Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard.
I combined photos of Scotland and England, so the captions are the clue to the location. My Scottish ancestors would no doubt be upset at being lumped in with the British, but my ancient families claim blood from both.
A statue of Hodge, a cat belonging to Samuel Johnson, author of A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755. To the annoyance of his servants, Johnson would buy oysters to feed Hodge. A story I love: “I NEVER SHALL FORGET THE indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat… I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson’s breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, ‘Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;’ and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, ‘but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.’” -James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson 1799
The writing desk of Charles Dickens, at his London home. He later moved to an estate in the countryside.
Standing on the Westminster Bridge looking up at Big Ben.
The view of Lake Derwentwater overlooking Keswick, in the English Lake District.
Lake District. Keswick, England.
Narrow, two-lane road in the Lake District.
The small church that serves the town of Buttermere, England.
Standing on the old stone bridge over Dochart Falls.
Flyfishing in the River Dee, the river that flows next to Balmoral, the Queen's Scottish home. I like his duds.
Oswald's Church, from the 12th Century, in Grasmere, England.
Old stone bridge in Honister Pass, England.
The Saxon Tower in Oxford was built in 1040 and is one of the oldest buildings in Oxfordshire.
The wooden door in the old Bodelian Library first opened in 1602 when the library was built. The Bodelian is one of the oldest libraries in Europe.
The quad area at Wadham College. It was founded in 1640 and involved in the conception of the Royal Science Academy .
Stow-on-the-Wold, England.
The Cotswolds. The small, tidy villages of the Cotswolds are visited by thousands of tourists each year. The well kept homes built with the honey-colored Cotswold limestone, are the result of a more prosperous era. In earlier times, thanks to the breed of sheep known as the Cotswold Lion, people here became wealthy from the wool trade with Europe. Much of the profits from the trade built the homes in these small towns plus a number of beautiful stone "wool churches."
Winchcombe, England in the Cotswold District.
Many of these stone cottages in the villages of the Cotswolds were built when wool was a hot commodity. Now it's tourism.
The Cotswolds.
The Cotswolds. Sometime nice for the tourists to look at.
Cotswold architecture.
Two photos of an of mill in the Cotswolds, England.
The Cotswolds, England
The historic castle in Edinburgh, Scotland, dominates the view of the city.
Seventeenth century church in Cromarty, Scotland.
Presbyterian church in Ballater, Scotland.
Crofter's cabin in Scottish Highlands.
Scottish Highlands.
Me being silly at Dunrobin Castle, near Dornach.
Engineer getting the Harry Potter train ready to roll in western Scotland.
The mountains in the Glencoe Valley are favorite hiking spots for the English and Scots. The valley leads west to sea and the small village of Glencoe, where we spent the night.
