Many Thanks

 

When I first started my blog, I thought it would be a good way for friends and family back home to keep up to date on our comings and goings while we were away.  Under the statistics page you can see how many times my blog has been viewed (I just passed 1,000 page views!)  Even better than that is being able to see what country people are reading my posts from.  So I was shocked to see people not just from the States tuning in.  So I wanted to say 'Thank You' to all of you who take the time to read my humble, little blog.

Singapore: 谢谢

Germany: danke

Japan: ありがとう

Belgium: dank u

Russia: спасибо 
UK: cheers

 Romania: mulţumesc 
Latvia: paldies 
Bangladesh: dhanyabad 

And finally, the USA and Canada: thank you

I sure hope I got all the translations correct!  If not, blame Google.
 A special 'shout out' to my good friend Andrejs on the Latvian translation. :) 

 

Belsay Hall and Castle

As most of you know, when we first arrived in England we rented a cottage in the country before moving into our house.  During the drive to the cottage we passed by a castle a small distance from the road.  Although I was seriously jet lagged from our long flight from home, I immediately perked up when I saw it and thought "How cool is this?!  A castle right there off the road in the middle of nowhere." 

Several months later I came to find out that the castle had a name and was part of the English Heritage, to which we became members, and was open for viewing.  The really neat thing with all the properties managed by English Heritage is that there is always something going on at them.  Either a display, workshop, event or re-enactment.  So it's like going to a new place every time with new things to discover.
   
The first time we went to Belsay was on Easter Sunday.  Since the egg and Easter basket hunt at our house always seems to be over in the blink of an eye, we were looking for something to do for the rest of the day.  With the weather decent (ie not raining) we drove out to the country to check out Belsay Hall and Castle.  The hall, castle and gardens are the creation of the Middleton family and has been built out over seven centuries.  First came the castle in the 14th century.  A Jacobean style mansion wing was later added to the castle.  The family stayed there until Christmas Day 1817 when they moved into Belsay Hall (pictured below).  Nice Christmas present I'll say!

The Hall is in a classical Greek revival style which means it has lots of columns and a center hall where all the rooms lead off of.  It's now shown without furnishings so you can really see all the details of the craftsmanship in the woodworking and stone carvings.  Even the wallpaper, while being faded now, can still be seen in some of the bedrooms.

The gardens surrounding the Castle and Hall were amazing.  There was a quarry garden, where stone was cut for the Hall.  Ferns, Magnolias and even a croquet lawn are all hidden along the paths between the Hall and Castle.  We actually saw the Belsay Croquet Club playing a game on the lawn during our second visit.  Although we went at different times of the year, the first time in April and the second time in June, the weather was freezing both times!  Brrrr.  But, different things were flowering and growing each time so I can't wait to visit again in the Fall and Winter months to see what changes are in store.  I will say this though: my down jacket; best...investment...ever!

The castle is towards the right and the addition is to the left.  You can see how the addition has more windows than the castle.  This is because there wasn't really a need any longer to defend ones land as in years past so the homes didn't have to be so fortress like.

View from the castle.

Belsay Hall

I tried to capture all three different levels of the Hall.  The floor joists have been removed but you can see all three fireplaces (mostly just the hearth of the top level).

Upon entering the front door.

Stairs heading up from the center hall.  You can still see the brass fittings that kept the runner in place.  I felt like I was in Downton Abbey.  All I needed was a pretty dress and about 50 servants at my beckon call!

From the second floor.  I think the "spires" between the openings of the columns held candles.

One of the bedrooms still showing centuries old wallpaper.

Resting in the gardens.

The walk from the Hall to the castle.

The castle.  The floor joists have since been removed so the top window would've been on the second story.

Amazing stone work in the ceiling of the castle.

Part of the stables, carriage house and clock tower.  This is where the gift shop is now located.

Silly boys.

Does anyone fancy a game of croquet?

Sage

What does the above herb have to do with the company that moved us across the pond?  Follow along and you'll find out!

The company that Steve works for is called Sage.  Or more officially The Sage Group, plc.  They are a worldwide company with their global headquarters located in Newcastle.  Or more officially Newcastle upon Tyne.  On a side note, if you ever come across the term "upon" in the name of a city in the UK it means that it is located near a river.  So Newcastle (the city) is located by Tyne (the river).  Like the birthplace of Shakespeare is Stratford upon Avon.  So the city of Stratford is by the river Avon.  Berwick upon Tweed...Berwick (city) Tweed (river).

Let's continue....

From the homepage of the Sage website it states that "Sage is a leading supplier of business management software and services to more than 6 million customers worldwide.  From small start-ups to larger organizations, we make it easier for companies to manage their business processes."  What does that mean to you and me?

Basically Sage produces software to help small and midsized companies with their day to day operations.  Some of the software would be accounting related (like Peachtree accounting), HR related or software to manage warehouse operations.

It all started in 1981.  Graham Wylie, a local computer statistics student in the city of Newcastle, was asked to create a piece of software for a friend's printing firm.  His friend, the late David Goldman, wanted a program that would help generate costs and invoices and therefore streamline processing.  Basically an accounting type software.  The program turned out to be so successful that Graham and David decided to set up a company to sell it to others in the trade.  Teaming up with academics Phil Lever and Paul Muller (a NASA scientist), they formed Sagesoft Ltd, later to become Sage.

Thirty years later and Sage is now a global business.  With 13,500 employees worldwide they provide software and business solutions to almost six million customers across the globe and have offices in 24 countries.

Now for the name.  I originally thought that Sage was an acronym.  Maybe meaning something like Software Accounting for Global Enterprises (quite catchy I thought!)  But it is actually named after the herb.  How in the world do you make that connection?  Well, during the first few meetings of the team back in '81 they met at a local Newcastle pub called the Rose and Crown.  In the pub they spotted a poster of the herb and decided to name their company Sage.   Mystery solved!

Global headquarters

The atrium of Sage

Second story inside the building

Sage is pretty well known here in Newcastle as it's the largest employer in the area.  Everyone that I've come across that has asked why we chose to move to Newcastle of all places has immediately recognized the name Sage when I say that's where Steve works.  They even have a music and arts center in Tyneside (the city immediately south of downtown Newcastle) named The Sage Gateshead.

The Sage Gateshead

Just this past week, Sage celebrated Sage Day.  It's a global event in all offices where fundraising for a local charity takes center stage.  The chosen charity for the headquarters is Cancer Research UK.  Not only was money raised this past week, but it's been going on for the past several months.  In fact, two of the bike rides that Steve has participated in since moving here were the Coast to Coast (a two day trek from the West coast of England to the East coast) and Purley to Paris (a 3 day 300 mile ride).  Both raised money for charity.  Cycling is so popular here that generally the Sage Cycle Group outdoes any other donation to charity by the company.  So far they have raised over £18,000 for just the two events I mentioned above and they have more events planned for later this year.  Way to go!

Just some of the members of Sage Cycle Club.  There's Steve...2nd from the right (before his 45 pound weight loss).

Sage Day was Thursday and I decided to meet Steve at the company to take part in the festivities which included, to name a few, dart throwing, Man v Food eating competitions and Guinness World Records breaking attempts (one of which was to beat the record of stacking 13 loo rolls in a tower in a minute).  Every event required some donation in order to participate; anything from £1 to £5.  There were even some local vendors there selling their wares and donating a portion of their sales to charity.

One of the vendors was The DC Presidents.  One guy dressed as Uncle Sam and the other guy all decked out in a red, white and blue football kit complete with helmet.  It's an American football league of all things based in the UK.  They play in the city of Durham, south of Newcastle, against other American football teams in England.  They were very interested in speaking with us.  Or at least to Steve because I immediately caught sight of the jewelry vendor next door and wandered off.  When asked where we were from Uncle Sam said "Ahh...the Falcons!" and the football player said "The Bulldogs!"  They said at their last home game they had a record showing....300 spectators!  Their enthusiasm for the sport was great.  

The activities for Sage Day 2012.  Drawn by kids from the local primary school.

The DC Presidents

Happy to donate some money to charity to hold one of the Olympic torches!

So there you have it.  A little bit about Sage, the company that made our dream of living in the UK a reality.

Happy 4th of July...from England

A few months before we moved I was going through a HUGE audit of all our stuff.  We've moved cross country several times and although I'm not by any means a pack rat, we always seemed to accumulated odd things which we always just packed and took with us from state to state.  But for some reason this move was different.  Maybe because it was overseas or maybe it was just because I was "over" a lot of our stuff.  So, if you've accumulated a ton of things over the years, I would highly advise moving overseas to help with the purge!

Anyhow, I like to decorate for holidays.  Christmas...two trees, poinsettias up the staircase.  Halloween...skeleton on the front door, ghosts on the mantle, pumpkin lanterns lining the outdoor walkway.  Thanksgiving...wreaths on the front door, dining room table cornucopia, cinnamon scented candles on the buffet.  You get the idea.  I planned on taking it all.  But when I came to the box with our Fourth of July things, I thought for a moment and wondered how well it would all go over if I displayed patriotism so boldly being from another country?  I mean I'm not even an American citizen for crying out loud.  So I thought I would play it safe and not bring any of it.  I didn't want to offend my host country.  But I will say that most of my things being just red, white and blue would've served me well for the Jubilee celebrations!  Dang it.  Oh well.

Today started off like any other day...work for Steve and school for the kids.  After speaking with someone from the HR department at Steve's office, she said we shouldn't be worried to celebrate the holiday so we decided to do as much as we could given the following circumstances:

1. I had to travel about 10 miles (a long way by Newcastle standards) to get some fireworks.

2. The threat of rain to wash out our BBQ and said fireworks.

3. I had to substitute regular potatoes for giant Russet ones for our baked potatoes.

4. Sunset at around 11pm, so the fireworks would have to be done basically in broad daylight.

The salesman at the party store was really nice.  In fact he said I was the second American to come in this week to get fireworks.  I jokingly told him my concerns about bringing all my decorations from home and he said "Pish, that war was hundreds of years ago.  I think we've gotten over it by now!"  While there I stocked up on plastic plates, cups and cutlery.  After all, what backyard BBQ isn't complete without all of that?  My plastic fork even broke and the knife hardly cut my steak.  Aaahh, just like home.

The BBQ turned out great.  The weather held up enough for us to enjoy our patio set (for only the second time since we've been here.)  The sun even broke through the clouds.  With dinner done, came the real reason for the evening...blowing stuff up.  I actually bought the same fireworks like in Georgia.  The TNT brand.  My friends at home you know what I'm talking about, right?  The ones you can get at any grocery store that are packaged with cool sounding names like Thunder King and Space Storm.  When really, no matter what the package looks like, all they do is emit sparkles about two feet high.  I told the guy these would be perfect...we'd be as inauspicious as possible to the neighbors.  He laughed and even threw in some rocket looking things for free.  What a nice gesture.

We decided to invite our neighbors from around the corner to see "the show".  She brought her kids, Rosie, 5 and Oliver 2.  As Steve lit the sparklers the kids ooohed and aaahed.  I don't think Oliver had seen fireworks before and wasn't quite sure what to make of them and kept close to his mom.  We went through the pack in a hurry and decided to light a couple of the rockets.  After showering some sparkles from the base, a loud whistling noise came from the rocket and it started shooting stuff up and exploding into the sky!  My neighbor ran and Oliver burst into tears.  Part of me wanted to throw myself over the rockets to stop the noise.  It was complete mayhem!  I saw a few people peering out their windows to see what all the racket was about.  Maybe the guy at the party store wasn't really over it and gave me those rockets to "stick it to me" one final time on behalf of all Britons.  :)

Happy Fourth of July to those back home and apologies to our neighbors if you find any shrapnel in your backyards.