Cameo, Cameo, Where Art Thou Cameo?

So besides peacocks and all things related to being Miss Bee, I also collect cameos. This is the collection I've had going the longest. I've been collecting cameos since I was about 7 or 8 years old. When my mom would travel to the Midwest and out east for antique trips when I was young, I decided I needed something to entertain myself in these shops. I found cameos. I developed an eye for them, and much like riding a bike, it easily came back to me a couple years ago when I picked the habit up again.

I'm not sure the exact number of cameos I have now. Many of the ones I collected as a child are still in my bedroom in my parent's house in Amarillo. However, the shadow box of pendants, earrings, and bracelets found a place on a wall in my bedroom here.

While antique shopping in Bath, I came across some of the most amazing cameos I have ever seen. They were gigantic compared to anything I've ever seen in the states, and they had entire lava "muse" bracelets. Lava cameos were some of the first and are some of the most rare. I was enthralled!

A little information about cameos: http://www.victorianbazaar.com/cameos.html

I saw a things like this in Bath. I'm having Buyer's Regret...except that I regret NOT buying them.

Town Mouse, Country Mouse

We made our way from Edinburgh to London by train...without a reserved seat. That was a mistake. I've never travelled by train without a reserved seat, and that was quite annoying. However, we made it to London without my having to drive more English countryside. Thank goodness.

Welcome to London!

Stopped for a picture across the river

A quick stop at the historical site of talks with Texas...back in the good ol' days when Texas was independent

We checked into The Langham London on Mother's Day. The place is amazing, pure luxury near Oxford Circus and all that shopping! We enjoyed some more pub food for dinner and then took a Black Taxi Tour by night. London is a beautiful city at night. The thing I love about all of Europe is so easily portrayed by London itself--history, and stories, and romance, and diversity, and the hustle and bustle of a big city. I love that. On the other hand, Mom hates that kind of thing. However, I was able to get her out to see Buckingham Palace and to tour Westminster Abbey, as well as Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. We walked by the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben and basically called it a day with one more meal of traditional English pub food.

The Abbey. A week late for the wedding.

Buckingham Palace, again just a wee bit late for the wedding...and the flash mob that occurred here earlier that day.

Good ol' Big Ben

Then back to our super comfy and luxe beds at The Langham for one last night before catching the flight back to Dallas. I wasn't sure if I should be excited or sad. Oh, mother country, how I love thee.

Hen Parties

We took the short flight from Belfast to Edinburgh accompanied by at least two large Hen Parties. One group of girls really looked terrible. In fact, they looked like they had caught the wrong plane. Had they been heading to Boston for the SlutWalk, I would have expected their attire. On the other hand, the other group of girls was pretty cute...t-shirts and all. Nicola's Hen Party 2011...One Hen, Lots of Chickens, and No Cocks! Brilliant, I think.

Mom fell in love with the UK upon arriving in Edinburgh. We stayed at a fantastic little B&B in Edinburgh called The Hedges. The owners Heather and Ian are amazing. Heather is precious! And Ian makes a killer breakfast! Not only did we love our B&B, we loved Edinburgh's architecture. It really is a beautiful, and VERY lively city.

Our first real day in Scotland we spent driving to Blair Atholl, home of Blair Castle. This is where our link to Scottish royalty comes in. Blair Castle is an extremely neat place, surrounded by peacocks as well. (I collect those, remember?) Blair is a very different kind of place, even from the outside its far different from any other castles I've seen but no less resembles those of fairytales. Thank goodness the walls were covered with pictures of the Murray family to whom my mom finds her linkage to Scot Royals.

Blair Castle

We also stopped by Pitlochry for a quick snack and Dunkeld (where our ancestors were married and buried).

Dunkeld Cathedral

Then back to Edinburgh we went in time to catch a fabulous dinner at Conan Doyle Pub where I experienced "haggis" for the first time. After dinner, we had tickets to see Grease (the musical) at the Playhouse. It was the most entertaining thing I've seen in years. Multiple Hen Parties joined us for the show, and every single one of them sang along. They knew every word to every song, just as we did. People were even dancing at the end...forget a standing ovation, just dance to the Grease Remix (yes, the one we hear on the radio on this side of the pond every summer).

Grease is still the word!

Before leaving Edinburgh we took a bus tour, just to make sure we had actually SEEN the sites we were SUPPOSED to see. We also spent some time talking with Heather before exchanging friendly hugs and off we went to catch a train to London.

Kiss Me, I'm Irish

It's no lie. I really am Irish. At least 1/32nd anyway. My family is about as American as it gets. People on both sides of my family have been on the West Bank since the 1600s. However, my most recent ancestor to immigrate to the United States was born in Longford, Ireland. His father is buried in Longford County. My mom and I tried to find their old township and even their cemetery sites but didn't have any luck. It doesn't help that they were actually listed as having lived in Glannagh, Ireland. According to the 1906 census, this township only had 11 homes. And today, the only thing I know that is in Glannagh is an archery club. That's about it.

We rented a car in Dublin, so I spent two days driving from the right side of the car on the left side of the road. Awkward to say the least, but we survived without any issues. However, after two days of driving in Ireland, all I can say is...it's green. Otherwise, it as hypnotizing how similar it looked no matter how many miles we covered. All the way from Dublin to Cork, to Limerick, to Longford...and then on to Northern Ireland where we flew out of Belfast.

Northern Ireland is also very important to my family's heritage. Northern Ireland was formerly known as Ulster Plantation. It was settled by the Scots and the Brits about 400 years ago. My mom's side of the family has roots in Ulster, linked to the Duke of Atholl (in Scotland). More about that later. Anyway, the last people to immigrate to the United States on my mother's paternal grandmother's line came from Ulster Plantation (i.e. Northern Ireland) by 1732 and happen to related to Scottish royalty. Fantastic, isn't it? Too bad genealogy so easily becomes an obsession, it means lots of time wasted figuring out exactly how our ancestor that immigrated to the US was related to the Scottish Royalty (why didn't he stay in Scotland?). However, once that definite link (and by definite, I mean the documentation backing up what we thinking we know) is obtained, we will have that line of the family traced back to at least 1065. How awesome is that?

On the map, I outlined all my driving. The blue outlines all the driving we did on our first day, the yellow outlines all the driving we did on the second day (not counting the mindless driving around Longford looking for Glannagh). Finally, the black line is the route I took on my trip back in April of 2009. I have to admit, the black line was a much more awe-inspiring drive than all the green, and more green, and more green along the other two lines.

Blogger/Blogspot Fail

I definitely fell victim to the Blogger software maintenance. It ruined all my saved posts...i.e. I had to start over on half of them! Therefore, when I got home from the UK and planned to share all my lovely experiences with you all...it failed to post all those that I had scheduled for the future. I was on call on Friday and slept it off yesterday, so I'm just now realizing that five days worth of posts never happened. (You should have been getting new posts from the 11th!) This is so frustrating. Hopefully, as I get used to this whole blogging thing and learn more about it, I'll be able to avoid such annoyances. Anyway, back to sharing my recent travels with you so that I can get on to some other ideas I have to share soon enough!

A picture to leave you on a happy note...I met this beautiful peacock on my trip. He was such a show off!