Monday's Memories: The Kilns, part 3

Before we left The Kilns we walked behind the house to visit what is now the C.S. Lewis Nature Reserve.  It was formerly just part of his property and one of the reasons he bought The Kilns.  In his day it was far outside the Oxford city limits and surrounded by countryside.  Lewis loved that.

We were told how much Lewis loved this pond, how he used to row about in it with friends, including J.R.R. Tolkien.  This brick bench where they used to sit talking was covered up with dirt and clay for many years when it was found and uncovered.

I loved being here and seeing this, but I really loved my husband getting to sit there and think about the conversations that took place on that bench between the men who gave us Aslan, Aragorn, hobbits, and Middle Earth.

 What a special day.

the back of The Kilns

And then there was Lewis' punt, another item once lost and then found.  Apparently it had sunk in the pond where it was discovered.  When KJ saw it he said, "It's a wooden box.  Of course it sunk."  It kept Lewis afloat for many years, though.

It was late in the afternoon by this time, and though I wanted to go visit the cemetery where Tolkien was buried, it was on the other side of Oxford, and we weren't sure how easily we'd be able to find his grave once we got there.  We also had a little drive ahead of us to the pub/inn where we were staying that night.  So we contented ourselves with driving around the corner to the church Lewis and his brother attended.  We'll visit there Friday.

Saturday This and That

• Change on the blog again  I just couldn't handle using a template not powered by Blogger at this point in my life.  Since I know next to nothing about html code it takes me hours to figure out how to make changes that may not even work anyway, and I just don't have time for that.  My children get antsy.
• Summer has been fabulous.  I can't say enough how good it is to have Ella home.  Having her all the time reiterates how little time I had with her during the school year.  She's such a great girl.  I love teaching her and being with her.  James would second that.

• Ella and I are participating in the public library's summer reading program.  We signed up last Thursday.  Ella pledged to read 63 books by the end of July.  She's 17 books into her goal.  I, on the other hand, let Ella talk me into pledging to read 15 books.  This is a puny goal compared to my 15-year-old self, but a seemingly overwhelming one with my present responsibilities.  IT'S A GOOD THING THEY LET ADULTS COUNT AUDIOBOOKS AND MOVIES!  So, I'm one movie into my goal.  Ha!  To my credit, I'm in the middle of The Three Musketeers, and it's a hefty-sized book.

• I got my car back.  After four weeks without it, this has been the first full week of having a car at my beck and call.  It is definitely a luxury, and we left the house every morning this week except for yesterday.  It's 8-9 hours before Daddy comes home.  That's a long time to stay within the confines of our home.  Freedom of movement is bliss.
• James has slept without bars the past two nights.  He didn't get out of bed.  He's been great.  
• I put James in underwear for the majority of the day yesterday.  We had one successful period of him keeping a pair dry and going in the potty.  The rest of the time was spent having accidents on my carpet.  Why do the accidents always happen on the carpet as soon as he steps off the hard floor?
• Speaking of James, he ran a mystery fever Wednesday night-through lunch yesterday.  He had no other symptoms.  
• I get to take pictures of two babies this weekend.  I'm excited about the preciousness of that.  A 6-month old baby boy and a 10-day old little girl.  
• We're celebrating KJ all weekend with his favorite things.  I came back from the store last night with fresh salsa, ice cream sandwiches, pigs in a blanket, Poppyseed Chicken fixin's, and Wal-Mart brand Root Beer.  I promise that's his favorite.  I also plan on picking up a Barbecue Chicken Pizza from Cici's on Father's Day.   He's a dad worth celebrating.

• We're anticipating a visit with cousins next week!  But please pray for the dear Kizziahs.  Claire-bear got a stomach bug, so we're praying for the germs to stop with her.  Poor sweet girl.

 

And I think that's about it for us.  Enjoy your weekend!

Friday's Flashback

Our tour of The Kilns ended in the dining room with some complimentary Turkish Delight.  I had some in college that I didn't care for (no chewy, fruity desserts for me!), so I let KJ have my portion as well.  He seemed to like it.

Our guide said that Americans were always disappointed in Turkish Delight.  "They always expect something chocolate...".  

 I would love windows like that.

Walking out the door, up a step, and through this arbor led to the garden.  It was a very peaceful sort of place.

 And Chuck Colson is with the Lord now.

That's an amazing thought.

 Looking to the left from the arbor

 to the right

This bench is at the far end of the garden, and there is another entrance to the garden in front of it.  I made sure KJ took several pictures of me here, too, since I was the one holding on to the camera most of the time.  

 Lewis' Private Entrance

This was another little separate area separated by a hedge.  I walked around the house with the video turned on and got some very shaky, very crunchy-sounding feet in gravel rocks-footage that perhaps I will show anyway, despite its fine quality.

Addendum:  I am having a hard time getting this template to let me increase the width of my blog, so the right edge of all these pictures is cut off.  

Projects

I thought I might share a couple of projects I worked on in the past couple of months. 

The first one was for my mom on Mother's Day.  She loves pictures of old doors, and I took several in England with her in mind.  She requested a print similar to prints like this.  Here's what I put together for her.  I'm happy to say she loved it.

I kind of love it, too.  I loved being at those places.  And I found Jane Austen's handwriting as a font online to use on the bottom.  Ta-da!

I also put together birthday invitations to my nephew's amazing Lord of the Rings birthday party.  I wish I could have been there.

His creative daddy came up with the tagline for the invite.

(Click to make larger.)
 

Let me know if you'd like a custom-designed birthday party invite!  They're pretty fun to put together.  :)

Ella's First Gymnastics Lesson

Ella attended a birthday party at one of the gymnastics centers in our city a few weeks ago, and I was reminded that they had a summer program.  It looked like so much fun and such good exercise, and I wanted Ella to have a regular time each week in a group environment with other kids.  Ella feels a little apprehensive about new experiences, but I convinced her signing up for gymnastics was a good idea.  It didn't take too long to win her over, and she became really excited about doing it.  We went to her first lesson last week, and it was so much fun.

 Waiting for the lesson to begin

Another advantage gymnastics had for me was that the set-up is such that I can be in the room watching, but I'm way far away up in a balcony looking down on the gym.  I'm there, and I get to see, but I'm not so close I'm a distraction to Ella.

They started out by running a few laps around the mat, and then they did some stretching.  It brought me so much joy to watch Ella run and be so happy.

Ella concentrates just like her daddy does...

with her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth.

 There she goes!

Next they did some work on the bars and some jumping on the mats.

Next they practiced backwards and forward rolls, jumping on the trampoline, and climbing on the rope.  Ella did a great job at everything, but she may just need to join the track team, because that girl can sprint.

Fearlessly into the pit

The only thing that made her nervous was being up on the beam, but I think her confidence will grow.  A couple of the girls fell off last week with no harm done.

 

We had a really fun girls' day out that day.  My car was still in the shop (for about the 4th week in a row), so we made the most of KJ's day home from work.  We had lunch out and did some shopping.  I'm looking forward to this week's lesson.

Monday's Memories: The Kilns, part 1

When we first came into The Kilns we joined the four others who had made appointments and the lady who was living and leading the work there at the time.  

The Entrance Hall

The room to the right is the main living area where we met with a young man and woman of college age whose only exposure to Lewis was Narnia and a man and his wife, the man being an avid collector and studier of all things Inklings.  I snapped these pictures at the end of our tour while everyone was looking at his rare books.

Our guide started out by sharing with us a little of the history of Lewis buying this house, and it was really meaningful to me in the way it illuminated the character of the man whose writing we loved.  The story began with Lewis as a young man enlisting in WWI, which has been a forgotten war for me in a lot of ways, something I didn't know a lot about, but since our trip I've been more aware of the ways WWI changed history and of how it wiped out almost an entire generation of young men.  We were told that many of the young men made promises to each other that they would look after each others families if they were to die in the war.  Lewis made one such promise to a friend and fellow Irishman, and he kept it.  

His friend died, leaving behind him his divorced mother and younger sister.  When the war was over this mother and daughter were provided for by Lewis.  When Lewis, his brother, and Mrs. Moore bought this house outside of Oxford they had the title put in her name so that no one could take it from her if something were to happen to them.  The generosity of this struck such a chord with me.  

While looking up information for this post I found that Mrs. Moore was apparently not a very easy person to live with, and Warren was often unhappy with how she kept his brother from his writing with household tasks.  But Lewis honored that promise he made to his friend, and even when Mrs. Moore was older and living in a facility where she was cared for, he visited her every day.

During the period of time when the Lewis brothers lived here alone, the bachelors weren't too fastidious about housekeeping.  The walls in the living room above are painted the pale yellow to mimic what they looked like during the time a lot of smoking was done in there with no washing up or airing out.  

Just as in any family (at least, my family did this a good bit growing up), people switched rooms depending on the need of the moment.  This downstairs room was once occupied by Lewis' wife, Joy, when she was sick with cancer.  Her picture is above the fireplace.

Each of the bedrooms were restored by donations, and a plaque told whose room it was and also contained a dedication by the donor.

This is the other side of Warnie's study.  This house, like Jane Austen's, was a really wonderful house.  I love English houses.  I hope I have one some day.

 His bedroom adjoined his study.

This room was added on to the house (see the brick wall above?) to be used by those coming to stay at the Kilns to work on papers or attend seminars.  It's a cozy library of sorts.  The sign in the above picture is the one used by The Eagle and Child in the days of the Inklings (The Bird and Baby, as they referred to it).  Someone rescued it from the alley when the pub was being remodeled. 

  

Now this was cool to see:  a copy of Lewis and Joy's marriage license. It was interesting to hear more personal stories of what she was like, one of which involved her and a shotgun.

Up the stairs we went.  At the top of the stairs we found the attic.  You can read more about this world created by Lewis and his brother as children in Surprised by Joy.

 

At one time Mrs. Moore occupied the adjoining room to Lewis', and he had the door bolted shut and a metal stairway and door cut into the wall of his room, which you'll be able to see in some later outdoor pictures.  He then had his own private entrance to his bedroom.  In later years when Mrs. Moore was no longer living at the Kilns, the adjoining room was used as Lewis' study.  Since those were the years he wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, it is most likely they were written from this room.  

 Returning downstairs we visited the kitchen and the room off the kitchen which was Douglas Gresham's when he was a boy.  The house had fallen into some disrepair during the reign of the bachelors, and Douglas narrowly escaped having the ceiling fall on his head.  I think Joy heard the noise of it just in time and after that she oversaw some renovations in the house.

I think that concludes your tour for now.  Hopefully part 2 will take place on Friday.  Spending two days a week going through our pictures is making me realize just how much we did during our two weeks.  It was a pretty comprehensive tour.  And pretty wonderful, I might add.