Since I’m researching Presbyterianism throughout the British Isles I made a trip over to Belfast to meet some folks at Queen’s University Belfast and Union Theological College. I also got to rummage in the Rare book room of the Theological College Library and visit the Presbyterian Historical Socitey. Had a good trip. Here’s some pics from Belfast and of Keelyn from last week.
We went with the University Family Outing group to Ayrshire this Saturday. Visited Culzean castle and country park then the birthplace of Robert Burns, Scotland’s national poet. If you don’t know Burns, you at least know his song we sing every New Years, Auld Lang Syne
Alisha, Dale and Britney are visiting. They’ve been on the go. We all went to Dublin yesterday, got back too tired to post our pics and we went to Edinburgh today. They visited the sites in Edinburgh while I visited the National Archives and Libraries.
Having a fun time and enjoying the company; here’s some pics.
Since watching Scooby Doo & the Loch Ness Monster, Keelyn’s one place she’s wanted to visit has been Loch Ness. So today we took the train to Inverness and took a bus tour & boat ride on the loch to Castle Urquart. The train ride itself was beautiful: snow covered mountains, blue skies, huge deer. We had a full day and are ready for our guests to be here in the morning.
Since we’ve had such a busy past few weekends we decided to stay in and have a nice quiet weekend. I took Keelyn to feed the ducks at Kelvingrove Park friday and we stayed around the flat saturday. Keelyn said, “We’re just hanging out aren’t we Daddy.”
Sunday morning we woke to this. Robin said it was covered at 5 this morning when she woke up and it is still coming down steadily a little after 9. We took Keelyn to play in the park. We’re now watching the cars pile up on the hill outside our window and drinking hot chocolate. We’ll be going to Wellington to receive the Lord’s Supper in a little while.
We visited St. Andrew’s with the University International Student Family outing group. Really neat deal they have throught the Univ. Int’l Student office. They charter a bus and plan an outing for a very inexpensive fee. Keelyn gets to run around with her friends and we get to go on a trip with hardly any planning or thinking…just show up for the bus.
We visited the Cathedral and Castle, both in ruins. We also went to the aquarium.
It snowed yesterday so Keelyn got to play in the snow and build her first (wee) snowman.
Forgot to mention that part of the fun of our trip was that we got to watch TV since we were in the hotel. Keelyn saw some cartoons. And we got to watch Scotland beat England in the Six Nations Rugby!
Well we’ve had a busy weekend. Saturday morning we went to Salisbury in southern England. We got to see stonhenge. It was very windy, so we made a quick lap around the stones and headed back to town. The Cathedral is beautiful. Sunday we went to Bemerton for a service in a small church where George Herbert served. George Herbert was a poet and also wrote a book “The Country Parson.” That book has been very special to me so I wanted us to go. The service was very nice, Keelyn got to be the acolyte and lit the candles.
I was talking to someone after the service who mentioned he owned the house next to the church that George Herbert had lived in. He invited us to see it. We got to walk on the grounds and tour the old rectory. He was very gracious and we had a great time, turns out he is an award winning author — Vikram Seth.
Monday we visited a museum with tons of interesting things, too much to take in after everything else.
When we got back to Glasgow we had a few minutes before the bus left, and the driver invited Keelyn to get behind the wheel and “drive” for a while…one of the highlights for her.
More info:
George Herbert
Vikram Seth
Salisbury Cathedral
We’ve had quite a busy week. Tuesday Robin and Keelyn Went to the Pollock Country Park and the Burrell Collection. They saw Highland Cows, Clydesdale Horses and Police Dogs being trained.
Friday I went to Perth for a Church History Conference. It was an overnight event held at St. Mary’s Redemptorist Monastary and I gave a paper saturday. I met some of the other Church History folks from around Scotland and had a good time.
I preached today at Wellington Church. It was good to be back in the pulpit. We should have nice calm Sabbath’s rest and be ready to start a new week.