A day out at Baddesley Clinton National Trust.

We took this young couple that we met at our church recently, to see the Elizabethan mansion at Baddesley Clinton.
A biting cold wind but we were there to tour the moated house.
He was over here to further his medical skills and knowledge working at a hospital in Birmingham.
She had joined him a few months ago having had difficulties obtaining her visa due to having to wait for the marriage certificate, which took some time to process.
They met in China at a well known university where he was doing part of his training. She is a student supervisor for the graduate Chinese students over here who are teaching Chinese Mandarin in schools. A bit like the French Assistantes who are sometimes employed by recruitment agencies. We had one at the grammar school where I was a pupil way back in the mists of time!
She does a lot of her work on-line but also has site visits, recently to Edinburgh to see the young teachers in their schools.
He was born in Kathmandu in Nepal, and grew up there. His family still live there. Then he went and spent time in India and Japan before going to China.
Theirs is a fascinating study on how two very different cultures affect them both. Language for one, she speaks Mandarin and is doing very well in English, and he can converse in Nepalese, Hindi, Urdu and English, alongside the Mandarin he needed in China. His colleagues in the Birmingham hospital find him really useful as they often need help with someone to translate when dealing with a patient who speaks in Urdu.
She has trekked to Everest base camp once, he loves cricket! Nepal has a national cricket team, and they have just played Scotland and beaten them.
They told us about their different foods, and culture.
A totally extremely enjoyable day, even with a biting wind. But we weren’t outside for long periods and had our lunch around 2:00pm after the tour all round the house. We could go round at our leisure having got a timed entry ticket but no restriction on how long to spend inside. There were volunteers on hand to answer any questions about certain aspects of the history and artefacts. That was good for our two visitors.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time with them, and there will be a visit at some point to their flat as she would like to cook an authentic Chinese meal for us.
We took them back home, which isn’t far from Birmingham airport.
He is due to take his driving test here in May.
I am now in my jimjams and dressing-gown so will catch up with more of your lovely blips tomorrow.
Another helpful visitor took this photo for us.