This entry comes from some folks who produce the greatest greeting cards on or off the web. It seems that they don't worry so much about being politically correct or incorrect. They seem terribly Anglican, which is not that strange because they come from rural Sussex, from the below-named village of Lurgashall. In keeping with things there, they are all very intelligent, talented, and sophisticated and have a talent for modernizing antiquity. The operation is Jacquie Lawson Cards, and they would be something equivalent to a Japanese Bonzai tree that is 500 years old, or like Lou Gehrig's farewell to Baseball speech, or actually having a private audience with Santa Claus, or a two-month rail trip around the United States.
Check in at http://www.jacquielawson.com/ and see their offerrings. We cannot figure how the business can make any money, so we assume that they are all independently wealthy and have not been taxed enough. We shall report them to Barry and Michelle's Tax Collection Service if more evidence presents itself.
The Gringo Viejo's ancient ancestry considering our various surnames are terribly Hebrew, Ingles, Picts, and Jutes, Frenchy, Dane, (and some Prussian, Hessian, and German Saxon thrown in, but do not tell anybody). We have a lot of people buried around Bury Saint Mary's, Kelsale, Suffolk, to the north of Lurgashall, Sussex.
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Lurgashall village
Jacquie lives in the village of Lurgashall, in Sussex, England. Most of the
scenes, characters and animals for her cards are taken from the village, or
indeed from her own picture-perfect period cottage.
The name Lurgashall is probably Saxon in origin, dating from the period
following the Saxon invasion circa 500AD when a roving band of marauders may
well have travelled along the Roman road from Chichester to London and settled
on the site. Although the village is not mentioned in the Domesday Book,
situated as it was in the dense forest of Wealden which was then considered to
be of little value, Lurgashall was included in the fruits of victory which
William the Conqueror handed out to his greedy henchmen.
Lurgashall is a now small but thriving village of around 700 inhabitants, and
it boasts a pub (of course), a Saxon church, a shop, and a cricket green. The
cricket pavilion (which can be seen clearly in the "Snowdog" Christmas card) is
notable for the clock tower which was erected in 2000 in memory of Jacquie's
late husband Roger, who was for many years captain of the village cricket team.
The cricket team has its own website - www.lurgashall.com.
If you're ever passing through, be sure to call in at the Noah's Ark Inn,
where Henry and Amy will be happy to serve you a pint of their best Greene King
IPA!
St. Laurence's Church
Although nothing remains of the original wooden Saxon building, the present Church shows clear signs of later Saxon architecture. The Tower, with its pointed arch, is Norman. The Cloister was added in the 16th century, so that parishioners from some distance away could rest & eat between morning and evening services. Remains can be seen of an early font which was smashed by the Puritans in the Civil War. This bears signs of a lock to prevent the theft of Holy Water for superstitious purposes. Beneath is a 'Resurrection Stone' of immense weight which was hired out to prevent newly buried corpses from being stolen! The present font, of Sussex Marble, was first used on Lady Day, 1662, when the restored Charles II had reintroduced the Prayer Book and the ceremony of Baptism. The Lectern was presented in 1897 in memory of Alfred Lord Tennyson who lived nearby and was a regular worshipper at St. Laurence's.
Although nothing remains of the original wooden Saxon building, the present Church shows clear signs of later Saxon architecture. The Tower, with its pointed arch, is Norman. The Cloister was added in the 16th century, so that parishioners from some distance away could rest & eat between morning and evening services. Remains can be seen of an early font which was smashed by the Puritans in the Civil War. This bears signs of a lock to prevent the theft of Holy Water for superstitious purposes. Beneath is a 'Resurrection Stone' of immense weight which was hired out to prevent newly buried corpses from being stolen! The present font, of Sussex Marble, was first used on Lady Day, 1662, when the restored Charles II had reintroduced the Prayer Book and the ceremony of Baptism. The Lectern was presented in 1897 in memory of Alfred Lord Tennyson who lived nearby and was a regular worshipper at St. Laurence's.
THE GRINGO VIEJO'S ANCIENT PARISH:
This is where a bunch of really pure-bred English mongrels were baptised, married, and buried back in the 1200 - 1600 AD period. This is in the little city of Kelsale, Suffolk, in Anglia, England. Lots of primordial Gringos there.
Some day soon, perhaps, we shall be able to make the trek to various places to see at least where our children's ancestor saw things, whether we see the same things or not. We shall have to go into most of south and eastern England.....then some places in western England like Shropshire and southern Mersey Counties which are adjacent, I believe to the northwesternmost corner of Wales, but still in England...and then Cumbria and Northumbria in northernmost England and to the Isle of Man. Before or after that, on the same trip, we shall have to cover the southeastern third of Spain to say grace over the bones and dust of the children's better side.
Any English OROGs on a personal basis with Basil Rathbone need to ask him if he can pick us up at the station and take us over to see his place at 221B Baker Street. We would prefer one of those black taxis or perhaps one of the red double-decker busses that we see in the war movies. We'd intend to be staying in the London area for three or four nights. We'll need one day to give the Archbishop of Canterbury a few pointers about Anglican dogma and ritual.....also to remind HRM Elizabeth that she really needs to name her son as Duke of Falkland and Belize, and then pass the succession directly to her grandson, HRH Prince William. It would be a shame to follow a pretty decent run of it for one monarchette with a dumboe like the present Prince of Wales. Would there be a king so bold of bone that he would deign to deny the dullards the dole they demand and disband the Labour Party, and expel their pinky souls (what be left of 'em)from the Parliament. So there. Let it be written.
El Gringo Viejo