The Bird and the Baby

Yes, yes. I didn't take me more than a couple of days to run across the famous stomping grounds of Lewis and the other Inklings. I felt like such a tourist standing there with my camera making sure I got a good shot, but I couldn't resist. I only poked my head in and looked around for a minute, but I plan to call again.

This morning I got up around 8:30 to lay claim on a good shower and then headed over to Crick, where we at the Vines had been warmly invited for a "pancake breakfast" before 11:15 church services. The pancakes were an experiement for the British Junior Dean running the house (basically, the RD of the place) and they ended up coming out something closer to crapes than pancakes, but they were still pretty good. I hand Nutella, something akin to peanut spread, and something like cereal inside mine.

After breakfast, I took a short 5 minute walk to St. Andrew's Anglican church for morning services. I guess you could describe the service as an Evangelical-High Church format, meaning it was very structured, with ornate surroundings, but they didn't look at you funny if you held your hands wrong when you went up for communion. We sang and did congregational readings out of a modernized version of the Common Book of Prayer. All in all, it was a very pleasant experience, and the church members were very warm and friendly following the service.

The service concluded about 12:30, and knowing we had a scheduled tea engagement back at Crick at 3:30, a group of us (including Evan Donavan, Cara and Brendon) set out to see some of the city. Before too long I had sniffed out a second-hand book store, so we spent a little time browsing, but most of the time we walked around. It was a little cool and it drizzled pretty much all day, but I understand I better get used to that.

At 3:30, we made our way back to Crick for tea and chewed the fat for a while. It gets dark here in the winter between 3:30 and 4, so by the time we were ready to leave it was full-fledged night. So we made the 50 minute or so treck back across town to The Vines in the dark, but it wasn't a big deal.