Windsor Castle

We visited Windsor Castle last week during the Bank Holiday Monday. The castle is billed as the longest inhabited castle in Europe, if no the world. Construction on the castle began not long after the Norman Invasion in 1066. It has been added onto over the following 1000 years.

The city of Windsoe has built up around the castle. Right across the street from the castle it seemed like a bit of America: McDonald's Burger King, PIzza Hut, and Starbucks!.

We got to the castle early enough in the morning and missed the long lines that we saw when we left the castle. We did miss the changing of the guard but can always go to Buckingham Palace and watch it there.

One item in the castle is Queen Mary's Dollhouse. It was constructed in 1924 and was a replica of the castle at that time. The electric lights light, the vacuum cleaner actually works, etc., etc. The plates on the dining room table are made of real silver.

Another of the amazing parts of the castle was the Great Hall that has the names and coat of arms of all the kinghts of the Order of the Garter. A few of the coats have been whited out. These are knights that have commited some crime. They are left there as a reminder to the others.

St George's Chapel is the spiritual home of the Order of the Garter. Inside the chapel a number of English monarchs are buried. Here is a complete list of those buried in the chapel.

The Fire of Windsor Castle took place on 20 November 1992 - ironically the 45th wedding anniversary of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. During work on some of the State Rooms in the castle, a fire broke out in the north-east part of the Castle and rapidly spread to engulf many rooms. Fortunately most treasures and works of art had been removed temporarily and so few items were lost, although over 100 rooms in the Castle were badly damaged or destroyed. The fire took 250 firefighters some 15 hours to extinguish. The Castle was renovated, the aim being to restore the damaged rooms to their former glory using authentic materials and craftsmanship, and was re-opened in 1997 after five years of work. The cost of the renovation was £37 million.

Brackley Town Football Club

Two Saturday's ago I went to what I had hoped was the final game of the Brackley Town FC men's season. They had gone on a 12-game unbeaten streak and had moved up to 2nd place in their league. The top two teams at the end of the season would automatically promote to the next higher division. Teams 3 - 6 would be in a playoff to decide a 3rd team that would advance.

Brackley was playing the 3rd place team and only needed a tie. Normally they get about 100 - 130 people at a game. At this game there was over 600 fans. The first half of the game was hard for Brackley. The other team controlled the game and was rewarded with a goal late in extra time in the first half. Brackley woke up in the 2nd and came close to scoring a number of times but were unable to pull a ball in the net. The loss dropped them to 3rd and into the playoffs.

The won their first playoff game 2 days later to advance to the playoff final also at Brackley. Unfortunately their leading scorer was injured and forced to miss the final game. Brackley was ahead 2-1 when the other team score 2 late goals (81st and 90th minute) to win promotion.

Isle of Wight

The day after Easter we decided to take some time away from life at Croughton and went to the Isle of Wight (IOW). It's a small island off of the southern English cost. It took us about 2 hours to get to Southampton where we hopped on a car ferry for a 1 hour ferry ride to East Cowes, a city on IOW. IOW had alot of old WWII battlements since it was uniquely positioned for costal defense.

The island is very small and it only take about 40 minutes to get from one side of the island to the other.

Our first stop after we got off the ferry was Osborne House. It was the family home for Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and their children. You are able to walk through most of the house to view the rooms as they were in the time of Victoria. From the gardens behind the house you can see the ocean. A short walk down a path takes you a building called the Swiss Cottage. The cottage was built so that the children for V & A could learn real life skills: cooking, gardening, and basic economics through selling their produce. Another building next to the cottage houses collections of various items that were either given to the family or were collected by the children themselves. These collections included animals, birds, rocks, and minerals.

We then made our way to where we were going to stay, the Old Park Hotel. It is situated on the south coast of the IOW. It caters to families and made things very easy for both the parents and children to enjoy themselves. The kids would have their own dinner and then, when the parents would eat, there was a movie being shown in another room or there was a listening service for kids that stayed in their room asleep. It was great being able to have dinner without having to cut meat, mediate arguements, and remind about manners (except that Jennifer would have to remind me :-) ).

After dinner the first night Jennifer and I took a walk down one of the paths on the hotel property to a rocky beach. The next morning we wanted to visit St Catherine's Lighthouse a few miles from the hotel. It was a nice walk through various fields, dodging cow patties, to get there. Unfortunately the lighthouse was closed that day. We walked on a path that ran along the cliff until we found a spot where we could climb down to the beach. We hung out there a little while and then decided to try to visit St Catherine's Oratory, a lighthouse from the 14th century on a high hill near the current lighthouse. 0 for 2...the Oratory was covered by low clouds and would remain so for the rest of the vacation. We grabbed a change of clothes, went to a local town, ate lunch and then went to the beach. The weather was beautiful. Jennifer and I laid on the beach listening to the waves and feeling the sun on our faces. The kids were playing in the sand. In the distance you could see a steady stream of cargo ships.

On Wednesday we went out to the western tip of the island to visit Alum Bay and the Needles. At Alum Bay, if you follow a path down to the beach, you can see multi colored sand. The coloring is from the different minerals in each section of the sand. Afterwards we found a beach (rocky and sandy) on the way home. We hung out there for a couple of hours. Jennifer found an outcropping of rock which became known as "Jennifer's Rock" and the kids and I hunted for shells and sea glass. It was another great day just handing out at the beach.

That afternoon we stopped at the Isle of Wight Glass Works. It was next to the hotel. The entire glass creation process was in one large room in the old converted farm house. You can watch them create both regular collection pieces and their own individual creations. They were very approachable for questions and seemed very welcoming.

On Thursday we returned to Croughton but not before visiting the Brading Roman Villa. There wasn't much left of the walls and structures bu the villa contained some amazing mosaics ranging from Medusa's head to a caracticure of Galius Ceasar in the shape of a rooster (Gallus in Latin means rooster). After that we stopped off at the Bembridge Lighthouse nearby before catching the ferry to return home.

It was a great 3 day getaway where we all could relax and spend some time together as a family!

More Misc Information

Natalie passed her Grade 2 examination for flute and her soccer team won the league title. They have a Cup Semi-final game this coming wknd against Kiddlington. The team continues to play well together.

Spring has finally arrived in England. Days are, on average, a bit warmer and sunnier. Bees are flying around and the flowers/trees are in bloom!!

Update: Natalie's team lost 2-0 in the Cup semi-final. The season is over until the fall except for a couple of tournaments in June. The girls had a wonderful season and have alot to be proud of.