The Devil's Punchbowl

Here are the promised pictures from last Sunday afternoon. Every Sunday we have lunch with a family from the church and this day we got to go to the Bruces - one of the families that we have grown closest to. After lunch, we drove to a nearby village to go for a walk. The village, called Letcombe Basset (as opposed to Letcombe Regis right next door) basically consists of some houses and farms and a little Anglican church. Yep, that's it. I love all of these little English villages! We walked a kind of mini-valley called The Devil's Punchbowl. It really does look kind of like a giant punchbowl with the flat fields curving up the hills in a giant circle. The English are surprisingly creative in their names of places - particularly tiny out of the way places. So here are some pictures from our walk taken by Andy Bruce.

Me, Melody and Beverly - the three KBC students on church placement at Wantage

Hannah Bruce (my little buddy and one of my favorite conversationalists) is on the left and Jen Bruce is on the right

Two horses in a field - one kept biting the other horse's harness and trying to pull it over the fence

farmland

There was this young husky running around trying to catch rabbits. He kept catching a wiff of one and digging like crazy into a hole. He would pop up from the hole, realizing there was no hope from that direction, then sniff for a second before pouncing in a new area to begin the process all over again. We just stood for a while watching and laughing at him.

There was this tiny little park - so small that I originally thought it was someone's yard.

This cottage is called Arabella's Cottage and is apparently featured in a novel by Thomas Hardy called Jude the Obscure, which I have not read or, I must admit, previously heard of - but apparently it is somewhat famous. I looked it up on the internet to find out the name of the book and read that Jonathan Swift also apparently visited Letcombe Basset in 1714 and did some writing in the rectory garden which I guess I would have walked by because we walked through the church yard. Interesting... On another note, I love how most old Anglican churches here are not locked, so you can just wander in and look around. The one in Letcombe Basset isn't particularly old or impressive (the oldest gravestone I saw was from the 1700's), but a few weeks ago we went in a really amazing old one in another little village called Childrey. The original building was built in the last 10th century and it is mentioned in the Domesday Book commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1085. If I remember right, the present day building was begun in the 13th century. It is this amazing big old building with history just busting out of it. The crazy thing is that this church isn't that unique. My housemate was distinctly unimpressed when I came home all excited to tell her about it and informed me that there are hundreds of churches like this. I still think it's exciting!

I will be on spring break for the next two weeks, which I am definitely looking forward to! For the most of the first week I will be going to Prague with a couple of friends and then I will be making the rounds of other friends houses in Gloucester, Worcester and Walsall. I just found out today that I will be finishing up the break by going to be staff for a youth weekend for some of the Salt and Light Churches. It sounds like it's going to be lots of fun! During all this time I still need to work on my major paper which will be due a week after we get back. That might be a challenge, but I will do my best to do lots of reading!

I should have lots of stories to tell when I get back, so get ready...