Newbury and Surroundings – Week 1

Newbury

We went to Newbury first to reconnect with our friend, Lynne Wilson, who returned home from her time in Seattle about 2 years ago. We say reconnect but we didn’t really have to “re” anything. We picked up right where we left off. Such a sweet time being together again. She gave us a great tour of London and left us in the care of farmer Nigel who showed us the English countryside. While he drove us around he also told us many stories of how God had answered his prayers for delivering calves, selling calves, and sharing the gospel with other farmers in England. It was a grand time.

This is one of farmer Nigel’s cows. They are called Double Muscled and are specially bred. They have more muscles on their bodies and especially on their hind end, which means more meat on the cow. This calf loves posing for the camera.

The other place Nigel took us was to see the Queen’s stables where she raises the foals for her race horses. They were a picture out of an English country storybook.

He also showed us where they exercise the race horses in the early morning. It would have been fun to see a 100 race horses running up the English countryside hillocks. That’s for the next visit.

We also got to meet some of Lynne’s friends at their weekly Bible study. This week was full of meeting some of our UK brothers and sisters.

We went off to Oxford on our own. The college grounds are beautiful. The age of the buildings is unbelievable. We went to Keble College Chapel to view a painting and ended up getting treated to a student practicing on the pipe organ.

It was lovely to sit in this chapel hearing the organ and thinking about all those who had worshipped there.

We climbed up the tower of the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin that has been in Oxford since 1280!

I was afraid when we got to the top and outside to view the city (just above the clock in this picture). My (Jane) desire was to stand up and see this magnificent view but my irrational fear was keeping me seated at the entrance to the outside. My desire rose and my rational mind said, “Really, Jane, this tower has stood since the 1200’s and you think it is going to collapse today?” I stood up and soaked in the view (holding Marc’s hand of course).

We got a mere taste of the UK and are already thinking we’ll need to come back again and stay a bit longer.