Covent Garden

On Saturday, we went to Covent Garden Market. To get there, we took the Northern line to Leicester Square and transfered to the Picadilly line to Covent Garden. (For you out-of-towners, here's how to pronounce Leicester.)

The Covent Garden tube station is one of the few stations that doesn't have an escalator. You can either take a lift or the stairs. We didn't feel like waiting in the queue for the lift, so we took the stairs. As you turn to go up the stairs there's a sign that says that there are 195 stairs. Daddy looked at Mama with a look that said, "You up for this?" Mama nodded and up we went.

195 stairs is a lot of stairs. It was easiest on McKenzie. Mama carried her half the way. I climbed all 195, but admitted to being tired. Daddy didn't admit as much, but he was breathing heavier than I was.

There are some shops at Covent Garden Market, but the coolest bit was the street performers. The best were these two jugglers.

After Covent Garden, we took a bus over to Hyde Park. We got ice cream cones, ran around a bit, and then walked along the Serpentine. It was a beautiful day; a perfect day for a walk in the park.

English Countryside

We experienced a bit of the English countryside yesterday. Daddy's friend from work, Clive, and Clive's wife Jen invited us out to their place in Goring. Goring is about an hour train ride west from Paddington Station.

Goring is a beautiful little village along the Thames River. We walked along the river for a bit and then had a little picnic by the riverside. We played fetch with Clive and Jen's dog, Saphy. After the picnic we fed the swans. That's Saphy in the picture, helping me feed the swans.

After the swans, we walked to a village pub and had some hot chocolate. It was my first British pub experience (or any pub, for that matter). Village pubs are more like little cafés: good places to sit and chat and have a beverage.

After hot chocoloate, it was time for us to go. We had so much fun in Goring, we slept like logs all night.

The Queen's English

Daddy thinks I've picked up a bit of an accent. He says my os are sounding more like a combination of "oh" and "oo". I guess it's particularly noticable when I say Volvo.

I've picked up a few colloquialisms as well. It began when I started using the term garden like the British do, and stopped thinking of the phrase "paved garden" as an oxymoron. Then, I started refering to airplanes as aeroplanes. Finally, Mama caught me pronouncing schedule like the British, where the first syllable sounds like shed.

I suppose I've truly begun speaking like a proper Englishman.

Black Pudding

Yesterday, I did something else my ancestors might have done: I tried black pudding. Black pudding is part of a traditional English breakfast, along with baked beans, grilled tomatoes, fried mushrooms, bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and toast.

I didn't eat all of those things, but I did try some black pudding. The first bite was alright, but by the second bite I couldn't do any more. When we got back to the hotel room and did a Google search for black pudding, I realized why.

Black pudding is also known as blood pudding, as in you make it by cooking blood with a thickener until it congeals.

My ancestors may have eaten blood pudding, but I think I've had enough to last a lifetime.

Roots

While you were celebrating the launch of an insurgency that went on to overthrow an occupying power, I discovered my roots yesterday.

We took a two-and-a-half hour train ride from London north to Preston. Daddy spent a few hours in the Lancashire Records Office poring over some old parish records while Mama, McKenzie, and I wandered around Preston and stumbled across some memorials to early church members.

Daddy found the birth record for my great great great great great great grandpa John Bromley (Brimley). He was born in 1739 in Leyland, near Preston. He also found the marriage record for his dad, John Bromley in 1732, and a few other records.

Next, we took a train five minutes south of Preston to Leyland, where these ancestors lived. We went to the church there, St. Andrews, where they were all christened and married. It's a really old church with a big cemetery. We wandered around the cemetery looking at gravestones. We saw some from the 1800s. There were some older ones, but they were so worn you couldn't tell what they used to say. I kept asking Daddy, "Does this one have grandpa's name?", but we couldn't find it.

Anyway, it was neat to walk around the same area where my ancestors walked as long as 300 years ago.

After Leyland, we took a train an hour south to Liverpool. Liverpool is where my great great great grandfather, William Jedediah Brimley, left England with his family to go to Utah. He was seven years old at the time.

By the time we got here to Liverpool (I'm in Liverpool now), it was late so we just grabbed some dinner and hit the sack. Today we went down to the waterside and went to the Merseyside Maritime Museum. They had an exhibit about emigrants that left from Liverpool to go to other countries. They had this little room set up like a ship's lodging quarters would have been in the old days. Maybe this is what my great great great grandpa's ship was like.

I wonder how they felt when they left. Maybe like I felt when I left to come to London: missing my family and friends and toys, but excited about the new adventure. I wonder if they imagined their descendants might come back. I wouldn't be surprised if they did, but they probably never though that we could get here in less than a day (with a half-day flight from the States, and a two hour train ride from London). Well, I've completed the circle.