Guernsey

Not a lot of pics for this stop because we only had half a day in this port. Let me tell you, Guernsey has to rival San Francisco for her hills...Now add in pushing a wheelchair on old cobblestones or very narrow sidewalks, and you have to have what I would consider the most "in shape" Mums in the entire UK. Soooo pretty, but a real challenge for Mom, and I felt like a slug sitting around while she pushed.

Quaint stores, quaint town, beautifully hand-crafted Celtic jewellry and THE BEST ice-cream in the whole universe. The ice cream is a "new" project according to one of my Mom's friends who grew up there. Milk/Cream comes straight from the...wait for it...Guernsey cow. I had strawberry cream...Does it look like I enjoyed it??





A couple on the cruse saw me with it and were all "Where did you get that?? You make it look so good they should pay you for sitting out here with a cone...I saw them later, they said they loved it too!

For those of you that read my blog from last year, you may remember that Mom and I never made it in to the mainland of Guernsey because the waves were too high for the tenders to make it in. (Tenders drive you to the mainland if the ship can't get in close enough) The water was VERY choppy this year too so we got a late start and I have to tell you, gravol was my friend, The ride over was like a rollercoaster and honestly from this pic does it look like I would last much longer?



Yeah, nice hair! And I'm starting to turn a tad green...











Cutsy Church--How adorable is this? Reminds me of that rhyme.."Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors, and here's all the people!"

Can you say port town?? Almost ALL of Guernsey's goods come in through this port, and according to a couple we ran into at the docks, they took the olympic torch all through the harbour --the woman had a great snapshot of the torch and said it was cool to see it zipping all over the place through the harbour via speedboat.



We had left over money from Guernsey and tried to use it in Scotland for a cab...big no no. Guernsey money STAYS in Guernsey, the banks wouldn't even take it when we tried to switch it to UK pounds. Yes, they are part of the UK but they are independent, hence their own money



http://www.thebanknotestore.com/british/guernsey/guernsey.htm

Returning to Dover...Cliff views from the ship

We made our way back to Dover to board the ship on the sixth day of our journey. We were excited to be done with cooking meals, and I was over the cottage stairs and the many bruises I had from being pulled down them by my little ankles. Our cab driver was great, a guy from Deal who had lived there all his life and  was more than happy to take us down to the ship for a really good rate. He talked about enjoying the slower pace, and how people in the area make a conscious choice not to "put off 'til tomorrow what they can do today..." We got there really early and were pleasantly surprised to learn that we could be onboard in under an hour. Yay! Bring on an early lunch...

Here's the view of the cliffs from our little ship--The Ocean Princess












Pics on the ship itself...LOL at the guy cleaning the windows --we have a few of him waving but thought this was  a pretty effective view as it started to rain...

Ceiling was in the ship's cute library...really enjoyed the size of our ship ...it was about the size of the one you see in the pic above, he was coming toward us and I was "Hey! That looks like us." :-)

Wow--I guess you'd really have to like pumpkin to eat all of this...

Ron Wallace from Rhode Island set a record with his gigantic pumpkin, weighing in at 2009 lbs. In Cape Breton the 3rd largest pumpkin was unveiled weighing in at a massive 1811 pounds.
Starting Oct. 20 the three heaviest pumpkins in the world will be carved by master carvers and put on display at the New York Botanical Garden.

And I'm scared to carve the little pumpkins from the grocery store. How much wrist action do you think you need to twist a knife into this sucker? 

A Canterbury Tale

So, the day before we were set to go back to Dover to board the ship, we made our way across the town square to the trusty bus station (although cute shack would be a more apt description) Everyone said their good mornings as we boarded the bus to Canterbury (of Canterbury Tales fame) It turned out to be an hour and a half drive as we wound through neighbourhoods and counryside alike. Honestly, it reminded me a bit of Ontario. Here, you can go from big city to cows in just about any direction in the space of a half an hour. The only real difference I saw was in the houses, they reminded me of the fifties with their simple styles and designs. We were whipping by too quickly to get good pictures but think picket fences and manicured lawns.

We pulled into Canterbury, asking for directions to the town square and immediately a woman said "Keep walking and the church is right there too..." I think they are so used to people asking about the cathedral that it's just a given. Talk about a cute place...We hit it on their market day, best apple pastry EVER and Mom had a strawberry napoleon that looked delicious too. We were too busy gobbling it down to take pictures of them...All for 70 pence! (70 cents for us)

Stopping at the booth...





Hitting the town Square with the church right in front of us (We actually didn't realize it was part of the church right away, we kept hearing the bells as we traveled around corners..I kept saying "Is this it?" I think we were the only ones in town to walk right past it while going in a big square. I swear, neither one of us can find our way out of a paper bag..:-)



Perfect little house for Cindy





Cruising down the canal...The guide asked them to wave for us, as you can see, they were very co-operative!:-)








Waiting outside to get into the Cathedral grounds for free after 5pm. For some reason, they let Mom and I in early and we pretty much had the place to ourselves until the service at 6pm. Yes, they have a free half hour service and we went. Mom even taped the nuns singing  before I stopped her. (You weren't supposed to use cameras/videos in the church and I didn't want to get yelled at...:-))

It was truly a moving experience. I don't think words can describe it except to say that you feel incredibly small in the face of such enormity.



Inside, before the service....

Video of nuns singing

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v624/CindyM99/?action=view&current=MVI_3910.mp4











Stained glass in the windows that they took apart piece by piece to hide during the war so the Germans wouldn't destroy it. They numbered the pieces so they would know how it all went back together.








Yup, we found the coffee here too. It's fun to know you've been to all these little nook and cranny coffee places...



Cute town worthy of the tales..Thanks Canterbury for a great day filled with awe and excitement. We were so happy to see that each experience offered something totally different and yet all of the UK cities were filled with warmth and welcome.