Life . . . Reframed: Back to Stamford - can't get enough of this town

We went back to Stamford today - I’m officially in love with this town. The people are so friendly, and the town itself is a treat to look at no matter where you stand. We wanted to go because it was market day, and also to go tour the town hall - Max Sawyer the town councillor we met the other day highly recommended it, and it’s only open to the public on Fridays.

The market was really like any other market - lots of fresh produce, baked goods and handicrafts. We bought a couple of paintings from a local artist. As it turns out, they are photographs that he then modifies using some sort of computer techniques. Quite pretty, and they will remind us of this beautiful city when we are back in Canada. We mailed them home - hope they make it! When we were in Mexico in February, we met Brenda and Nick who make a living doing the same thing. Something for me to check into!

We then went to the town hall and had a personal tour (no-one else showed up for it!). The volunteer guide was really fantastic - the building itself is full of history - there is a copy of the Magna Carta there, as well as old vellum (animal skin) scrolls of the city’s charter with the seal of Elizabeth I on one of them. I always thought of a seal as something small, and polite-sized like a quarter. Uh - no! This one was bigger than my hand! There were many items in the hall that dated back to the 1400s - one ‘punch bowl’ valued at 1/2 million pounds, among other things. Their mayor is not elected, but rather must be someone who has served several terms as a councillor, and is then appointed by the council at some point. Their councillors are seated in a half-circle in the room in order of the number of votes they received! You must move along that row until you reach the far end before you can be considered mayor material! I was once on the board of the Vancouver Executives Association - they have a similar model, and I always thought it was so much better than other boards I had been on.

The seal of Elizabeth I. Probably about 6' across. It's under glass
so there is a bit of a shadow here. You can see the velum scroll here
attached to the seal with a braid.

I just love the history that's so visible everywhere here.

That large silver bowl at the top is worth a half million
pounds. And the book in front? Minutes of the town
meetings dating back to the 1400s.

Bronze measures belonging to the town, along with a beautiful
enlargement of a picture of the town done in the 15th century.

There is another big home in the area - Burghley House, so we decided to do a drive-by and see what it looked like from the outside - they are all starting to look alike! It wasn’t open to the public; however, the grounds were open so we took a walk through - no charge for this one, and many of the locals were there having picnics, along with a number of school groups enjoying a sports day. School is still on in England - apparently they don’t finish until the second week of July, and they have only 6 weeks holidays.

Rather elaborate gates

I just can't even imagine living in a place this big.

Spectacular roses lining the driveway. The fragrance
in the air was amazing.

On the way home, we took a few backroads so Glen could get a picture of this railway bridge - the Welland Viaduct - in the middle of nowhere that has something like 82 arches. Couldn’t get the whole thing into one photo! Mostly this is for our friend Ron, a railroad buff. But it was a much more fun drive back than taking the main highway. We needed to pick up a couple of grocery items, so we stopped in one of the little towns we passed through - it had quite a number of homes with thatched roofs - so pretty. We also saw this old-fashioned windmill. As a side note, we do see a lot of the ‘modern’ style windmills all over England, although not the large ‘farm’ style acres of them like in California.