O're Fen and Moor - One Month on the Job

Question:  Raise your hand if you know what a fen or moor is?  Remember the hymn Lead Kindly Light, verse 3 it says "So long thy pow'r hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on.  O'er moor and fen,  o'er crag and torrent till, the night is gone"    Well, a fen is a wetland, like a marsh, swamp or bog.  In this part of England we are surrounded by places called fens...like Woodwalton Fen, Pidley Fen, Fodder Fen, Burnt Fen, Mare Fen....the list goes on and on.  It seems that long ago hundreds of miles of land in central England was once under water as marshlands.  In the 17th century the Dutch were brought in to build canals and drain the swamps to make the land suitable for growing crops, but the fen names have stuck, and there are a lot of canals around here.  This area is now the bread basket of England, and so we have a lot of fields that used to be fens.  This has been your history lesson for the month.

It is wonderful being in the countryside because the fields are vast and the towns and villages are quaint, and we see a lot of thatched roofs.

The main problem with the picturesque towns is the narrow roads.  I get off easy because I only have to drive a small Ford Focus that has an automatic transmission.  But Bruce gets the challenge of driving a stick shift pick-up pulling a trailer, on roads that are only built for one car at a time, but are full of on-coming traffic....which is sometimes large farm equipment...driving on the wrong side of the road.  So far, so good.

This month has been busy with mowing, weed whacking (they call it stremming here), pruning bushes, working on three newly built houses that needed some finishing touches, planting grass at the new houses, working on repairing lawn mowers and weed whackers, and painting on the outside of a large storage barn.

We have also fed the missionaries, supplied a meal for a family with a new baby, given talks in church, and made several trips to London.  Speaking of church, Bruce and I are teaching a Primary class for three weeks while the teacher is on holiday in France.  At the same time, I received a calling to be the 1st Counselor in Young Womens!  Hooray!  So I will teach Primary the second hour then go to YW the third hour.  Our ward is so small that no organization is fully staffed.  Every president only gets one counselor....if they are lucky.

Jill and her kids are with us for church!

While on the topic of feeding missionaries and families with new babies, my oven is very small and on the bottom of the appliance (called a hob), making it a little awkward to put pans in and out.  The cookie sheet that came with the house doesn't fit in the oven at all, so I made cookies on pizza pans that happen to have holes in them.  Some dough fell down through the holes and I ended up with mini-sized cookies just the right size for a Barbie doll.

I love my freezer because it has handy drawers which pull out.  The food is separated and easily accessible.

At the produce section of the grocery store I found this lovely bin with fruit in it with a sign.  What a brilliant idea!  They even provide little bags to put the peels, pits or cores in.  

Some of you will be familiar with Weetabix (which we really like), and they also have Oatibix, (which we also like).  For those who haven't had the opportunity to taste this wholesome cereal, it's a bit like shredded wheat except it immediately goes soggy in the bowl when the milk is added, and is suitable for people who may not have functioning teeth.  In the bowl it looks like you are about to have a heaping spoonful of pencil shavings!

One last note about food, we have an established tradition with the senior missionaries downstairs that Thursday is fish and chips night, so we always know what we're eating that day!

Some earlier senior couples created a "Mother Goose Garden" that graces our yard, but when we discovered it there were so many overgrown weeds and vines covering it that we couldn't see what was going on.  Four wheelbarrows full of weeds later, we were delighted to see what was there.  Sister Manning (lives downstairs) and I have been working to restore it to it's delightful origins.  Besides major cleaning, we added some colorful flowers, a few more figures, signs and a pinwheel.  The creators of the garden put a lot of work and love into this project, and we have enjoyed it.

Three Little Pigs

The Queen of Hearts

I'm not sure this is a Nursery Rhyme, but I didn't know what else to attribute the teapot to.

Our daughter Jill and her family have been living in Jerusalem for the past year and will be returning to the states in a couple of weeks.  So she and three of her daughters made a trip over to England to visit us for five days.  We had a great time showing them the sights, roads, and foods in this beautiful country. How fun is that!

This was a fun sign near the Globe Theater in London

This is the Tower Bridge in London

We went Punting on the Cam River in Cambridge

This is the Burghley House which we toured, then we played in their Surprise Gardens

Jill cut this picture for us to hang on our wall.  She wanted to do a watercolor background, but we didn't have any watercolors, and we live out a ways from a store, so she used food coloring!

Our first trip to London was to attend the temple.  What a thrill it was to be in this historic temple as we contemplated the many apostles and prophets and family members who have been here before us.  This week we are going to the Preston Temple to do a session and enjoy the British Pageant, which is only presented every four years.

The British people are very friendly and enjoyable to talk to.  Some are harder to understand than others...like our farm manager, our bishop and some of the tenants we serve and the farmers we chat with.  We are grateful for this opportunity to serve the Lord in this part of His vineyard and are looking forward to meeting and serving the people here.

FIRST WEEK IN JOLLY OLD ENGLAND

After a brief three-and-a-half month stay at home we are off again on a new mission....this time on a farm in England!  This is our apartment house, and we are in Flat 1 on the top floor.  We are surrounded by fields of rapeseed plants and wheat.  A short drive connects us to other farmhouses and charming villages.  Most of the church-owned farms are not connected, and there are 11,500 acres in all, so we do a bit of traveling to get where we need to go.

It took us a few days to acclimate to the new time zone because we are 7 hours ahead of Utah.  After taking the red-eye flight to London,  we were met by a driver, then we then had a 2 hour drive north from the airport.

Inside the flat we have 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, living room and laundry closet.

This is the guest bedroom, and it has a bathroom attached.

This is a very small washer and dryer.  I'm sure that one sheet would fill the wash tub!

Notice that neither bathroom has any counters or drawers.  Most English bathrooms are like this.

This fan is what us commoners call the "air conditioner"in our kitchen and living room area.  There is also a fan in our bedroom.  We open all the windows at night, but there are no screens on the windows, so we get some "visitors" that fly in uninvited.  They don't snore at night, so we're OK.

Also in the bedroom is a closet which is used as a pantry.  It's on the opposite side of the house from the kitchen, but it comes in handy....especially since the former missionaries left us a bunch of food!  They were former military, so we have a bit of American food, like Skippy peanut butter, Miracle Whip, Pace salsa, Starkist tuna, Jello, Kraft salad dressings and Campbell soups.













This is an herb garden that has gone wild.  I have been trying to clean some of the weeds out, but discovered the stinging nettle right away.  It only took one day to get over the stinging and swelling.

 This shows you what our mowers look like.  We have two John Deeres and one Kubota.  This mower happens to be the smallest one, which is also the stinker mower, due to some annoying problems.  It's a good thing I'm not a swearing gal, because this mower has been driving me crazy!  The Elders are trying to fix the problem, and a part is on order. The lawns are never level and smooth like you picture well manicured English lawns to be.  Sometimes you feel like you are on a bucking horse and at other times we are on some precarious slopes.  And now I understand how Alice in Wonderland was capable of falling down a rabbit hole....they are quite large!  (See also Wallace & Grommet movie "The Curse of the Were Rabbit")

Besides mowing, we also trim using week-wackers and tree trimmers.  The pile of tree limbs doesn't look too impressive until you realize that it is taller than I am and represents two trailers full of green stuff, as well as some boards, an old chair and a lot of critters!

This is our Ford Focus that we get to drive.  The a/c isn't great, but the windows work just fine, and soon enough it will be winter!  We haven't actually driven it yet, because we are still learning our way around the area and we generally drive with the other missionary couple.  We have learned that there are very few straight roads in England.

Two days after arriving we celebrated the 4th of July with some other Americans in the ward, and the young-but strapping Full-Time Elders.  We are with the other missionary couple, the Mannings. 

We are in Sister Manning's kitchen having some fresh fish and chips after a day of mowing.  The men were washing up.

On Saturday we went on an outing to the North Sea beach at Hunstanton.  The water was surprisingly warm, the food was good, and the town was charming.

On Sunday we attended church in the smallest building I have ever been in.  We were surprised when we were called out of the meeting to introduce ourselves and bear our testimonies.  It was great to feel the spirit of the members in this area.

The farm has begun to harvest the rapeseed this week.  They mainly grow wheat and rapeseed plants. Rapeseed oil (which is Canola oil basically) is the 3rd largest source of vegetable oil in the world, and has been harvested since the 14th century.  It is surprising because the seed pods are small and slender and the seeds are the size of mustard seeds.  It's hard to imagine that anything that small can produce oil.

The sun setting in our backyard the first day we arrived