Christmas in Keele

Keele is a very quiet place, especially during winter holiday when most of the students are going back home for Christmas. We realise that there’s no way we’re gonna feel the atmosphere of a merry Christmas in such a remote village like Keele, it’s waaaay beyond our wildest imagination. So, we just forget the idea about having Christmas experience in British way and decide to enjoy what we have.

So, in the morning, after having coffee, the three of us decide to have a quick walk and have breakfast afterwards, while the other two decide to stay. We walk to Keele Hall, take some pictures, see some cute ducks swimming in the pond, see people walking their dogs to the woods, then we plan to go back home. On our way back, we pass by the Chapel and decide to see what’s going on inside. Then, there we are, looking around the Chapel and reading stuffs on the notice board when suddenly the Chaplain lady comes to us and asks if we need some helps. As we answer that we’re just visiting and wondering what’s going on inside the Chapel, the Chaplain offers us to join her for Christmas dinner. Well, since we’re students, and students are not supposed to reject such a nice offer, we end up sitting in her car heading to her house for the dinner.

We help the lady to prepare the dinner, cooking the turkey, vegetables, pudding, and then arranging the table, until the other two students from Germany and The Isle of Man come. We really never expect to have a fancy Christmas dinner like this. First, we have the turkey with gravy, potatoes, carrots and brussel sprouts as the main course. Then, before having the desserts, we watch TV to see the Queen giving the Christmas speech. Later on, we have christmas pudding, which is so yummy! After cleaning the dining table, we move to the living room and have coffee. While enjoying the coffee, we watch Catherine, the Chaplain lady, opening her Christmas presents sent by her friends. The dinner is so lovely!

Since we have two friends waiting at home and don’t have any idea of where we are, we think that we’d better leave soon before they call the police. So, it's time for us to say goodbye and millions of thanks to Catherine for inviting us to the dinner. For foreign students, having a British christmas dinner is such a nice experience. And somehow the experience comes when we least expect it... we only plan to have a quick walk to the woods wearing only sweatshirt, pants and trainers, and we end up having a quite fancy Christmas dinner in a real house… miracle does happen to nice people like us! ; )

ftd!

A trip to Chester, 21 December 2002

A two-hour bus journey from Keele to Chester is worth to spend when we see beautiful scenery in Chester. We join a small group of Christmas tour around Chester, guided by an old lady dressed like Santa. The lady is quite talkative and likes to tell lots of stories. However, some of the stories are interesting, like the one about Santa Claus. Long time ago, the figure of Santa Claus was not an old white-beard guy dressed in red jacket with hood. The father of Christmas used to wear green jacket, then in Victorian period he worn a blue outfit. Why is Santa wearing red jacket nowadays? It was started by Coca-Cola that commercialised the image of the father of Christmas by using Santa in one of its commercials wearing a red outfit. Interesting story, eh?

Well, back to the trip around Chester. We depart from Chester Visitor Centre to Roman Amphitheatre. Long long time ago, Chester was occupied by Roman Empire. We can see it from the name, ‘Chester’. The ‘chester’ suffix in the name of places around the UK shows that it used to be occupied by the Roman. Let’s go on to the next place, which is the Eastgate Clock, one of the symbols of Chester. The clock is so beautiful, it looks even more beautiful at night.

The Eastgate Clock was built during the 1800 to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. When we are standing on the bridge where the clock is located, we can see the bustle around the Eastgate Street, lovely!

The trip continues to Chester Cathedral, a marvellously beautiful old building. Can’t find other words to describe the beauty of the Cathedral, especially when the lights shimmering at night. It looks like a picture we can only see in fairy-tale books.

On our way back, we pass by a bar named ‘Marlbororough Arms’, nothing special about the bar actually. It was built around 1800s or 1900s (it’s just my rough guess, though!). What interesting about the bar is why it ended up with the name ‘Marlbororough’. Actually, it was supposed to be ‘Marlborough’, but the man who was hired to make the signboard was too drunk to spell it correctly. Surprisingly, that weird signboard invited even more customers to come because the name was so funny and more people were curious about it. So, the owner just decided to keep the name that way.

Our last stop is the Town Hall, it's not part of the tour, though. Nothing more to see in the Town Hall, however, the building itself is amazingly pretty.

All in all, we can see so many attractive sceneries in Chester, most of the buildings are soooo gorgeous. We only spend 4 hours there; so little time so many things to see. We only have a chance to see a small part of Chester, it’s beautiful, indeed! We’ll come back to explore some more interesting places there. If you love beautiful scenery, Chester is a must-visit place when you come to the UK. ftd!

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