This post is long overdue. Sorry.

So we have been back from Britain for over a month now, but I am just getting these notes from the trip up on the website. Actually, a month is turning into a couple of months, which is turning into... Oh well, life happens.

Our trip was grand. As I mentioned in my last post, after Scotland, we headed to Wales, and we stayed in a Medieval castle. We even had a medieval dinner at the castle. The castle was haunted. I know this because the story teller (bard?) at dinner told us it was haunted. Pam and I were on the first floor. Well, not exactly the first floor since we had to take the stairs down to get to our room. It was way in the back of the castle -- the most remote room possible. It was room number 113. So here we were staying in a haunted castle, in the 13th room of basement (dungeon?), in the most remote part of the depths of the castle, with a ghost! Ooooh... Scary stuff.

Well we survived the haunted castle, but the next day we lost half our party. You see, not everyone could take an extra week off, so some folks headed back early. So back to Manchester to drop off the folks who couldn't continue, and then we would resume the tour.

There was no included dinner in Manchester. So Ester arranged transport and a dinner at a pub just a few miles from the hotel. The hotel wanted an absurd fee for a buffet dinner. The pub was great, and quite a bit cheaper. We had the best fish and chips yet, and the beer was good too. No whiskey that night!

At some point we had a boat tour of Windermere. Actually, I think it was before we got to the castle. It is in the lakes region of Britain, but whether it is in Wales or England, I couldn't tell you. Lots of ducks, swans and funny little gulls too. The gulls were small birds with black heads: maybe Black Headed Gulls or Little Gulls. it was a lot of fun. Look for the pictures when I get them up.

After Manchester, we visited a castle in Cardiff and then we went to Bath. Bath was great. One of the highlights of the whole trip. I spent hours wandering through the museum, exploring all the Roman ruins and artifacts. Afterward we had tea in the very fancy dining room.

Stonehenge was interesting. We spent an hour there, and later we stopped at Woodhenge. The weather was fantastic. It was crowded at Stonehenge. It was the day before the solstice. It is closed on the solstice because of the druids. I bought a book, but Stonehenge is a prehistoric mystery, so the book could only tell me so much. Wikipedia probably has as much information.

After Stonehenge we moved on to London where we spent three days, much of it free time. But I will save London and Stratford-upon-Avon for my next post. Promise you won't need to wait several months.

So we have been almost a week in Scotland. Well North Umberland and the Lakes Region of England as well Scotland. We have stayed in York, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and on the Isle of Mull. We have seen cathedrals, castles, abbeys, and sheep. Lots of sheep. We have seen cows and birds and flowers, and lots of beautiful scenery. And we have done research. We have been researching Ales, and when we ran out of ales, we started researching malt whiskey. (Scotch whisky is also known as the water of life in Scotland.) Read More...

Well it is now over a week since the conference, and I am running out of time to finish these notes. Soon, it will be time to publish some of the hundreds of pictures I have taken. Britain is execptionally beautiful, and our tour is keepiing us very busy. Well, enough of that. Back to the conference.

The second half of the conference focused more on healing and less on "new age." We covered a bunch of different topics. The focus was healing those who are broken in body or spirit. Read More...

The 3rd International Conference of the Order of Saint Luke ended yesterday, but I still want to record my thoughts on the second half. As time goes by, memory becomes dim, but here goes.

Each day of the conference, a bible study was held. Rev. Canon Roy Lawrence presented some very points, and some great stories. I did not go to all his classes. I attended about half of them, and I did my own prayer and study with his notes. Here is what struck me from his talks and notes and my study. Read More...

As Pam and I attend this 3rd International Conference of the Order of Saint Luke, I will publish some notes about what I am hearing from the speakers and from God. This conference entitled "Christian Healing: God's Promise to the Fragmented World" has inspired me. I want to write down and put to use what I am learning lest I forget.

The first several talks were about "New Age" spirituality and healing, and the next few talks also touched upon a growing and desperate search for spirituality and healing. How is the Church and the "New Age" movement addressing this need? How does this relate to alternative and traditional western medicine?

In Notes from the Conference, Part 1, I summarize what I have heard and learned at the conference, during the first two days, and my reactions to it. Read More...

On Memorial day weekend, as usual, the SCA (society for creative anachronism) went to war. I like to join them for the whole weekend, but with our England trip upon us, I could only afford one day and one night. But the really great thing was that Pam came too. And the dogs. What fun. Anyway, there are pictures. See Events:May War.

Here I am stuck in the airport on the way to England. And the democrats are doing their thing on TV. So I wrote a letter. Read More...

We leave for England on Sunday! It's coming up real fast. Am I ready? No. Will I be? Sure. Besides, I really need the break. I am really looking forward to the trip, but it won't be real until I am on the plane.

There is now an itinerary for the tour part of the trip on the England page on the website. There is not a lot about the OSL conference, so maybe I will write something up before I go. There are two itineraries. One is detailed, with color illustrations. The other is briefer and up to date. They are both PDF, so you have to download them.

During the last update, I broke Arwen's puppy pictures. I had to rebuild completely, including picture selection. So, although I re-selected most of the original ones, I added some new pictures of when Arwen was just a little older. Oh, they are all still puppy picts, but now they run from 2 to 6 months of age instead of 8 to 14 weeks. Anyway, have a look: Arwen:Puppy Pictures.

Well adding a counter turned out to be harder than I thought. Well, maybe not harder, but I got distracted a lot. Here is the story. If I get encouraged by lots of comments, I will post more of a tutorial of how to do it. So encourage me already! Read More...