This week has a been a busy one of playing catch up on a lot of projects, writing our term papers for the class we took in Kansas, getting settled back into UK life, and catching up with friends here after our 3 week absence. I wish I could say that the fatigue of traveling made me want to stay quietly at home, but after a day or 2 of quiet resting at home I'm ready for some adventure again. :) A friend is coming at the end of February, and I have high expectations for adventure when she comes, but until then I'm looking closer to home for interesting things to do.
Today we visited the village of Holywell- it is indeed the location of a holy well, as the name implies. :) I love the names of places here- the names are often 1000 or 1500 years old. Holywell's pub traces it's history back to 560 AD as a matter of fact! I don't know how old the well is, but it's fed by an underground spring. Anyway it's a cute little village with it's fair share of ancient houses, and seems to have quite a few wealthy residents with all the mazdas and other rich person cars we saw driving around. We had a very good lunch at the pub, which is interesting in it's own right. Apparently the pub is built over top of the grave of a Juliet someone or other, who committed suicide and per the custom of the time was buried at the crossroads, where the pub now stands. The stone covering her supposed grave is visible inside the pub, and people have claimed to see her ghost there.
One of the most amusing things about Holywell is how close it is to our house, yet it takes 30 minutes to get there! Holywell is on the opposite side of the River Great Ouse from Swavesey- we can bike to the point across the river from the pub in like 10 minutes. But there's no bridge- there is only one road bridge across the river, and it's in St Ives. There's a new bridge for the guided busway to use that cyclists will be able to use (if it ever gets done) which means more tasty lunches at the The Old Ferry Inn. :)
Tomorrow the international team is throwing a Lunar New Year party for our asian friends. We expect about 40 people to be there, and a Chinese friend and I are assembling the ingredients for jao-tse (Chinese dumplings) and will get our Chinese friends there to make them with us. It just doesn't seem like a New Year celebration without making jaotse together! I'm happy to celebrate the holiday with Chinese friends- I always miss my Chinese friends who are scattered around the world on this holiday. It's a bit like Thanksgiving I guess- people travel 2 or 3 days from their work in the cities into the countryside to spend the holiday with their families, and sometimes it's the only visit they'll make all year. The phone lines will be busy with people calling home to China from the US and UK. If you have a Chinese friend you can wish them Happy Spring Festival- the official holiday is January 26th, which is Monday. Monday begins the Chinese year 4707, and is the year of the ox. To my Chinese friends, 新年快乐! (Xin Nian Kuai Le for everyone else. :D )
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