Carlisle

This week, our hosts here in Carlisle were away on holiday, so we had the house to ourselves.  We used this opportunity to have a date night here at home.  The UK has no shortage of sheep, so Andrew has been asking me to cook lamb.  Thursday, I made roast lamb, roasted vegetables, and steamed leeks to go with bread and wine for dinner for our date night.

This weekend was the first weekend since I arrived that we have not traveled.  Instead, we spent time here in Carlisle exploring this city where we're living for a few months.  Carlisle isn't necessarily a tourist destination, but it is our home for the time being and it has plenty of interesting history.  We spent time at the Tullie House museum learning about local history, saw the Carlisle Castle, visited the Cathedral, and ate some local food:

Here are a few more pictures from around Carlisle, including the train station, with which we have become quite familiar:

One reason we opted to stay in town was this weekend was the town's celebration for Guy Fawkes Day (Nov 5).  Carlisle began having bonfires for Guy Fawkes day back in 1987.  They expected about 200 people to come to the fire, and instead had 2,000.  Each year it grows, and now Carlisle hosts one of the UK's biggest bonfires each year.  This year they used 1,000 pallets to build a replica of Carlisle Castle, which they then burned.  We enjoyed this bonfire and the fireworks that followed with a crowd of 35,000.

Sunday, after church, we went for a hike in Gelt Woods.

It was nice to have a slightly slower weekend that didn't require packing bags or traveling.  We're a bit more rested to go into the week and were glad to finally do a bit more local exploring.