TheSecondTimeAroundEngland

 Our first day of the new regime.  We slept in, and then went about our day's activities.  It is an interesting thing...we have more than enough to keep us occupied - happily occupied.  We are living in this city that is so very charming that we have to keep pinching ourselves.  We are serving with young missionaries that we love, and we adore the young adults that have come into our lives.  We are comfortably esconced in this lovely little apartment, where we thoroughly enjoy the ever-changing sky and we delight in the many beautiful and varied sights 30 minutes in any direction from here. But life right now is unsettling. This evening as we listened to the mission zoom meeting, one of our YSAs forwarded the latest press report from the government.  As of Wednesday night at midnight, we are going into a lockdown similar to the one experienced in March.  It will last until December 1.    The numbers show that in March one person in every...

 Once again, I applaud the British Health Care system.  Both SK and I needed to have our thyroid medications refilled, and unfortunately we have to see a doctor for a "consultation" in order to get them.  It was a matter of making the appointment, going in and sitting down across a desk from a young man, chatting for a few minutes, handing him the results of our lab tests done in July, and walking out with new prescriptions.   He took my blood pressure, which was high at first.  When he took it five minutes later it was not only down, but on the low side!  I told him the reason it was high at first was because of the presence of the large scale on the floor.  He laughed and said, "You don't have to go near it!"  Now isn't that a lovely doctor's visit? I guess the only thing about it that wasn't lovely was the bill. $250.  That is standard if you are not a member of the national health care system.  We are insured through the church ...

 Well....it was bound to happen.  Oxford City Council announced today that the city is moving to Tier 2 in the fight against COVID.  Numbers have been rising, and now it isn't just the student population.  Now it is moving into the population at large and the most vulnerable in particular. It begins on Saturday morning.  We will have some YSAs here tonight for dinner and a little socializing.  We had our special "The Sound of Music" scheduled for Saturday evening, and so in an emergency move, rescheduled it for tomorrow night.  That will be the official end of our having people here in the flat, for who knows how long. From all the dire predictions we hear, it may be a very long time before things get anywhere near back to order or normalcy. We got a letter from the visa department.  It was so exciting to see that it was from the government....but it turned out to be just a letter saying that they were sorry this process is taking so long, but tha...

 It was a leisurely and lovely day.  With rain and dramatically dark skies, I did laundry and cleaning.  I listened to podcasts and SK and I visited about all kinds of things.  After fifty-two years of marriage you may wonder what we have to talk about.  Everything.  We talk to each other more now than ever it seems.  There are sometimes long stretches of time where we are each busy working on our own that we do not speak, but when we sit down to eat, or when we are drifting off to sleep or waking up, we talk.   I purchased some ear buds so that I can listen to podcasts in the car without disturbing SK, but I hardly ever use them because (apart from my GPS Assisting duties) we invariably want to talk.   We never tire of the subject of this mission, the many little miracles we have thus far seen, and the profound blessing of working with these amazing young adults.  We marvel at their vision, their wisdom, their spiritual depth ...

Last Spring, I signed us up for the Joseph Smith Senior 5K run (or walk).  We received a tshirt and we were to take our pictures with our shirts on and send them in.  With all that has been going on, I forgot.  But we received a letter saying it wasn't too late, so we did a 3K today....just enough to get out and get a picture.  From March to August, we often did a 5K around the Gilbert Temple, and around Gilbert....but I just never snapped a picture.  For one thing, pictures of people melting in the heat are never attractive. We took a walk along the Thames, into our favorite little church and cemetery, and hailed three women passing by to come and snap our pictures.  SK was the one who did the hailing....the three were so happy and kind to help, but my goodness!...there they were out in 50 degree weather with miniskirts on and cleavage down to their navels.   I tried not to laugh at SK as he patiently explained to them that we wanted the church (...

 The sunshine was radiant today, spilling itself lavishly down over the landscape.  We took a lovely walk in the afternoon and found a new walk by one of the Thames tributaries.  I think it will be awhile before we exhaust this city for unique walks.  How I love this city, this land! Aren't these signs charming? Trees around here are amazing. Looking out the windows today was an ever-changing display of beautiful skies and clouds.  At times it was dark and threatening, and then the sun would break through, the clouds roll by and a glorious blue would reign over this fair part of the world.  It is breathtaking. We had four young people over for Family Home Evening...all Brits.  They were wonderful.  Don't roll your eyes or laugh, but I served - BBQ Pizza!  In my defense, none of them have ever had it before.  Only one of them had been here for dinner, and I didn't serve that.  One was here for his first time.  He is from Canterb...

 Our Sacrament Meeting this morning seemed so sparse, and yet we were following guidelines.  No more than 50 in attendance.  The meeting room isn't gigantic by any stretch of the imagination, but everyone sitting primly alone, it seemed cavernous. Grace came today!  She was baptized nearly a year ago, but because of pressures from her family quit coming in January.  The missionaries reached out and she has been now two weeks in a row, and I believe she is happy to be back.  I spoke with her at length.  She is painfully shy and awkwardly quiet, so that when having a conversation with her, I have to carry on with most of the conversation.  It's not hard, but sometimes I just feel like I am running off at the mouth! I also met Anne, a woman a few years young than I.  We had a lovely conversation through our masks and standing 6 feet apart.  She has been a member for years and years but hasn't been active for most of that time.  The you...

There has been a steady drizzle of rain throughout the day and now as I write, I am listening to the gentle pitter-patter of the rain on the windows.  Why is that so very beautiful to my ears?  Tonight was all about comfort.  From the meal of chicken pot pie and rolls dripping with butter and jam, to the death by chocolate cake topped with whipped cream, and ending with the first half of "The Sound of Music," this was going to be a great evening! This looked beautiful before we cut into it! And all went well, until time to cast the movie to the television.  I have always had a theory that there are technical gremlins who exist solely to mess up any plans you may have to do a powerpoint, cast a short clip of something or watch a full movie.   Whenever we try to cast something onto the television in the daytime, SK and I can enjoy it immediately.  But once we have a few people here expectantly waiting to see an old movie with us, boom....no luck.  I...

 As we prepared for our walk in the early afternoon, SK asked, "Where shall we walk today?"  I noted that we could walk in any direction and find beauty.  He then said, "Let's get in the car and drive...then we'll walk wherever we stop!"  It sounded like a good plan. He actually checked a map and decided we ought to go to Burford.  GPS said 20 miles and 30 minutes away.  We set out west.  We traveled over some lovely countryside to a beautiful little village known as the Gateway to the Cotswolds.  The Cotswolds are described in Wikipedia as: "an area in south central and south west England comprising the Cotswold Hills, a range of  rolling hills  that rise from the meadows of the upper  Thames  to an  escarpment , known as the Cotswold Edge, above the  Severn Valley  and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the  bedrock  of  Jurassic   limestone  that creates a type of  grassland ...

 The delicious thing about Oxford - and living in the center of Oxford - is that you can set out in virtually any direction for a walk, and find magnificent scenery.  We struck out this afternoon, walking 3 or 4 blocks on a familiar road.  We passed a park and headed out across a beautiful outrageously green field of grass, lined on either side by tall stately trees and tangled woods. Within five minutes we were on a river-side trail, along with a few other pedestrians and bicyclists.  We walked for an hour, and I just kept snapping photos.  It was incredibly beautiful.  I told SK we ought to buy a summer home here.  😂 The view of the river was gorgeous, but I really don't know how to take a selfie! Mohana...You Ugly! I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and was dismayed that the pumpkin flavor was almost non-existent.  It must have been the can of pumpkin....I don't know.  I baked a pan full, then baked another pan but put walnuts in with ...

 "Cheers!'  How many times have you been told that when you signed off on a telephone call?  Twice today, the person on the other end merrily ended the call with that delightful word.  We reached the end of the conversation, and the man said, "Have a good day!...cheers!" Just like grocery store clerks in America say "Have a good day!" with hardly a thought, perhaps the word cheers falls into the same category.  But it is such a nice way to say good-bye, I think it surely must be heartfelt.  However, a quick look at the Cambridge English Dictionary confirms it is an empty word meant to mean goodbye.  Oh well....that's Cambridge for you. We went for our flu jab this morning.  We were sent to a pharmacy that takes cash for payment instead of the national healthcare system.  The GPS said 28 minutes.  SK said "I'll feel better if we leave 45 minutes early." I said, "Let's not be paranoid....I don't want to sit there for 15 minutes ...

 Seven weeks today in England.  Time is slowly ticking by.  SK said, "Well, that means we have had an 8-month mission, even if we were to have to leave now.  But right now we are living on the current mission motto:  "Expect a Miracle."  We fully expect a miracle, whether that means being granted an extension or having our application lost in the system for another 11 months!!!! Our walk this morning was nothing to write home about, about a mile and a half.  But by the end of the day, we had logged in closer to 3 miles.  It was a very pleasant day though - with temperatures in the low 60's.  Right now as I write, it is 57, and will go down to 55 at the lowest.  Every day this week looks similar....lows in the 40s and highs in the 50s with an average of 11 points difference from day to night.  How I love this weather!!!!  (100% chance of rain tomorrow - hoorah!) Melissa sent me a very high-quality recording of Bethany playing Br...

 Ah Monday.  It is a beautiful thing. My day started out with a phone call from Dave,  wondering how we are doing.  Living in London, they are living with much stricter laws now about getting together with anyone, about travel and about locking down in this COVID crisis. Oxford actually has numbers nearly as high as London, but the numbers are primarily among students at the city's two universities.  People in the 18 to 30 age range tend not to be fearful of getting the illness, probably because they think they are invincible - nothing new about that.  Of course the news reinforces their beliefs because statistics show that they are most likely to have a mild case and then move on with their lives. Oxford is saying that most of the at-risk segment of the population do not socialize with that younger set of people, so it will not lock down the city.  All very interesting, and all causing a bit of a dilemma for SK and me.  We have four meals schedul...

For the first time in 7 months, I attended Church today! It was truly lovely. There were about 50 people there. We sat, scattered throughout the chapel/cultural hall, sitting alone or in pairs, each wearing our masks. We were served the bread in little sacramental plastic cups. As one young man with plastic gloves and a mask served us, we each picked up our cup, partook and then kept our cup. The same thing happened with the water.  It was truly nice to be in a church and partaking of the sacred emblems with those dear members of the Oxford 1st and 2nd Wards. After Church was over, we came home and had about an hour before four young women came to have lunch with us.  Three of them are British, and I fixed a very British lunch.  Ha!  They were all gracious and seemed to love it....having two helpings each.  It was - I explained - Americanized - which covers any inadequacies.  It was Cottage Pie, which is basically a flavorful meatloaf topped with mash...

 3.6 miles today!!!  I don't know what you think about it, but that is a great accomplishment for a sedentary couple of ages 71 and 77.  You would think it would be most remarkable for the 77-year-old, but he just keeps going.  No, it was most remarkable for me, since we haven't walked that far in a few months.  We will continue to walk as much as possible, we will continue to take our vitamins C and D, and we will continue to try to get a nightly good night's sleep.  It may not sound like much, but we feel that it is something we can do to help our immune systems.  Now, if we could just stop eating sugar! There were young scholars everywhere clad in their black and white.  It was matriculation day....whatever that means in Oxford.  We hobnobbed with the best of them as we walked along the Thames River near Christ Church and College.  We passed by many rowing teams and their boat house.    Look!  SK is on the right - takin...