30 October 2012

86 lbs!  Woo Hoo!  I've now undone all the damage from my holiday and lost a couple more lbs.

We did a trip over to Powys Castle on Sunday.  What a great place!  The weather still wasn't great but it wasn't quite as dull as it was a couple of weeks ago.  Here are a few more pictures:

A peacock, strutting his stuff.  I think the peacocks had the long tail feathers a couple of weeks ago, so they must have molted.

 

Peahen with chicks.  Peachicks, maybe?  I don't think I've ever seen the chicks before :-)



The doors to the old Carriage House.  This wasn't open the last time I was here but this time we got to see the carriage, along with some livery and harnesses and a short video of the carriage.

Detail on the top of one of the down spouts.  All these looked like lead and I think some of the Herbert family fortune came from lead.  There were quite a variety of things, although there were a lot of dragons.

Family crest.

View of the castle from the gate; it was a rather dull day.

I think I read this time that it was the 6th Earl (the current Earl is the 8th) who gifted Powys Castle to the National Trust.  The family still have an apartment there and all the stuff inside (and there is quite a bit of stuff inside!) still belongs to the family.  They don't allow pictures inside but the new guide book was available this trip.  I was amazed at how much I didn't notice the last time!

It rained cats and dogs on the way over and the way back but it wasn't raining while we were there.  The National Trust always has very nice tea rooms at their properties and Powys is no exception.  I was diet-friendly and had a lovely bowl of tomato and basil soup--without the bread!  The other choice was carrot and rosemary, which was very tempting but the t & b won out.  It was pretty tasty!

I had several 8x10 prints done from my travels around Britain this year and got those dropped off for the photo contest on base.  I wasn't going to show any this time--they always hurt my feelings--but Greg talked me into it.  After the one year where they picked a picture of a horse's eyeball, I haven't shown any in a while.

Tomorrow night, I'm off to Bolsover Castle for a Halloween ghost walk.  Should be fun!

27 October 2012

Woke up this moning to a dusting of snow (snow for heaven's sake!  What is up with THAT?!) on the stone walls I can see from my bedroom window.  UGH!  So I pulled the duvet over my head and went back to sleep...  It's no wonder I don't get much done!

I'm back to 83 lbs lost so I've almost undone the damage from my holiday.  Yippee!  I really hate this new schedule!  There are only 6 of us in my group now; 4 of them get to work the old 4-on-4-off (the good schedule) while 2 of us are stuck on the crap schedule until we get certified on the extra duties.  The schedule is listed as F1 (7-3) and F2 (3-11); some people say the 'F' stands for 'Flex' while others say it stands for 'Flight'.  As far as I'm concerned, they're all wrong--that 'F' stands for 'F*CKED'!  Amazingly, my co-worker really likes this schedule, which alarmed me but I've since found out that I can get certified and go back on the good schedule regardless of what he's doing (or not doing) so I feel a little better about it.

We also have a new (very stupid) performance maagement system, which they implemented after we had started the year on the old system--and with no training!  What on earth were they thinking!?  As the years have gone by, management knows less and less about what we do on a daily basis--so the burden of writing the review falls more and more on the employee.  What a crock!  We have reached the point where the review is an effort in creative writing--and I don't like it!

But I did have some good happen this week :-)  I had an appointment on Tuesday at the Harrogate Hospital to have a growth on my cheek, near my eye, looked at.  It's apparently some kind of 'viral wart' (whatever that means), so it's not skin cancer and they weren't real busy that day so they removed it.  Yippee!  They warned me the local anesthetic would give me a black eye--and it did--so now I have to decide on my story:  Did my manager hit me or did one of my co-workers?  It's a tough decision.  I'm leaning towards my manager, although one of my co-workers is probably bit more believable.

Jeff and I are heading for Powys Castle tomorrow.  It's just a 3-hour drive, so very doable even with the shortening daylight this time of year.  Hopefully tomorrow will be as nice as today....

21 October 2012

OK, I admit it--I've been somewhat remiss with the blog since getting home from my holiday.  But I've been REAL busy!!  [That's my story and I'm sticking to it...]

I returned to Harrogate on Wednesday afternoon.  It had just rained but it was real nice when I got in.  I took a taxi home, started a load of laundry and headed out to run a few errands.  Went to Sainsbury's (fat-free creme fraiche) and Waitrose (tsar sliced smoked salmon) and then headed to the base.  I could see lightening flashing off towards Skipton, which is pretty unusual.  When I came out of the APO, I could hear thunder rumbling and by the time I got to the commissary (a distance of less than 5 minutes), it was pouring down rain!  Silly weather!  I took the groceries home and went to the Baths, then came home and went to bed.

The next morning, I overslept so I was a few minutes late to work.  Got thru the next 2 very busy days at work and went to see the Hairy Bikers at the Harrogate Royal Hall.  It was pretty good, although a little strange--travel, comedy and cooking.  The program (L5) even had some interesting recipes in it which I mean to try.  I have to say that I don't understand their fascination with dressing up in women's frocks...

Saturday was pretty nice.  We had tickets to see Jesus Christ Superstar at the Nottingham Capital FM Arena and it was fabulous!  The tickets said 1900, which I foolishly assumed was the time the show started...  The doors opened at 1900 but the show didn't start until 2000.  I'm glad I didn't know that because parking was a hassle at 1820 when we arrived.  The show finished at 2230 and it was a nightmare at the parking garage, so we went back to this little Indian place (Anoki) we had passed for a late supper.  Apparently, great minds think alike because Andrew Lloyd Webber and the cast were also having a late supper there!  The place does a 2-for-1 deal on entrees after 1030 pm and I had a very diet-friendly Tandoori Chicken Tikka that was excellent.  It was all so much fun that I think we're going to get tickets to the arena show of We Will Rock You in March '13--and have supper at Anoki after.

Today, I finished booking the Christmas Market trip, so that's all set.  And I'm almost back to my pre-holiday weight, so life is good!

16 October 2012

And now London, the 7th and final day of the William Marshal tour.

It's been another beautiful Autumn day here in London!  We left our hotel (the Millenium Bailey's Hotel, across from the Goucester Road Tube stop) and drove to the Embankment and then walked to the Temple Church.  We passed some interesting signs and plaques along the way, which I've included here.

Very cool pub sign; might be worth checking out sometime.

Wall plaque on the way to the Temple Church.

 

 

Effigy of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, Temple Church.  According to Crusader lore, the final battle will be fought in Jerusalem and the Temple Church is a bit of Jerusalem in London.  The knights there aren't resting; they're at attention and awaiting the call when the final battle begins.

 



 

Effigy of William Marshal, the Younger, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, Temple Church.

Effigy of Gilbert Marshal, 4th Earl of Pembroke, Temple Church.

Rose window, Temple Church.

Interior shot of the Temple Church.  There was a lot of scaffolding, which I couldn't completely avoid in my shots :-(

Pipe organ, Temple Church.

Baptismal font.  Apparently the Templers weren't too worried about witches because it's not covered--or at least not covered with a heavy lid that takes 4 men to lift--like some of the others we saw on this trip :-)

Detail of the face on William Marshal's effigy.  The London Blitz was very hard on a lot of the stonework.

More interior shots, Temple Church.

Western Entrance.

There were a lot of neat signs and plaques on the way back to the bus.  The next few shots are a selection of these.

Our next stop was the Tower of London.

Siege engine at the Tower of London.

Tower of London

Beefeater at the Tower of London.

Inside the walls, Tower of London.

Traitor's Gate.  Not the way you'd want to enter the Tower of London...

Weather vane on the White Tower.

Fake polar bear; seemed to be made out of wire.  At one time in the distant past, the Tower of London was a zoo.

Wakefield Tower

The White Tower

More shots inside the walls.

Fake elephant.

Inside the walls.

The White Tower.

Another shot of the White Tower.

Cool cannon.

Tower Bridge.

Another shot inside the walls.

The White Tower.

Cool door.

And a final stop at Rigby & Peller, corsetieres to HM Queen Elizabeth II.  They're like a very posh Victoria's Secret.  I treated myself to some new undies :-)

15 October 2012

Today we left Beechfield House and headed for London and the last day of our tour.  We drove by Stonehenge and had stops at Old Sarum and Salisbury.

I don't normally like to shoot thru glass but we weren't stopping at Stonehenge and the sky was very brooding, so I took a few pictures.  I like the effect of the dark silhouettes against the brooding sky.

Slightly off-center because the bus was moving.

And from the other side but with reflections of the glass.

Defensive ramparts at Old Sarum.  Henry II kept Eleanor prisoner here for a number of years.  It's a stark and windswept ancient hillfort.  After the gentler climate of Aquitaine, she must have been miserable.

Remains of the royal castle at Old Sarum.

Foundation remains of Old Sarum cathedral.  The stone was used to build the Cathedral Close wall down in Salisbury.

More Old Sarum ruins.

Looking off towards Salisbury Cathedral.

Old Sarum.

Salisbury Cathedral.  The weather took a turn for the better :-)

Salisbury Cathedral West Front.

Salisbury Cathedral cloisters.

Looking down the nave, Salisbury Cathedral.

 

William Longespee, 1st Earl of Salisbury, died 1226 and was the first person buried in Salisbury Cathedral.



Gargoyle.