Soccer...I Mean Football

With the Super Bowl coming up this weekend I thought it would be appropriate for me to blog about my first soccer game here in the UK.  Or rather, my first football game.  Now I could get into the fact that the rest of the world calls soccer football and are annoyed that we call it soccer, but I won't.  Although I do find it interesting that the NFL is thinking about holding a Super Bowl in London.  I wonder how that will go over if it does happen.

I didn't have to travel very far for my first match.  King's Lynn has their own team.  They are the King's Lynn Town Football Club...or the Linnets. 

The Linnets are in the United Counties League Premier Division.  That basically means they are several leagues below the Premier League which is where everyone wants to end up.  The cool thing about the football system here is that the teams move around from the different leagues depending on how they do each season.  So, in theory the Linnets could one day be playing against the big boys in the Premier League. 

The stadium is adjacent to the park which makes it really easy to get to.  It is a small stadium, but nice.  It is set up in a way that you are very close to the pitch, or field.  Which makes it all the more easier for the crowd to taunt the players.

On this day the Linnets were going up against Spalding.  Going into this match the Linnets were ranked number 1 in their league. (As far I can tell, they still are which is pretty cool.) 

I have been to a lot of sporting events in my life and every one of them has started with the playing of the National Anthem.  That didn't happen here.  They introduce the teams and that was it.  Apparently that's not something they do here, at any level.  Oh...and as a side note, the drink of choice at the match was tea.  Don't know if I will ever get use to that, although I do like it!

I have been trying to get into football before I ever came over here, but wasn't having much luck.  In fact, I think I really annoyed my friend James with all my questions and arguing with him over some of the rules that I don't agree with.  But being at this match certainly helped.  While I still don't agree with all of those silly rules, it was a fun match.  It is much easier to understand a game when you are watching it live and not on TV.  The Linnets won 3 to 2!  While that sounds like a low scoring game, for football it's actually a pretty high scoring game. 

I can't wait to head into London to see the a bigger team play...and experience those crazy football fans you always hear about!

Oxburgh Hall

Just 20 minutes outside of King's Lynn is a the village of Oxborough.  And it is in that village that you will find the moated manor house Oxburgh Hall.

Oxburgh Hall was built in around 1482 by Sir Edmund Bedingfeld.  It has stayed in the family ever since.  The Bedingfeld's played host to King Henry VII here in August of 1487.  The room where he stayed has been called the King's Room ever since.

The Bedingfeld's were of the Catholic faith.  And this was during the time when England had split and saw the King as the head of the church instead of the Pope.  Apparently the Bedingfeld's didn't agree with that and stuck with their faith.  It must have been for this reason that they had created what is known as a priest hole in the house.   In the event of a raid, the priest would access the hole via a trap door.  When the doors were shut it blends in with the tile on the floor.  These were pretty common back then.  It is one of the few priest hole that you can still crawl into.

There is also a collection of needlework hangings done by Mary, Queen of Scots.  She worked on these while she was in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury, following her escape to England.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to see any of this.  The house closes for 5 months during the winter.  And of course it doesn't open back up until April...when I will be back in the good ol' U.S. of A.  But I was still able to wander around the grounds.  The tea room and gift shops were open, which are both in house, so at least I got to see a little of the inside.

   

The house also has a private chapel on the grounds.  The Roman Catholic Chapel of the Immaculate Conception and St. Margaret was in 1836.  I'm not sure if it is open to the public and if it is, it was of course closed just as the house was.

 

Besides being a bit disappointed for not having the chance to tour the house itself, I still had a really nice time here.  I spent several hours just wondering around the grounds.  The estate has a number of woodland trails and several gardens.  A couple of the trails even have activities for kids to do along the way.  I was actually having fun myself trying to find all the different items that they had posted around the grounds.

One thing that I thought was really interesting was the sundial that is on the house.  I couldn't really find much information about it when I was writing this, but thought you might at least enjoy seeing a picture of it.

I highly recommend visiting here, even if it is during the winter months.  I hear that seeing it with snow on the ground is not to be missed.  If and when it does snow, I think I will make another visit!

Tea with the Queen

Not to far from King's Lynn is Sandringham Estate.  It is the much-loved country home of Her Majesty The Queen.  The "house" is set in 59 acres of gardens in the heart of 20,000 acres.  There have been 4 generations of British monarches living here since 1862.  HM The Queen opened the house to the public in her Silver Jubilee year in 1977.

A friend of mine and I took what turned out to be a really nice Saturday to tour the house and it's grounds.  And it just so happened that it was the last weekend that the house was opened before it closed to prepare for when The Queen comes.  She spends her Christmas here every year.

Walking up to the house we noticed that the shades were all pulled down.  At least they were on the side that we had walked up, which is the side in the picture above.  We started to wonder if the house was even open.  Thankfully it was.  This part of the house is where Prince Charles stays when he is here, so I'm sure that is the reason the shades were pulled.

You enter the house from the back...or the front.  Not really sure which side they would consider the front.  Front or back, the entrance is pictured above.  You actually only get to tour about 4 or so rooms.  And unfortunately, you are not allowed to take any pictures on the inside.  Of course the inside was gorgeous.  There was a lot of history in those rooms, as you can imagine.  What surprised me the most was there was a lot of Oriental items throughout the different rooms.

In honestly didn't take very long to go through all the rooms. But we were able to see the stairs in Prince Charles part of the house.  There were several pictures of horses on the wall heading up the stairs, but that's really all we could see.

The grounds around the house are amazing.  You could spend all day just walking around.  And I think that's what a lot of people do.  We walked around for awhile and then decided to head into museum.  You actually spend a lot more time in the museum then you do the house.  There were a lot of cars on displays and different things about the royal family and their time at Sandringham. 

There is one room in the museum that, well, to be honest, kind of freaked me out a little bit.  It was a room full of mounted animal heads.  You walk into the room and almost come eye to eye with a rhino head.  There were all sorts of different animal heads on all four of the walls.  Apparently they have all been shot by different members of the royal family throughout the 4 generations.

Next to the museum is a little tea shop where we stop to have a cup of tea and some cake.  So here I am having tea with the Queen!  Or at least that's what I'm going to tell people I did.

Just outside of the estate's miain grounds is the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.

I am told that the Queen walks here to celebrate Christmas every year.  You can tour the church, but again, you can't take pictures inside.  It is beautiful inside, but smaller than I thought it would be.  The chruch is only open in the winter months for service.

You can still visit the grounds of Sandringham outside of the 59 acres that the house is on all year long.  There is a country park with nature trials, as well as a restaurant, gift shop and plant centre.

If you are ever in the Norfolk area of England, I highly recommend coming here.  It is well worth the visit. And if you do come, make sure you stop by the main gates and get your picture taken out front!

Castle Rising

I have finally been to my first castle! (Not counting the ones in Disney.)  Castle Rising is about 10, 15 minutes away from where I am staying.  I had actually driven by it once before and didn't realize it.  It is set back a little ways from the road and is surrounded by what use to be a defensive mound.  So, unless you know it's there, it's very easily missed.

I went on a really sunny Saturday, which is probably going to be much harder to come by here in the future.  It was a great day to just wonder around the castle and it's grounds.  There were only a handful of people there that day, so I was able to get a really good look at the place.  It was really neat to go around and think about all the things that had gone there in it's history (it was built around 1140).  And the grounds around the castle are beautiful.

Castle Rising isn't a very large castle...actually they describe it as a stone keep.   And the center of it no longer has a roof...or floors for that matter. When you are there you can make out where the floor use to be, although I don't know how clear that comes across in these pictures.

Now for a little information about Castle Rising.  The castle and defensive mound were originally half their current size.  The present appearence is the result of a major building program of the late 12th or 13th century.



As I said earlier, it was built around 1140.  In the more than 870 years since it has been built it has served as a hunting lodge, royal residence, a mint producing pennies for King Stephen and even housed a mental patient.

The famous period for the castle was when it came to the mother of Edward III, Queen Isabella, following her part in the murder of her husband Edward II.  She was not a prisoner here, but led life like a dowager Queen.  She is said to have died here.

There's not a whole lot more to talk about without sounding like a history book.  It's a great place to bring your family and lots of room for kids to run around.  While this was my first visit there, I'm sure it won't be my last.  Now for some more pictures.

Folklore

Just in time for Halloween, I thought I would share  a great folklore story from King's Lynn. 

There is a place that is called Tuesday Market.  Every Tuesday there is a farmers market here.  All the other days of the week, it is a carpark.  (Parking lot for those of us from the U.S.)

Many, many years ago this use to be the area where they performed executions.  People from the town would gather here to see those punishments handed out.  The story below is about one of those executions that happened near this building. 

In 1590 a woman by the name of Margaret Reed has being burned at the stake for being declared a witch.  As the flames started devouring her, her heart exploded from her chest and smashed against the wall of the house belonging to the priest who outed her.  It is then said that the still beating heart rolled all the way to Ouse (the nearby river) and dissappeared into the waters.

If you look closely, above the middle window on the second floor you can still see where her heart hit the wall.

Have a Happy Halloween everyone!

Routines

Every work day I wake and get myself ready to go.  And of course I always make a cup of tea to take with me!  Once I'm ready I head out to my car. I am now back to driving the first car I was given.  Apparently there was something wrong with the exhaust.  For those of you who are wondering, it's an Audi A3 TDi, manual.  It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to switch gears with my left hand.  Although the car likes to tell me when it thinks I need to switch gears...very annoying!

However, I still think everyone looks odd sitting on the other side of the car.  And I  have to really think about turning onto the correct side of the road when there aren't any other cars on the road. 

Before I have even made it off of the property, I have to open and close this gate every time I come and go!  It's going to be oh so much fun to do that in a downpour.  But it is nice to have that added security.

Everyday I get to drive through this!  It kind of freaked me out the first time I went through it.  It is called South Gates.  There is only one, however it is referred to in the plural because to the arches.  Apparently King's Lynn once had extensive walls and South Gate was one of three gates that guarded the towns entrance.  A gatekeeper was elected every year to keep out any vagrants or strangers, and let in people who “could give a good account of themselves.”  I know quite a few people who wouldn't be able to get into the town back then! :)

Once I have made my way through town, I make my way to the office.  This is just one of the buildings that belong to Bespak.  There are a total of 5 different building.  I have know been working here for 3 weeks.  Time really has flown by!  I feel like I am only just now getting my feet under me. 

Everyone here has been great and very friendly.  I was warned before I came over that the English aren't the most social of people, but everyone that I have met has proven to be the opposite.

I have been given a tour of all the buildings and the thing that stuck out most to me were the break rooms.  Each building has a break room, while the main building has a cafeteria.  You can only find soda machines in the cafeteria.  All the other break rooms only have tea/coffee machines.  I just found that really odd.  Although, the longer I work here, the more sense it makes.  About once an hour someone in my area makes a run for everyone to get some tea...or rather they agrue over whose turn it is! 

I am starting to get out and do a bit more on the weekends.  I'm going to visit my first castle this weekend!  I will get pictures of it posted soon.

Cheers!

Let the countdown begin!

Today is September 1st, which means in 29 days I will be crossing the pond to start my secondment in England. For those of you who don't know what secondment means, let me explain.  It's a fancy way to say work exchange.  And I have been lucky enough to be chosen to work in Kings Lynn, England for 6 months.

Having never been out of the country, you can imagine how excited I am!  I know where I will be living.  A small village just outside of Kings Lynn called West Winch.  I know that I will be driving a manual car while I'm out there.  While driving a manual doesn't worry me, I have been driving one for the last 12 years or so.  What does have me a bit worried is driving a stick with my left hand, while sitting on the wrong side of the car.  Let's just hope I remember to drive on the right side of the road. (The wrong side for us Yanks!)

I have been working on a list of places that I want to see and do while I'm out there.  London, Stonehenge, Hever Castle, Bath just to name a few.  The plan is to take a lot of pictures while I'm there and I will post as many as I can.  If anyone has any suggestions on places that I should see, let me know!

So, at this point, the only thing that I really need to do is pack.  Which may prove harder than I think.  However, I'm not going to worry about it too much at this point.  I still have 29 days.  Let's just hope that the next 29 days don't go by too fast!

I'll post again when it gets closer to the date to let you know how I'm doing with the packing and finishing up at work.