Butler Family Travels

I am a lifelong fan of the writing of JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, but these three gems have shaped who I am and my day to day behavior and attitudes more than any other non-inspired writing.  Our first day driving through the English countryside awakened a resolve to reread them as soon as possible.  Thankfully our hosts here in England own a set and over the last week I did so.  This firmly set our visit to Oxford, home of both these authors, into the category of pilgrimage. “My happiest hours are spent with 3 or 4 old friends in old clothes tramping together and putting up in small pubs.”-CS Lewis. This is how we approached our day in Oxford.  A visit to Lewis house at the Kilns, lunch at the Eagle and the Child and dinner at The Turf with an appropriate amount of wandering about the streets and bookstores of Oxford made a perfect day.

Sarah the Logistics Queen had quite a load of work arranging visit dates and the transport between them for the last bit of our trip.  As time draws shorter, arrangement of the last destinations becomes more interconnected, so a flurry of research and reservations have been necessary. Visits to England, Prague, Amy in Hamburg, Therese, Tobias and kids in Ostersund, and Sofia and the girls in Stockholm, then our final departure from Paris are finalized and the kids and I are so grateful for a Queen who has cheerfully accomplished it for us!

We are learning that the attempt to see and do it all can be counterproductive to our desire to experience a place.  Making a list of the things we would like to do or see before arrival in a city or place is helpful.  Especially if we then do just barely enough of those activities to keep us occupied until our next appointment with a pub.

Turns out we traveled to England so that Sarah and Rebekah could go to the thrift store.  Here they call them charity shops and they are everywhere.  Starbucks and McDonalds don’t have a prayer in the race to be on every corner.  Who wants to see Stonehenge or the tower of Big Ben when there is another charity shop just right there?!

Purpose is medicine for a family habitually driven to do something!  Don’t misunderstand, while we are sure that the passive intake of tourism is therapeutic for us, change of pattern is also difficult. One of our goals in the UK was to visit the Isle of Bute in Scotland.  Sarah’s great, great Grandfather Peter Barr, owned a smokehouse and fishmonger shop in Rothesay that was, and is a successful venture. His son Duncan helped develop the Rothesay Golf Club’s course and was its professional. Our adventures on the journey north from London via the left side of the highway, although extremely stressful for the driver, involved no damage to the car.  We sought lodging at an Inn in a little town that appeared deserted. With the exception of one man on the sidewalk smoking and talking to his phone, we had to assume that in Scotland also, the inhabitants are mainly occupied with Netflix on a Sunday evening. Pulling the pub’s door for Sarah proved us completely wrong.  The place was loudly packed full of Scots, still in their church clothes, preparing for a new week.  We pushed in, contemplated how long we might have to wait just to ask the bar/innkeeper about a room, then returned to the car laughing at how we had just stepped out of the scene of a movie and discussing with the kids how we might be able to bring this bit of culture back to Plain.   After a very pleasant night at a B&B on the mainland, we caught a ferry to the Isle of Bute. We brought our hostess’ greetings to her brother in law who, it turns out, is one of the two employees of Ritchie’s.  Peter Barr opened his fish shop in 1888, operated it for 68 years, and sold it to the Ritchies in 1956. The store changed hands again last year and is now owned by Lord Bute.  Alistair, who was very hospitable, sold us some salmon and invited us to meet him at the smokehouse after lunch. The smoke house has remained unchanged over the 125 years that it has been in operation.  They burn the sawdust of recycled scotch whiskey barrels under racks of fish, and our lunch confirmed that the resulting product is delicious! Rothesay Golf Club, it seems, doesn’t see many visitors during winter.  There was, however, an older gentleman on the practice green who asked if he could help us.  He had read of Duncan Barr in a book and told us that he was playing a round in the morning and that someone might be around to help us if we came back then.  At 9:30 we returned to find a whole group of folks interested in meeting Duncan Barr’s great granddaughter.  They had held a meeting of the club membership the night before to discuss our visit and determined that they would like us to play a round courtesy of the club.  They had also dug into the storeroom and found old blueprints of the course revisions that had been done by Duncan Barr along with the history book of the club that was mentioned earlier.  The hospitality of the http://www.rothesaygolfclub.co.uk/ and our round of golf there was wonderful. The weather that day was one of the most beautiful during our entire stay in the UK!  One of the fellows also remembered seeing the gravestone of Sarah’s ancestors down in the church yard and was able to point us in the right direction to visit it and the home in which the Barrs had lived. So after two days honest toil and discovery of roots accomplished, we return to the life of leisure.  Westminster Abby, everyone?  

This post would make a perfect ‘What the Erf?’ You may be as surprised as we were… 2 feet fresh overnight, then bluebird.  It was a Greek Epic! Believe it; we are not back in Leavenworth!

Ok, folks! We lost traction on the last erfing. We were in Malaysia, but no one was able to guess why we were there. So, here is a new one for you all. Where are we? See if you can be the winner of our 4th What the Erf?

It seems that Rebekah has some Henrietta Willis (100 cupboards, ND Wilson) in her!  Exploring the graves of Endor (I Samuel 28:3-25)

Went to ancient hot springs for a day of soaking and we learned that in Israel one should always carry your Uzi to the Jacuzzi. May you also have a safe and Merry Christmas!

One of Rebekah’s climbing instructors deserves some recognition.  Sammy is a super outgoing, friendly Thai from way down in the southeast of the country.  He and some of his family (Sammy’s cousin Zack was also Rebekah’s instructor) came to Tonsai for the seasonal work of guiding climbing tourists.  They got hooked on the climbing and never leave now, climbing for their own pleasure and skill refinement during low season.  It seems Sammy’s practice is paying off.   Quark is a 5.12b route on the 1-2-3 Wall in Railay.  If that is Egyptian to you, here is the technical definition of 5.12b:  The monkeys and spiders can’t find handholds on this route. If any of you have connections in the climbing industry, Sammy works at Basecamp Tonsai, is a great ambassador for the sport of climbing, and he would love the opportunity to climb elsewhere in the world.