AFA Scotland - Glasgow

We really liked Scotland, it was beautiful, the people were great (hard to understand at times), and it was fun.
Coming from America, you wonder about kilts. You wonder if they are just cultural costumes, or if they are really a part of life. You'll see from the pix, they are all over the place. We saw them in many, many shop windows. I get the impression they are more formal, dress wear. (get it? "dress wear???") We didn't see any casual wearers, but definitely saw them on people dressed up.
These are shop windows in Glasgow.

AFA - Cymru (Wales) #3 Portmeirion

The absolute surprise of Wales was this spectacular Italian-style city. It was designed and built by one guy, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, between 1925 and 1975 to look like an Italian coastal city, some say Portofino. For those of you old enough to remember the classic British TV series "The Prisoner", it was filmed here. (Portmeirion was 'The Village' - although it was black & white, so hard to tell) As you can see from the pix, it is stylish, colorful, very small, and completely charming. As you can see by the sign below, at the time it was built they discouraged tourists in order to maintain their quaint charm. In the TV show, they never gave Portmeirion credit until the last show so that crowds wouldn't flock to see the town. For us, this was the highlight of Wales. I realized one thing you don't appreciate from the pictures is the flowers - they were everywhere and looked great.
It is near the coast but not actually on the ocean, and as you can see in the last picture ( a little) when the tide goes out there is no water, just sand.

AFA - Cymru (Wales) #2 Caernarfon

Pronounced 'kuh-NAR-von'.
Interesting story, Edward I got the people of Wales to agree to English rule if "he presented them a king born in Wales that spoke not a word of English." That king was born in this castle, and not surprisingly at birth spoke no English. (or any other language for that matter)
Notice the octagonal towers- a spectacular castle!

Allen Family Adventure (AFA) - Cymru (Wales) #1

Wales (Cymru in Welsh) is a tiny little country, about the size of Massachusetts. Based on what we saw, sheep farming and mining are the biggest industries. Supposedly Wales supplies most of the slate for the slate roofs in Europe. We saw a ton of sheep. We almost wore a couple as hood ornaments, but stopped just in time. You must be heavily into sheep if you make 'sheeppoopaper.' We didn't buy any, didn't want to touch it.

Fascinatingly to me, they have their own language which is required learning in schools. They are very proud of Welsh, and want to keep it alive. So pretty much every resident is bi-lingual. The signs are in both languages. After hearing it and seeing it, I'd steer away from Welsh, it looks like a difficult language to learn. We never encountered anyone that didn't understand English, but we found several we struggled to understand. You gotta love the fact that the Welsh word for 'out' is 'allan.'

Wales, like England, is covered with castles and we visited three of the best, Conwy, Canarvon, and Beaumaris. Pictures of Conwy are below.
When England's Edward I conquered Wales he built castles all over the place to help hold the country. The first castle we went to was in Conwy. (not missing a final vowel - the Welsh don't really use many vowels it seems - "th wlsh dnt rlly s mny vwls t sms" - Hey, I'm writing Welsh!!). I am convinced that the people that built these castles were SHORT!!!! Two things make me believe that, as noted in pictures below. First, the safety picture showing someone (me) bumping their head on the entrances into the castle - and the smallest house in Britain.

Conwy is a walled city as you can see from the pix. The castle walls were really in pretty good shape for being 800 years old. As you can see, it was a beautiful day in Conwy.

Christina - August 2008

I have been very fortunate that my company sent me home a couple of times recently allowing me to spend some time around Christina, just before her new son will be born. And not only that, but I get to go back next month and meet the little guy after he is born.
These pictures were taken the week of August 4, 2008.
She's is still my beautiful second daughter, but I have thoroughly enjoyed teasing her about being ... what is a nice way to say it??? ... a great, big, fatty!! The truth is that in a very few weeks, she'll be back to skinny again and enjoying the newest addition to the Thornton family.
(Christina took the belly close-up shots herself)
Now the big question is, what will they name him?
Going with the historical theme, like their first son Lincoln ...
Abraham?
George Washington Thornton?
Jackson Thornton?
Jefferson Thornton?
Mary Todd? (nah ... but if it were a girl, perfect!)
Lincoln Junior (Lincoln's favorite)
Stonewall?
Bull Run?
Continental (get it? Lincoln Continental? sorry)
John (plenty of historical precedents, Hancock, Adams, Penn, Hart, Allen ...)

Lastly, despite appearances to the contrary, this is not simply a picture of my gigantic feet. (compare them to the TV!!!) This is really a shot of the beautiful wood flooring now decorating our living room, dining room and playroom thanks to the efforts of our very talented son-in-law Derek. I don't think he thought he could do it this well when he started, but look how great it turned out. Really a professional quality job.

Ripon England

The job took me to the beautiful little northern city of Ripon England this week. Wolseley UK's (our largest company - the one from whom we took the name Wolseley) Tech Centre (IT Department) is located there and I had meetings with some of the people there.
Ripon is the oldest city in England, designated a city because it has a cathedral. The cathedral, as I hope you can tell from the pictures, is huge.

It is also the forth smallest city in England having a population of only about 17,000. The cathedral is literally directly across the street from the hotel at which we stayed. (the second picture of the cathedral was taken from the front door of the hotel to show you how close it is) The hotel looks to be as old as the cathedral, made from similar materials. But the interior is very nice and cozy. There are only 11 rooms. The restaurant is great.

The cathedral was originally built in the 600's but was destroyed and rebuilt about a 1,000 years ago started by a guy named Archbishop Roger. (don't you love the name?)
There is a river that runs through the middle of town called the Ure, with several little bridges across the river. Really very pretty. Here's a view from one.

If you expand the picture (below) of the tower in the center of the square, you will see a horn as part of the mayor's symbol at the top. The custom of blowing the wakeman's horn every night at nine o'clock, maintained to this day, is said to have originated about 700. It was probably at first a means of calling the people together in case of a sudden invasion, but was afterwards a signal for setting the watch. A horn with a baldric (cross belt) and the motto "Except ye Lord keep ye Cittie ye Wakemen waketh in vain", taken from Psalm 127, forms the mayor's badge which is what I believe is at the top of that tower. Unfortunately, I did not hear the horn blow probably because we were still at dinner each night at 9:00. Classic European late meals.

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We went to a small restaurant called 'Lockwoods', just off the town square, definitely the best food I've had in England. On the town square is a hotel called 'The Unicorn Hotel' (see the unicorn on the right side?) that has been there for over 700 years. A couple hundred years before Columbus did his thing!

The last two shots are of the Wolseley UK Tech Centre, for any of you Wolseley employees curious about what it looks like.

This is really the classic English city / town / village. It has a large church / cathedral around which the city was built. Small curvy street, a long history with interesting stories, and bucket loads of charm.