Walking into Cambridge

We live in a little section of Cambridge called 'Newnham.' I walk almost every day and sometimes I choose to go through King's College to the downtown center of Cambridge to the market.

Here are a few pictures of my walk. They are so beautiful I need to share them with you! This one is looking off the the right when crossing the King's College bridge.


And here's the view to the left! This is part of "the Backs," the backs of the colleges that line the banks of the Cam. That's Clare College's bridge you see; their gardens (on the other side of the bridge to the left) are the most beautiful of all the colleges'.


If you look carefully to the left of the picture you will notice cows in the center of Cambridge! Hundreds of years ago, we've been told, King's College was deeded several acres of farm land on the other side of the river --the only catch in the will was that the College must ALWAYS have livestock on it. If King's doesn't pasture cows on this land, it reverts to the descendants of the original owner (and they know who they are!).

This is extremely valuable land now; even though from these pictures it might look like you're in the middle of the country, actually these fields are in the middle of downtown. Another quirk-- any King's student who gets a "first" has the right to keep a goat on the land!


No-one is allowed to walk on the grass in most colleges except the Fellows (professors.) I have seen employees descend immediately upon an unsuspecting rule breaker (often from several directions) to enforce this rule. Notice the sign below~



Therefore I always look wistfully at those who are allowed on the grass, a little part of me wants to run like crazy across that beautiful green lawn!~



Outside the front gate of Kings College~



On to the market from here...

There are some wonderful booths that sell food, books, tea/coffee, flowers etc.~My favorite booth is one that sells some wonderful bread. I will often splurge and buy our family some. The chocolate croissants are amazing too!



I also thought I would include a picture of the local constable's car~


Pretty snazzy!

Grateful for books!

One thing I have missed being here is the libraries from the U.S.~~I miss our church library, and I miss the size of the regional public libraries that we had around our home in Minnesota. It seemed ridiculously easy to find great books for our children and ourselves, from all the different genres we enjoy.

So after moaning to myself for long enough, I decided to take action. I decided to ASK someone! Although we do not have a church library, and although the public libraries are small, I am discovering with some simple questions some great used bookstores that sell children's books (I am looking for mostly the "classics," and finding good children's books has become my first priority.)

Today, I shared with a British friend that I was simply not very aware of good British authors for children. She went home and showed up later at my home with an enormous armful of books from her bookshelf, even some that were specifically Christian authors. What a find! Claire (who we literally cannot keep up with in terms of her desire to read) had already read one by the time she had left, and finished another before bed. I know that books are gifts, but I never felt it more keenly than I did today. Thank-you Kathryn~


Here are a few of the books that she loaned us~

Two other books I have really enjoyed reading out loud to our girls: this one is from my dear friend Peggy,

and here is another sent to me from my good friend Cindy, and I highly recommend it as well. This book is about 10 young women throughout history who were martyred for their faith. It is tastefully and beautifully written, and has made a big impact on our girls.


Happy reading, and Happy Tuesday to you all~

A visit from the Addington's

We had the joy of seeing our good friends Gordy and Bonnie Addington from Minnesota today. They were visiting their son Tom and his wife Sue in Oxford and took the bus over with them to see us. What a wonderful family! After a nice walk through downtown Cambridge (through several colleges) we enjoyed a nice dinner together in our flat. They brought us a gift of the makings for 'S'mores' and some wonderful, delicious, tollhouse chocolate chips (and not the small bag either)! As you can imagine, our children were thrilled. How good it was to sit and talk with old friends, and get to know their children better as well. We are thankful!

Having fun at Anglesey

One thing that we count as precious is the opportunity for our children to run! So public parks and open spaces are big favorites for us in crowded Cambridge.

We have come to love the National Trust properties all around this area for many reasons; one is that our children can explore and ramble to their hearts' content. We went with our friends Hunter and Laura to Anglesey Abbey today. This large National Trust home is on 36 acres of beautiful gardens and lawns, some very manicured, some very natural. It is stunning!

Do you notice these happy children?




As you can see with this picture of Julia, there are many statues lining the grounds here. We did happen upon a couple of odd ones however...

Here is one of a rather strange looking family~

And another of a mother in peace and prayer. . . . .

And amazingly, we came upon a statue of the same mother in full action! "Children, listen to me!"

All in all, a lovely afternoon...

Have fun with your family!

pumpkin seeds!

Pumpkin Seeds Extraordinaire!

Julia melted a little butter and stirred them into the bowl of seeds, then she layered them carefully on a cookie sheet (lined with foil) and sprinkled them with a little onion powder. After cooking for an hour at 250 degrees, they were done. Delicious.

Man Does Not Live on Bread Alone

Our nightly after dinner devotions have been going through the gospel of Luke. Tonight we read the passage from Luke 4 regarding the temptation of Jesus. Our pattern with devotions is to read the passage (taking turns) and then to talk through the passage carefully to see what we can learn about Jesus (and how others respond to Him) and how we can apply it to ourselves. After this we pray specifically about the things we learned and for other requests as well. Tonight, after going through each of the temptations of Christ, we talked about how important it is to desire God more than anything, even food! (Jesus says in response to Satan, "Man shall not live by bread alone" (and of course from Matthew it continues, "but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."))

We talked about how God should be so important to us, that even breakfast should be less important! I smiled to see how sobered our children were at this thought!

Claire prayed very sweetly that the Holy Spirit would make us aware all the time if Satan was tempting us, and that we would know that Bible well enough to respond with Scripture to temptation.

What a great prayer! Please pray this for us all~

* * * * * * *

Today I snapped a picture of my hard-working girls doing the laundry, they are learning a lot!


You know that I can't get by too many blogs without another picture from our kitchen:


Here Claire and Julia are cleaning out a pumpkin, they really enjoyed it, which made me very happy, as this was an exercise in "working well together."

Here is the pumpkin roasted, and the seeds drying to be roasted tomorrow. Right now they are each scraping out their pumpkin halves, so tune in tomorrow to see what we end up making!


Sarah was not to be outdone, and she has been dying for a long time to make this special treat (she learned to make it in Sunday School.)

Sarah's words, "This is Sarah's special treat. Sarah's loves this special treat and wants to make it 100 days." What is it Sarah? "It's cereal with brown sugar on it" How do you make it Sarah? "First, you get a big bowl that fits in the microwave. Then, you melt some butter in the big bowl. Then, you stir the melted butter. Then you add brown sugar and cinnamon, a bit of cinnamon. And then you put some cereal, 4 cups of cereal (actually 8) into the bowl. Then you stir that all up. Then you microwave it. Then you lay it out on the counter. Then, you let it set. After you let it sit for 2 hours, then you eat it!" We all loved this special treat! Good job Sarah!

Just one pen

I am still surprised by many things as we take root here in England. One is the weather, and the consequences of it. Until recently in the stores, you could still buy freshly grown strawberries (because the weather never grew too hot to harm the plants). Now, the stores are selling primroses and pansies and I often have to stop and remember it is not Spring! I am currently surprised by how different it is not to be getting ready for a Minnesota winter~I love telling people here about how cold it is in Minnesota, what we would do in the winter, what our children needed to wear to school, etc.~the shock value is great.

Another surprise is still the ongoing saga of what things cost. The vast majority of things here are more expensive than the States, more likely at least double or more. We have had to be quite careful financially, and this has called for some creative thinking, and also some real thankfulness for simple gifts! Today, for instance, I realized that we only have one pen in the house. Crazy isn't it? When we packed up our house in Minnesota, I must have put 150 pens/pencils in different boxes. How we collected that many is beyond me, but we always had plenty. Since it goes against my grain to have to buy a pen, I was thrilled to discover two in my cosmetic travel kit. I am often very thankful for small things now!

I am blessed that here at Tyndale House we are all in similar circumstances. There is a great spirit of community helpfulness and we do need each other. We take a little girl to school and back every day (we need to drive because of distance) and because her folks don't have a car they offer to babysit when we need it. It is a great trade for us. Another friend gives a violin lesson to another little girl in exchange for dinner at their house every week. Another family has become the DVD library for much of Tyndale House, and we have enjoyed seeing a few films, (we just saw, "Amazing Grace.")

We are thankful for similar minded friends~often someone will say, "Hey, did you know that we can pick free apples at Newnham College?" or "There are a large group of blackberries I discovered on the way to the orchard--" or "Hey, someone sent me a huge box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and do you want several boxes? (this was a hit with our children!) We have discovered that God cares very specifically for us (and our children) in providing for us things that He knows we need, and even sometimes things that we want! Another big help for us has been "Boot Sales" (garage sales in the back of people's cars~this was a treat to discover, I have bought several key items for our flat through this endeavor.) We also often try to carpool to go to the store, or other places, to save money on gas (which is approximately $7 a gallon, can you believe it?)

Fortunately, there are a lot of free or very inexpensive things to do here in Cambridge, and we are taking advantage of them! (You have seen some of them already in our blog.) Sometimes I refer to living here as "Family College Life." Do you remember being in school and figuring out creative ways to accomplish things? They were sometimes quite makeshift, but you did them anyway? This is what I think of when I hang our clothes out in our living room at night (the driest, least damp area of our flat) Would I ever have done this in Minnesota? It would have been very unusual~! But, since we are all doing this, it becomes normal~

Living simply is very refreshing in many ways, however. Andrew has the most toys here of all the children. A bag of little cars, blocks and a little train. It is not hard for him to clean up his toys! It is possible to have four children in a two bedroom flat if you don't have tons of possessions. (And, ironically, not one of my children has missed a single possession yet) This is making me really rethink how much we still own that is in storage right now. Our children are not deprived, but they certainly do not have the amount of things that they have had in the past (I am seriously considering surreptitiously going through our storage when we are done here and giving some of it away before they remember that they "need" it!)

Although I do miss some of the things that we have put into storage, I am discovering that it is healthy for me to live with less as well. Alright, it is healthy, but I still do really miss my oven that can hold a 9 x 13 pan! (Ours is just an inch too small.) I have become creative with the pans that I use, adjusting recipes to fit a smaller size. I really look forward to having a normal size oven (and even refrigerator) again!

Alright, before my blog fills up four pages, let me say that we miss you dear friends and family, missing you has been the biggest adjustment of all for us. Thank you for writing us and keeping in touch with us, it is always a big encouragement. Thank you for praying us through this transition, for our children, for Jim's studies and for my well-being. Please continue to pray for us.

Thomas the Tank Engine

As this is mid-term break, we have planned a few fun things. Did you know that there really is a REAL Thomas the Tank Engine? We took a short (12 minute round-trip) Thomas the Tank Engine ride with some friends.


As you can imagine, Andrew and his little friend were beside themselves to actually meet Thomas.



Here is Andrew so happy to be near the trains, this is an antique one from Poland.

We ended the day with 11 children over to play!

Scavenger hunt

Tonight a very nice Tyndale family organized a bible verse scavenger hunt for the children:


The children needed to look up verses and find items that would go with the verses, for example, Joshua 4:3 mentions "12 stones" which they needed to find and put in their bags.


Claire and her friend Heidi ended up winning, but everyone worked hard!

Lammas Land

I know that every blog posted includes food in some way~here is one that won't have a mention of it!

This week is half-term break for the children. Today we went to the local park, called Lammas Land and we took a few extra children from Tyndale with us~

On the way to the park we had 'buddies' but when we got there I let the children...

RUN FREE!

Andrew with his special friend, Virginia.


One of the children's favorite play areas~

But this is THE ride at the park!

We are so thankful for these wonderful families and friends. Our children love these new friendships!

Apple Day

Last weekend was the unofficial "Apple Day" here at Tyndale House. A number of us picked the rest of the apples from the apple tree here, and then walked across the street to Newnham College where they freely let us pick more of their apples. Our goal: Apple Cider!

Here's Jim shaking the tree!


And the kids walking through Newnham College with their haul--like the 12 spies on their way home from the Promised Land with too much fruit to carry. Note the heavy bags of apples on a pole.

What did we do with all these apples?

Right next to the girls' school is a little farm that had an Apple Day~people could bring their apples to be identified and pressed, they also had a few little rides for the children to enjoy.

Here are a few pictures of the 'pressing' process:

First, Jim poured the apples into a regular garden shredder~

They were shredded into a big bin~

And then put into the actual press~



We all took turns pressing the apple pieces, and it got progressively much harder!

Here you see the cider slowly coming out~we actually filled this whole bin.

My friend Rahela and I are pouring the final product into containers. It was wonderful cider, I wish you could have tried it!

Here is Andrew on one of the farm's old tractors!

Sarah riding one of the rides~


and all the children enjoyed the trampoline!