of theses stops look familiar... and, hey, we're in Orpington... whoops. It tooks us about another hour and a half to get it sorted out. Waiting for another train, taking a rail bus for alternate travel from the next station, and making it to church. But since we usually get to church half an hour early, we were only an hour late. Me and another girl from the Centre are in Primary, so we taught three little 11 year old black boys, and then the younger kids joined us for sharing time. There's only about 8 kids in the whole Primary. They're getting ready for the Primary program in Sacrament meeting, and they're super cute.
I'm basically collecting all the amusing signs I find. I think this neighborhood watch sign is much more friendly than the ones in the States :)
I have no idea what this building is, but the picture's cool.
The Church of St. Mary on Paddington Green.
Cool statue, eh? It's actually a flat painting. Very cool.
This is a canal in the part of town called Little Venice. It's believed that Robert Browning gave it that name. He's certainly known to have called it that, and lived for awhile in an apartment that looked over it, which is why for a while it was also known as "Browning's Pond."
Before the auto and railways were built across England, canals were acutally frequently used for transportation. The canals of Little Venice were built to connect those canals to Paddington, which is nearby.
I'm not sure why all the boats look like this, but they do.
A floating cafe!
#19 Warwick Crescent (that's "war-ick") was the home of famous poet Robert Browning for a time. Unfortunately, the original building was actually knocked down, and this rather bland and unexciting complex was built in it's place. Someone lives there. We saw him through the kitchen window. I wonder if he knows where he's living.
So, when I first saw this sign, I thought it meant Beware of Children, as in, be afraid of them. Hehe.
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