Sorry about the lack of updates on the blog for the past month.  I didn't realize that planning a wedding was so time and money consuming.  It is getting close to the date of the wedding rather quickly and we still have quite a few things to do and buy so I don't know how often I will update the blog in the next two months but I will do as much as I can.  The stupid thing is that I have started a new blog at www.famster.com/ianandamyinengland which is a continuation of this blog.  The famster one has some newer features that seem like the switch might be worth the while.  I have done a post over there, added some pictures and uploaded some videos just to test out the service.  The site requires flash for it to work so don't be surprised if it asks you to install it.  I do apologize to those of you on dial-up or high speed lite internet connections, the video sizes are a wee bit too big to load up quickly.  I will tweak some settings to make the file sizes easier to handle.  And for those of you using Linux, it ain't my fault that Adobe is taking their sweet time making flash for Linux.  I doubt that many of you are but just a disclaimer.  Hopefully all of you enjoy the new blog.  You don't have to be a member to leave a comment (unlike this blog) so feel free to sign the guestbook and drop us a line.

It would seem that I am slacking off on updating the blog and truth be told I am.  I am lazy and I know it so you don't have to rub it in.  Amy had her race for life last weekend and I am now just getting around to putting up the pictures.  The sad thing is while she was doing her 5km race I was lying in bed finishing off my nightly sleep.  Amy and her co-workers decided to do this Race For Life thing to raise some funds for cancer research in the U.K.  So on Sunday the 9th of July, Maggie, Shaz, Tash and Amy got up at the crack of dawn and went for a nice run/stroll in Lydiard Park in Swindon.  You can still help by donating at this site.  All four of them completed the race so you can feel secure that Amy isn't cheating the money out of you.  Amy tells me that her group of the 4 women were able to raise over £500 which, in my mind, is rather impressive.  Maggie's husband was there to take the pictures so he can verify that none of them cheated.  Other than that we are actually pretty busy and broke getting ready for the wedding in October.  I never realised that weddings are so expensive.  We had our first wedding shock a couple of days before this Race for Life.  Amy and Shaz had to go into London for some training.  During their lunch break, the went for a walk and stumbled across a bridal shop.  They popped in and quickly found out that you don't just "pop" into most U.K. bridal shops.  You need to make an appointment as well as provide roughly 6 months to get the dress ordered and fitted.  This caused a bit of a panic with both me and Amy since our wedding was just over 3 months away at the time.  The Saturday before the big race, Amy made some appointments and her and Leslie went dress shopping in Swindon.  The Readers' Digest version of the story is Amy now has a dress and I am told it is quite pretty.   I am sure if you ask Amy for a picture of it she will hook you up or you can just wait 3 months for the internet broadcast.  I am sure with such a short timeline we are going to run into a few more panicky situations but I am sure we will survive.  I am thinking this blog may be fairly wedding centric for the next little while since it is a big part our lives and wallets right now.

One of Amy's old co-workers was coming over to England to do some sight-seeing.  They invited us to come up to Stratford Upon Avon to see Julius Caeser with them. Stratford is the birthplace of probably the world's most famous playwright William Shakespeare.  Needless to say there was a fair bit of Shakespeare merchandise and tourist shops all over town.  I haven't seen a Shakespeare play in a very long time.  Truthfully I didn't know what to expect and I don't remember enjoying studying Shakespeare's plays in school.  I gotta say that the play was pretty bloody which appearantly is typical of one of his tragedies.  I did really like it though.  I didn't think I would but it is much better acted than read aloud in a high school class. We are talking about going back to see another one later in the year.  We also checked out the final resting place of the great author himself.  It kind of irritated me that we had to pay to see it rather than a donation but that is another story.  Ask me about it the next time you see me and you will get to see me go into a rather long rant about what is disrespectful and what isn't.  The next day was extremely hot but I don't I don't wear shorts in public so I had to suffer through the heat.  We started off by taking a long boat cruise down the Avon River.  I would have hated to be in control of the boat.  There were loads of inexperienced boaters going up and down the river with no regard to the rules of boating.   The long boat travelled fairly slowly and at one point we were passed by a kayak.  It was nice and pretty floating down the river and provided a unique view of the town.  After that we walked past Shakespeare's house.  It seemed just a bit out of place in the middle of the town centre but not too out of place.  It was nice to see they kept it in pristine condition for this long of a time.  Soon enough the heat did me in and we looked for a nice shady spot down by the river and watched the tourists struggle with using the hire boats.  You could easily tell the ones who had boating experience from the ones who didn't.  It was a nice relaxing way to end a nice and relaxing weekend.

We decided to head up to Gloucester (pronouned "Gloster") to visit another cathedral and to check out another Harry Potter movie set.  I must say, the cathedral was a tiny bit disappointing but only because we saw one of the more famous cathedrals in England the weekend before.  Had we not gone to Salisbury Cathedral so recently I am sure this one would have felt more impressive.  This trip turned into a Harry Potter trip more than a cathedral trip because of this.  All of the parts of the movies that were shot here were in the cloisters thus a lot of shots in the hallways.  100 days of set up and filming produced a whopping 10 minutes of footage in the first two movies.  Who says movies are time consuming and expensive to make?  There were 52 trailers on location here which made it one of the biggest film sites in the U.K.  It was pretty cool to see the entrance into the Gryffindor common room even though there is a substanial amount of film trickery to get it to appear as it does in the film.  The most important scenes shot here were probably the scenes with the writing on the walls and Filch's petrified cat Mrs. Norris.  Most of the more important actors in the movies were on this location for those scenes.  We bought a pamphlet about the movie here that explains all of the work they had to do to make sure the set didn't damage the rather historic building.  It was someone's job to cover up the religious images in all the stained glass since Hogwart's is a school and not a church.  Now that would be a royal pain in the behind.  The cathedral itself, although less impressive than Salisbury, had more than a few interesting features.  The tomb of King Edward II tied into our recent trip to Berkely Castle.  It was kind of neat to see a bit further down that little string of history.  The massive window at the front of the church was a sight to behold as well.  We have seen some big windows over here but I couldn't get over the size of that particular window.  It was built in 1350 and I don't think has lost any of it's grandeur through the ages.  The cathedral also seems to be rather proud of it's organ.  After hearing it, I can see why.  It fills the entire cathedral with such a beautiful sound.  There were points during our tour that I couldn't hear Amy because the organ was so loud.  Most of the other cathedrals were quiet or majestic feeling but this is the first one that felt alive to me with an active church life still going on.