Recap of last Eighteen months

I'm sitting here listening to the pouring down rain and wind that is shaking the house. I had no idea it was so windy here. There is nothing more beautiful than a sunny English day in the countryside.......but there are just not enough of them. Alan and I are both still very happy we took on this adventure but we are glad we are on the down hill side of it now. To recap we have been to Egypt, Brussels, Italy, Wales, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France (several times) and Spain. We have covered England in all directions including the most southern point. Our plans for next year so far are Holland, Poland (just me with the girls), Germany, Italy, Ireland and Prague.

If we can work out some long weekend we'd also like to go to Iceland but I'm not sure we'll make it. Then in the spring of 09 we'll go on our Photo shoot in Africa then I'll head back to GA to prepare a house for us to settle down in. As much traveling as we have done this year....I believe next year we'll beat it. Time will tell. Of course we are still looking forward to lots of visitors also. Well I'm going to close now and I'll see you next in Georgia. YIPPEE

Mt Rigi Switzerland

After a marathon ride due to traffic and bad weather we arrived in Switzerland. It will make you feel like a "world traveler" when you get ready for a trip and have to carry four different countries currencies. We needed US dollars for the base, British pounds of course, Euro for France and Luxembourg (yes it's a very small country...who knew?) then Switzerland Franc. We had a wonderful time even though the weather could have been a lot better. We spent the first day in Luceren and visited a beautiful church and the Lion Monument. It had a lot of good places to shop and eat. The next day we visited a couple of typical Alps villages. That is where some of the snow pictures were taken. Then Saturday we went up to the top of Mt Rigi. This is where the bad weather was really a problem as it was practically a white out. If you got 10 feet from anything or anyone you could not see them. Of course we missed being able to see the beautiful view also. But the ride up and down the mountain was great. A lot of fun and interesting to see how the people living on the alps get around. Mt Rigi is also where Pontinus Pilate's soul was said to have been exiled. We had a "traditional" Thanksgiving dinner .....Swiss style. We also had a lot of good German food as we were in the German speaking part of Switzerland. See you all soon.......

Switzerland Thanksgiving

One Man's Journey to Heaven

First let me say there is NOTHING I can write that will express the beauty and emotion of the panels I viewed yesterday in the Bath Abbey. The artist is Sue Symons a retired artist who wanted to do something with textiles and calligraphy based on the life of Christ. It was to be a hobby project. The results is an overwhelming experience for anyone lucky enough to view the panels. Each panel is based on scripture. She does one panel in beautiful calligraphy then the one beside it in textiles. You have a book to take along with you to explain each panel to you. When you first look at it you think oh how nice and pretty then an you go along and read the scripture and see her interpretation the emotion just grows and grows. When you get to the last panel you don't want them to stop. Fortunately the last panel is in a little prayer chapel in the Abbey which has places to sit. Once you come to the last panel you have to set down and just absorb all you have just seen. I took a friend with me as she was just as moved as I was.

We were not alone in the little chapel with teary eyes. One of the girls that told me about the exhibition is a young missionary(American) working in Bosnia. She has described it as the most beautiful moving art she had ever experienced. I whole heartily agree with her.

New quilting technique

In case you can't tell.....it's a pine tree. The technique is called paper piecing. The girl in our group that is expecting a baby had her Mom come in and teach us. It's a little challenging as your sewing by numbers backwards. I'm not happy with the colors but we were all told to bring a green, tan and brown. What we should have brought were five greens, two tans and a brown. So we all had to swap material around to come up the contracting colors. They don't blend very well but at least I got the technique down.

Mystery Solved!!

Mister or Doctor?
Holders of FRCS (and the new, but not old, Membership - MRCS) qualifications often choose to relinquish their title of "Doctor", reverting to "Mr", "Mrs" or "Miss". This is a relic from times past when surgeons did not attend medical school and were simply skilled tradesmen, amputating limbs or removing bladder stones, and learning their skills through apprenticeship. Note that in 1540, the United Barber Surgeons Company, a tradesmen's guild, was formed by Henry VIII, as many people practised both. In 1745, surgeons were formally separated from barbers by George II.
An alternative explanation is the section of the Hippocratic Oath which runs: "I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgement and never do harm to anyone," - surgery by its implicit nature does harm to the patient, so the surgeon was not considered worthy of the title "Doctor". Again, this is an ancient practice, that has remained to this day even though it has no real grounding.
"Doing no harm" can be applied to prescribing (by physicians) as much as to operating. Also, many Greek practitioners who followed Hippocrates performed surgery as well as prescribing medicine. The separation was enforced much later by the Catholic Church, through a Council of Tours in 1169 which halted the practice of surgery by clerical physicians by proclaiming, "Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine." This would have relegated the art to the barber-surgeons associated with the monasteries.
Additionally, the change of title is confined to the United Kingdom, and is not practised in other countries where the Hippocratic Oath may be widely espoused.
It is also pertinent to recall that the use of Mr as a courtesy title for all men is a relatively recent invention, and implied a larger degree of status in past years than at present. Compare Esquire.
The practice of surgeons reverting to "Mr" (etc) is obsolete in the rest of the Commonwealth. In the British Isles, holders of an FRCS who move into non-surgical fields tend to go back to being "Dr". In Scotland, only certain surgeons change to "Mr": in Edinburgh ophthalmologists, ENT surgeons and obstetricians & gynaecologists would remain "Dr", but in other cities usage is more like England.

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Malvern Quilting Show

Friday I went to the Malvern Quilting Show with some of the ladies in my quilting group. I

also took a guest. I had met Beverly at a cookout a couple of months ago. Alan and her husband work together and when she heard about the quilting group she wanted to go along and I was happy to have her go. She is originally from Wales but has lived in England her entire adult life. We saw a lot of beautiful quilts as well as all the latest gadgets. It was not as big as the Birmingham show but still a nice day out.