I'm not sure if I can get all the photos in the correct order, but here's a rundown of our trip:
Our first day took us on a long drive to the city of Chester, just between Liverpool and the border of Northern Wales. Chester was a very important Roman city, its size and importance rivaled London for hundreds of years. The Romans built it to support the thousands of legionnaires that were spreading across England further north to protect the borders of the Empire against the barbarians even further north (Scotland...). It has the oldest and most complete wall of any city in England, mostly built in medieval times but on the site of the Roman wall. It has the most wonderful two story shopping arcade built in the 1700's to protect the wealthy and finely dressed from the muddy streets and rainy skies. We think it should be voted 'England's' Friendliest City'.
As I was studying the map to continue our journey the next day I realized how close we were to Liverpool. I suddenly thought that Michael might like to see the childhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and we spontaneously took a short diversion to Merseyside. Anna wasn't too pleased with this turn of events, but she navigated quietly and ably to get us to the National Trust site from where we met the van that would take us to the Beatles' suburban homes. Then she went ballistic with joy! When we arrived at Speke Hall, we discovered it to be one of the largest and best preserved Tudor homes in England, and it came with guides wearing period costumes. We all had a quick tour around the grand house and gardens, learning some very interesting trivia about the Tudors (priests had to dress as servants to hide themselves from the Elizabethan guards, changing into their vestments only for weekly mass, and then the great houses built spyholes into chimneys to spot the guards coming from a distance because the priests would be killed immediately for continuing to promote their Catholic faith, so in the middle of mass they'd have to whip their collars and robes off. Michael wondered why they didn't just keep the servant's dress on all the time? Seems a reasonable query...) Anna decided to stay at Speke Hall to soak up it's atmosphere further, while Michael and I hopped on the Beatles' van; Anna is our harp playing, Tudor loving daughter, while Michael couldn't wait to touch all things rock 'n roll and Beatles!
To appease the current neighbors of the Lennon and McCartney's houses, the National Trust takes just 14 people into them at a time via mini-van, so there are no cars nor hoards of people wandering around. We had a great time getting toured around the houses by the men whose job it is to live in these homes as caretakers, and after 11 years the guy in McCartney's house looks uncannily like Paul himself...No photos are allowed inside, but these are amazing places to visit. The Trust has worked hard with the McCartneys and Yoko Ono to redecorate the houses exactly as they were in the late 50's and early '60's so that you can stand in John's room where Paul used to visit and write songs together, and then they'd go down to the vestibule at the front door to sing them because the acoustics were better there. So many interesting things: photos of them writing 'Please Please Me' in the sitting room, early illustrations by John Lennon, original door handles, floors, windows, all their early inspiration everywhere! Michael just soaked it up, and he kept rubbing his hands over everything, even kissed the kitchen tile floor in Paul's house!! If you're in England, this is a great excursion to make. And you can even fly to Liverpool, landing at the John Lennon airport - which has the best graphics of any airport I've seen!
From here we drove into the Lake District, and across it to our friends who live in the little village of Greysouthen (pronounced 'greysoon'). We stayed with Lydia and her family; Lydia is a school friend of Anna's from when we lived in Cambridge, and after not seeing each other for 6 years it seemed not a day had passed. I had a lovely time catching up with my friend, Lydia's mom, Helen, and Michael and Harry, no longer babies together, played and played. Michael fit right into village life here and I didn't see him much for the couple of days for her was down in the park playing football (soccer) with all the village boys. We took some lovely walks in this part of the Lake District, visited another ancient stone circle at Castlerigg, fed the Davies' chickens and harvested the eggs, hung out in the market town of Keswick where we finally got our fish 'n chips for dinner. It was far too brief a visit, and it was so pleasant and friendly, another place on the list 'places definitely to return to'.
A few days later we were back on the road to cross the northern part of England, and stop at the Roman Hadrian's Wall while driving west to east. Amazingly much of this frontier of the Romans still stands, not as tall as it once was because most of the stone was used over the centuries by the Saxons for their churches, Normans for the forts, the Middle Ages for cathedrals, and everybody over hundreds of years for farmhouses. This drive took us through Carlisle, home of the McVities' factory, where we almost stopped just to pay homage, but the big fast roundabouts just spun us through the city. (Mc Vities are the makers of the chocolate digestive cookies/biscuits we crave so deeply.......)
At Newcastle we turned right and started heading south back down the east side of England. We took a quick stop at Beamish, a history museum that brings to life northern England in the 1800's - a typical town, coal mine village, country house, farm, etc. etc. It's a walk back through time. Interesting and tasty with an old-fashioned sweet shop and cafe where Anna ordered herself a meat pie and mushy peas (essentially mashed potatoes with peas...yum, kinda....)
Anna continued to be the most competent of navigators and helped me stay awake for the long drive back to London, and Bill surprised us with a telephone call as we passed by Cambridge - perfect timing to perk me up for the last hour or so of this 400 mile journey on our last day.
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