SHREWSBURY ABBEY

Sunday, March 2nd, 1997 Shrewsbury, England

Met in the breakfast room at 9:30 am for a wonderful English Breakfast and good conversation. At 10:15 we rushed off to the Catholic Church and arrived a wee bit late but prior to the gospel. The children were at a separate meeting when we arrived and all of their chairs had signs on them reserving their spaces. After the sermon they marched in together with a cross which had drawings that they had done relating to the readings taped to it. They presented it with the offertory gifts and the cross was placed in front of the alter for the remainder of the mass.

We especially enjoyed the lovely music lead by a lady with a beautiful soprano voice. Everyone felt very good when we left the church. Split up for the afternoon…Randy, Patti and Barbara took the van to go to the flea market outside of town. Jim walked the town and I got the whole afternoon to work on this story.

We all went our own way for dinner. Randy and Patti ate India food; Barbara, Jim and I made a trip to Burger King for a good, old American treat! Then we walked around town to see the Lion Hotel; met a local who told us that the first American flyers were based at Shawbury and used the old post office as their local pub headquarters.

Also walked over to see the Abbey and Shrewsbury Quest where the TV shows were filmed. Walked into the hotel and found Patti and Randy just returning from their dinner. Jim and I went up to see Randy and Patti’s room. Ate the mints from their dinner and pressed Jim’s gloves! Randy and Jim started tossing coins at the wall...a bit of friendly competition. Went on for about five minutes. Randy kept it going in the hallway.

Back at the room, we again tried AOL and found several messages including one from Barbara’s son, Dennis. Now she has two sons to write to on AOL. Typed more letters and sent them on AOL before bringing this story up to date. This computer sure comes in handy. Think I'll start taking it on all my trips. I have a small Sony Viao Laptop that is easy to handle for me. Don't think I'd consider traveling with a standard laptop. Jim doesn't like the small keys but I'm fine with it. Tomorrow we move again!