Photo Journal of England & Scotland by Sherry

 Today marks the halfway point of this journey; we've been here 3 weeks now and have 3 weeks to go. So far we've spent 2 days in London, 6 days in Bedfordshire with our friends, Oliver & Co., 10 days in Annan with a couple of afternoons in nearby Dumfries, and now we are in Glasgow for 4 nights. Tuesday we go to Seamill, on the west coast in Ayrshire, for 3 nights, then all the way across the country to the east to Aberdeen.

I decided to do a photo journal this time. In case you think i posted a lot of pictures, you have no idea how many more i wanted to post but didn't. :p

View of London from the BT Tower

Alan, who works at the BT Tower and took us to the top

First evening in London, dinner with Sam & Bethan at Bethan (and Leah's) mum & dad's home. Andrew's not in the pic because he was miserably sick in bed with fever, chills and aches.

London-Playing with Hope & Esme

London-Esme and her bucket of snails that she collected from their garden. She's the same one who i took a pic of last autumn holding a bucket of pears.

Bedford-Oh, Lois! How you melt my heart! When she looks at me like this, she can have anything she wants!

Bedford-dinner with Oliver & Co. Precious friends.

I bathed Lois and did her in the same whoopty-do that i always did to my baby girls

She SO loved snuggling with Randall. She fell asleep right after i took this.

another dinner with Oliver & Co

Amber made cherry cheesecake...

And Olivia made sticky toffee pudding. I forgot to take the pictures till after we'd already eaten.

Water play in the driveway

Sunday's lunch was steak and ale pie=oh wow!

And the pudding was HOMEMADE meringues with berries and cream

Andrew & Randall living Last of the Summer Wine (their fav British show, if you've never heard of it)

The view of Yeldon from near Oliver's house

The view from our bedroom window

Waiting at the Northampton train station to go to Annan. Not by myself this time.

The main street of Annan, looking one way...

and the other way.

River Annan

Walking path along the River Annan

Tesco's sells American chocolate chip pancakes, 1 pound for a package

This is Gillian, the lady who waited our table the first night we were in Annan, and then we kept running into her around town. She invited us to come to a "coffee morning" fund-raiser thing for a city park. She's with her younger daughter and cousin's son.

Walking between sheep pastures on our prayer walk around the town of Annan, which was a 5-mile walk.

Randall kept track of where we covered with prayer (highlighted in pink)

Annan: Ms. Mary when she had us over for dinner after driving us around the countryside all afternoon.

Ms. Mary took us to the Solway, which is right outside Annan. Not sure if you can see here what the "ground" looks like that we were standing on; it's literally all these little "islands" that you have to jump from one to the next to get around. Mary said it's not safe to walk along the beach because there is quicksand.

Kinmount Castle, right outside Annan. The very one Randall claims he should be duke of. Randall insists he needs to "take it over" while the current owner is away. Mary took us right up PAST the sign that says "No vehicles beyond this point!", through the gate, to the caretaker's quarters. While she was taking forever to turn around because she was so busy talking, the caretaker lady came outside and stood there looking quite sternly at her, so Mary rolled down the window and as soon as the lady saw us she recognized us from town and immediately became friendly and chatty. :)

Westerkirk, near Annan: Mary took us to this church and insisted to the caretaker that he run back home and get the keys so he could let us in to have a look round! She's completely hysterical.

The same church

Westerkirk, near Annan: In front of the church. This was actually several miles from Annan, and it was surprising how different the landscape was here - lots of steep rounded hills. I thought i'd died and gone to heaven, it's so beautiful. Idyllic. 

Westerkirk, near Annan: This is in front of the same church. I walked up the lane behind me till i came to a house, then turned round. Sheep pastures and woods on either side of me.

Annan: All i wanted to do was go for a LITTLE walk along the River Annan after dinner, on the familiar east side of the river. Let's cross over the bridge and walk on that side, he says...Yes, we CAN walk right through this cow pasture along the river, he says...YES, there really IS a bridge just right up here where we can cross back over; i saw it on the map...Yes, we CAN walk through this private horse pasture; these people training their horse won't mind a bit...then the really dense wood in the pic above...and FINALLY, there was indeed a bridge to cross back over, and walk ALL THE WAY back. Andrew finally texted, "When are you coming back?" (he had chosen to go back to our room while we went on our "little" walk)

Annan: Soon after we got back to our room after The Walk, this was going on in the street below us. I guess they're practicing for the Riding of the Marches festival that is July 2. (It's around 8:30-9:00 pm here)

Annan: This was the view from our hotel window the night before summer began, at about 11:00.

Annan: the ladies i chatted with at Kate's Kitchen: Fiona, June, Hazel, and Mary.