Five on Friday

I'm joining in with Amy (and others) at Love Made My Home for this weeks Five on Friday.  As I've been talking about our trip to England I thought I'd use that for my Five.

Number One is the beautiful early 19th century Georgian Barley Twist glass we bought.  Before we went I'd said that for our anniversary we wanted to buy one, but with prices for them being so high (£200-£300) I didn't know if we'd get one or not.  Well we found one, at a price we would be comfortable with.  Why so reasonable?  Because it has a chip on the base.  We didn't care at all.  There was an identical one sitting right next to it without a chip and it was £300.  So our chip is just fine.

Chip is on the bottom left and it doesn't both me at all

Number Two is the archeological dig we went on.  It was a bit of a drive from our cottage, but we were excited.  We'd dug with Tony last year and really enjoyed it so we were looking forward to it.  Because we had dug before we didn't have to do as much of the heavy work.  It was a warm day, there was lots of other volunteers and it was a good day to dig.  Mac found a Roman nail, the best I could do was some small terracotta shards, another lady found an iron ring.  At the end of the day we were stiff and sore, but very satisfied.

Number Three has to do with the saying "Going to Hell in a Handcart".  After we left the steamfair we went into Fairford in search of food.  We had a simple pub lunch, walked along the river and then went to see the local church, St. Mary's.  It was a beautiful church, quite large for the town and what's known as a wool church, one built from the profits from wool.  It had wonderful stained glass windows, we were surprised they hadn't been destroyed during the English Civil War.  The lady working in the church said that Fairford had been a Roundhead town and it is surprising they'd survived.  She gave us an information paddle to explain the windows and we discovered one that is said to be the basis for the Hell in a Handcart saying.  If you enlarge the picture you'll see a devil hauling someone off to hell in a handcart!

The devil and the handcart are the last window on the bottom right

Notice the blue devil on the right

St. Mary's Fairford

Number Four has to do with bell ringing.  We'd first learned about bell ringers years ago while watching the All Things Bright and Beautiful series about James Herriot.  His partner's brother Tristan was a bell ringer or at least he used it as an excuse to go to the pub.  Lately while watching Midsomer Murders we've notice several stories about bell ringers.  So last year when we learned that  L, our landlord, was a bell ringer we were fascinated.  This year  we decided we'd attend an English church and find out about bell ringers.  I tried on the 3 dresses I owned,  picked out one I'd never worn and packed it.  Mac talked to L our landlord and he'd said he'd be glad to take us to St. Stephen's in Clanfeld a 13th century church where he rang.. On our 2nd Sunday there he introduced us to his fellow bellringers and they put us in the back and explained some of what goes on in bellringing and then they rang.  It was wonderful.

Fifth was a less well known museum, The Museum of London.  Mac says we visited it years ago, but I have no memory of it at all.  After lunch at a pub on Fleet Street (The Tipperary) we walked up to it.  Located on a side street up from St. Paul's it's a little tricky to find, but well worth the search.  It tells the story of London from pre-Roman times.  My favorite part was the streets of Victorian shops, including a pub you could sit in.