Today I went on a field trip with Ashley's class as an "adult volunteer" (heh, except that I got scolded by Ashley's teacher for having too much fun at lunchtime and "getting the kids TOO excited!") to the Pantiles area of Tunbridge Wells. Tunbridge Wells is a small town which is actually based on a spring which was "discovered" by Lord North (which they all pronounce as "Lawd Nawth") in 1606. The waters were said to contain magical healing properties when you drank or bathed in them (although in actuality, they just had a high iron content, which was apparently something lacking in their diet at that time). Anyway, they built this whole 1600's English-style theme park around this place, with a promenade and then buildings with balconies on either side to watch the people promenading (actually, there's two promenades: an upper and a lower one...the lower one was for the subhuman servants so that they wouldn't get in the way of the aristocrats and their activities....presumably water-drinking). So the promenade was made out of pantiles which were/are clay tiles cooked in square pans, hence "pantiles." I spent the day with Ashley, Tom, Danny and Max. We saw the promenade, the musick gallery, the church of King Charles the Martyr, and the Tunbridge Wells museum. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera along with me, so I decided instead to take some pictures with Ashley after we got home.
I forgot to take one of the Rectory, where I'm currently living, however all of these other pictures are literally within a 2 minute walking distance of the house. So without further ado...
St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church (I couldn't get the whole church in one picture)
As you can see in the last picture, there's a neat-but-creepy cemetary out front of the church which they all refer to as the "graveyard" which makes it even creepier to me!
At one end of the church is the rectory, where we live, but at the other end is this small building called the gatehouse.
Again, I couldn't get it all in one picture, but it's old and beautiful...
At the gatehouse is a simple map of Hartfield, which is the first picture in this next set. I also included various other buildings which are on our dirt road that leads down to the main road.
Finally, here are some pictures of Ashley and I goofing around, playing in the forest, and climbing trees. Ashley is the youngest of the children, age 7, and he's adorable!
Oh, I should also mention that the last picture is of this neat hole thing he showed me in the forest...I put my foot in the picture to give you a sense of its dimensions...
