The marvellous sport of fencing
800 years ago, fencing was a way of settling your differences. Now, fencing is an Olympic sport. Additionally there are hundreds of fencing clubs in the USA and well over […]
Category Archives: Musings
I Saw a Child
Every other week (fortnight) I spend a few hours volunteering at the Washington Riding Centre. I enjoy everything about horses. I don’t mind mucking stalls, grooming, tacking up or stuffing […]
Happy Mum’s Day
Today is Mothering Sunday here in Great Britain. Today the kids have carefully wrapped a present for Beth. They are going to cook her favourite lunch this afternoon. And, yes, […]
The way we roll…
Just wanted to share a quick photo with you all. I came into our home school area one day a week or so ago and found that Meg had drawn […]
Edinburgh – Old and New
One of the exciting things about living in the UK is the amazing rail system. For much less than the cost of driving a car the same distance […]
Crazy Busy Fun
I have not been posting much this week because we have all been busy chasing my toddler nephew around all day and crashing quickly into bed at night. I kept […]
Birds of a Feather
The Durham University Botanic Gardens is one of the hidden treasures around here. (Incidentally, students are admitted free.) The Gardens sits near the Howlands Colleges and south of the Palatine […]
Old King Coal
This weekend our favourite local museum opens a new feature . Beamish Museum opens its new pit pony stable in the village colliery. We are looking forward to a trip there […]
Grey Towers of Durham
We have had a very busy and fun filled day. More of my family is here from Alabama including my very adorable baby nephew. Rob went to study but took […]
Scenes from a Saturday morning walk
This morning began with a 2 mile walk. Here are some scenes from along the way. As Meg said #WhereWeLive. I think you can see some of the reasons why […]
100 Days
100 Days! What could you do with 100 Days? We are in unbelief how fast our time here is moving. What should we do with our next 100 days? We […]
Imperfect Perfection
After our volunteer work at the Lego table this week we had a special tour from a friend who knows a lot about the Cathedral. We had heard interesting […]
The Power of the Force
Rob’s supervisor, Prof. David Wilkinson, gave a lecture tonight at our college: St. John’s College, Durham University. David is principal of the College. His daughter is headed overseas this summer […]
Not just in Ireland
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t know how you plan to celebrate the day but the Haynes family will probably bake a few shamrock cookies for our dinner dessert tonight […]
An incredibly Small World
We have this bit of a story from back when we first met Mr. Ray. You can read about our first meeting here https://thehaynesblog.com/2013/09/24/by-shanks-pony/ Read the above post and then […]
Field Trip Friday (err Thursday) #16
On Thursday we took the short 45 minute trip over to York. We wanted to show Andrea and Rebecca this ancient and very lovely city. It is one of our […]
La Cremeria
We took a day trip over to York yesterday with our guests. Andrea and Rebecca had a great time looking around the “Shambles” shops and visiting Clifford’s Tower and York […]
Sweet Home Alabama
We are so thrilled to have our dear friend and neighbour Rebecca, from back home in Alabama visiting for the week. Rebecca is here on her spring break from […]
War Eagle from England
Today’s guest bloggers are our friends from Auburn University: Rebecca and Andrea. When Rob called us and mentioned that his English friend Rusty had a hat collection that included a […]
Tonight
Many of our friends in the US took a leap forward in time this morning. We here in the UK won’t make that jump springing forward for another three weeks. […]
Weekend Happenings
This past weekend was non stop as we had some errands to run and places the kids need to be. Our first stop was to Rusty’s Barbershop to see our […]
Shrove Tuesday – Fat Tuesday
Today in our home county in the US there are many people celebrating Mardi Gras Day or Fat Tuesday. Here in the UK it is called Shove Tuesday or Pancake […]
All the Pretty Little Horses
Those of you that have known me for any length of time know that I love horses. I began riding at age 10 because I was driving my parents crazy […]
Field Trip Friday # 14 “Is Anyone Home?”
Yesterday we bid goodbye to February in the most amazing way, real spring like temperatures. Our tour guide, history teacher, Mr. Ray picked us up and we headed off on […]
The History of England
One of the first things that we did upon moving to this beautiful land, so rich in history, was to purchase an English Heritage membership. It would be a waste […]
GILESGATE JOURNAL 