Dear all, we are home, enjoying a daylight flight yesterday with sunny skies allowing us to say goodbye to Lancashire, a far away view of the Furness and Millom peninsulas and a wee bit of a look along the Irish Sea to the Isle of Man and the west Scotland coast.  Landing in Newark to the heat, humidity and congestion, such a shock to the system after our north England respite!

I'll keep adding pictures as we get them downloaded from the camera; what's here now is from my phone - the good ones are yet to come.  Please keep checking the original posts as I'll try to put them with the correct day.  We've written enough that you should check with the "older posts" as these will include the added Hutton John photos.  Perhaps I can even coax a little something from Bets to post for you.  We still have to share our thots about Lancaster Castle and its current legal endeavors, Southport in Merseyside, our day trip to Wales and more.  I guess we were pretty busy!  I also need to post a little something about my walks up the fell (Hevelyn) behind our pub/b&b in Thirlspot and my lovely pasture and farmland walks in Lathom (our stay outside of Burcough Bridge).  Not to mention some kind of discussion of what we learned and experienced of all the Lancaster canals.

And cheese?!  Well....  as you can imagine, Ploughman's for lunch each day, sauces at dinner and always wine and a local cheese (or two) in the room late afternoon.  We did not succumb to "tea" in the late afternoon and staunchly maintained our usual cocktail hour.  No one would expect less of us!  Meat and fish pies in abundance, and omg the toffee puddings and cakes were to die for.

Thanks for going on this journey with us.  We return possessing more questions than we left with, but more determined than ever to discover the missing pieces to these two stories.  Keep checking in; I hope to piece together timelines for each of the families in England as best we have at this point; and no doubt their intersection.  One thing is certain:  These two families were determined to survive and survive with their beliefs in tact.  While the catholicism may have changed over the years, the survival instinct remains strong.  We were certainly proud to be called intrepid and indeed to be intrepid on our trip - just chips off the old blocks!  Let us know your questions.  It is a delightful journey to walk where our ancestors have been and to know we carry so much of them with us still.

Cath