Nain's thoughts: 2004

2004 was mostly about building. We didn't do anything major on the home place, except to get rid of two years of weeds and junk on the outside and bring the landscaping up to snuff again.

Dick's main effort was the house in Heavener - the one that was burned out. If you remember the photos from the previous blog, you will see the transformation of the little bathroom:

and the living room. We had to remove the fireplace that shows up on the prior photo. The floor was damaged and the fireplace had actually fallen down slightly into a hole.

I was especially proud of the kitchen. It was such an unbelievable mess that I never could have envisioned that we could make it look like this:

There wasn't too much to do on the outside, but Dick did put a couple of decks on it - a small one at the back and this one at the front. The door led directly into the kitchen.

When we had Heavener finished, Dick turned his attention to the back of our property where we had decided to build ourselves a new home. It had a great view of the hill. He built the garage first - a three car garage:

I did make a trip to England again. Mair and I stayed with nephew Ian first and were joined by Kitty. She stayed with us for our full trip and we stayed with Gareth and Jane in Southport and also Sarah and kids in the north. For me it was the best trip I took in view of the places we visited. Winchester Cathedral was one of the first, a magnificent builting seeped in history. It houses the oldest existing bible in the world and we were privileged to see it. It's a long story on how that happened as it is isn't open to general viewing, but we happened to get talking with one of the curators of the Cathedral and I think she was impressed with the knowledge that all three of us had on English history (especially Kitty), so she took us to see it.

I personally was fascinated withe stained glass windows at the front of the cathedral. It was spectacular and yet didn't have the usual obvious depictions of saints, and biblical happenings. It had the look of modern art. I asked our 'guide' and it seems that when Oliver Cromwell was in power (the only time England was without a king or queen), he declared 'war' on all of the catholic churches and his 'army' went into them and caused enormous damage. This particular window was smashed into tiny pieces. The pieces were kept and later created into this wonderful mass of color.

While we were in Southhampton, Martyn was our main guide (the oldest of Kitty's children). He was retired Royal Navy and still worked on the Naval Yards. He took us on a tour of Nelson's ship which was fascinating, and also to 'work in progress' on the "Mary Rose". This ship was Henry VIII's flagship which had been sunk. It was discovered by divers and raised. They are now working on it to restore it to its original condition. We were able to walk along a platform in the building where this is taking place and see it in its recovered form.

Ian took us to Hever Castle - that was a special request from me. Hever Castle was the home of the Boleyn family and Thomas Boleyn was part of King Henry VIII's court. Mary and Anne Boleyn were raised in this house. Mary Boleyn was the first of Henry's mistresses and bore one of his children. But it was Henry's later passion for Anne that led to his break with the catholic church because they wouldn't allow him to divorce his first wife. Thus the Church of England was established with Henry at its head and Anne became wife number 2. My special interest in this family, is because Dick (and subsequently most of you readers) are descendents of Mary Boleyn and her husband (after the affair with Henry).