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East Anglia is the northeast section of England that juts out into the North Sea, the rural agricultural part of the country. The Tuckers call it “the Colfax of England.” However, the climate is more like Seattle, with even less snow. It is drier and warmer than much of England, too.

The largest local farm is a 23,000-acre estate, Elveden, which is owned by Ned Guiness, titled Lord Iveagh, and his family, who formerly owned Guiness. Elveden is farmed with advanced farming methods and many alternative crops are grown there. The Guiness family has also developed a cafe/restaurant, a bed and breakfast, a pub and Christmas tree growing operation.

East Anglia produces many root vegetables including carrots, turnips, parsnips and sugar beets. Two large sugar processing plants are located near Bury St. Edmund and large lorries haul from piles around the countryside to the processors. Other local crops include winter canola, brussel sprouts and large acreages of wheat. John Deere appears to be the equipment brand of choice here.

Bury St. Edmund is the nearest large market town with market days on Wednesday and Saturday. In the central downtown near the Bury St. Edmund Cathedral, the narrow cobbled streets are blocked off and market stalls are set up. A few musicians play, their cases open to accept donations.

Vegetables are fresh and very reasonably priced and there were some imported fruits, including pineapples, bananas and clementines. The mini-donuts were ten for a pound (about 65 cents), just as hot and tasty as the ones at the FFA Donut Barn during the Palouse Empire Fair. Clothing, handcrafts and odd bits were also for sale. There were two beef burger vans and a German sausage stand with the latter having all of the condiments labeled in German and several sausage varieties for sale.

The narrow streets connect to the Abbey Gardens, much of which is laid out in formal English garden style. Not much is blooming right now but the primroses are planted and ready to bud. The less formal part has many ducks and a playground. Apparently the squirrels that are living there are burrowing right now.

The Ely Cathedral is another favorite tourist site. The Ely area was once an island. Then the Danes came, took over from the last king of East Anglia near 870 AD and began digging ditches to drain the fens. The soil is an amazingly rich black and produces well.

The Ely Cathedral was built in Norman times between 1069 and 1189. It has a very high ceiling that is beautifully painted. Built of stone, it is soaring and draws the eyes upward. The central tower collapsed in 1322 but architecture and engineering had advanced so much since the initial build that the new tower, an octagonal lantern finished in 1340, still stands 170 feet high.

The Cathedral was a Benedictine church and monastery until 1539, when Henry VIII of England took over all of the Roman Catholic churches. Many statues and some stained glass windows were damaged or destroyed but by 1541 the Ely cathedral was reorganized as a parish of the Church of England.

The day we visited, the church was the site of a very upscale wedding with wedding pictures near the front of the cathedral. Many women wore fancy hats and fur coats, and men wore kilts with dress jackets or wore morning coats, gray striped pants and four-in-hand ties. Fabulous white flower arrangements decorated the church which was already beautiful with greens and a tall, lighted Christmas tree.

Many of the buildings on the grounds house King’s Ely, a school for students through grade 13. After age eight, students can board at school or attend as day students. Annual fees for students of American high school age are more than 26,000 pounds for boarders or 19,000 pounds for day students. In American dollars, that is $31,350 to more than $42,000 per year. Needless to say few children of American military personnel in England go to English “public” schools such as this, although some provide fabulous opportunities.

For Americans, the terms public and private schools have different meanings than for folks in the UK. Here, public schools require tuition and fees, while state schools are free. Schools operated by churches are funded by the government and do not charge tuition. Many of the small villages have Church of England primary schools. These schools meet curricular and attendance requirements of the state schools. Students do not have to belong the the Anglican Church to attend these schools.

Many students leave school at age 17 and the leaving age will soon be 18. The percentage of students who attend university is lower than in the United States. In most English universities, the fees are 9,000 pounds ($14,850) per year and a bachelor’s degree requires three years to earn. Those facts would be very good news to many American parents.

A visit to Cambridge University was a tour of 800 years of academic and architectural history. Oxford and Cambridge are the equivalent of the Ivy League, Stanford and the leading research universities in the U.S. all rolled into one. Cambridge is composed of 31 different colleges and has an enrollment of just more than 18,000 students, about the same enrollment as Washington State University.

The different colleges accept students individually according to university guidelines. Since it was term break, one could not see if the students still attend classes in academic robes, as they did in the recent past. The earliest buildings are definitely from the Norman period of architecture, with square towers. King’s College, the most famous, was founded by Henry VIII. Each college has gates, broad green spaces and courtyards.

Since there are so many students, downtown Cambridge is a shopping mecca featuring clothing stores catering to all spending levels - coats on sale for 20 pounds and fine plaid sports coats for 300 pounds, music, computer, camera, mobile phone and British knickknack shops. Restaurants ran the gamut as well from fish and chips to fine French cuisine. Some were quite reasonably priced to attract the student crowd. Of course, there was a Starbucks as well as other local coffee houses.

A real treat was a stop at the Eagle Pub in Cambridge. This is a famous hangout of RAF and American Air Force pilots and aircrew during World War II and squadron patches from nearly every modern American squadron decorate the walls. Drawings and graffiti on the ceiling from WWII airmen were not painted over when the pub was renovated. Signatures of famous pilots have been framed over, such as American Air Force General Robin Olds.

Staying in a small village gives a closer glimpse of life in a small English town. Grocery items are available at Yallop’s Butcher Shop and the Royal Mail post office. The news agent opens every morning at 5 a.m. and stocks a variety of newspapers and magazines, with a large number of magazines and books devoted to aviation. Yallop’s carries a small selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, familiar cuts of meat at the fresh counter and cuts unknown to many Americans.

The variety of packaged dessert items was amazing for a small store. Most Americans like digestive biscuits, a kind of crisp cookie. Dessert is “pudding” here but they eat a variety of puddings by American definition. Tarts and cakes were also available.

If you want to meet the locals, take a dog for a walk in town or on the many local trails. People in Mundford all seem to own and love dogs and dogs provide a great introduction. Walking the miles of trails in mild weather is a mid-winter activity that Whitman County folks do not often experience. Trails start at the edge of Mundford and track through Thetford Forest, a large forest managed by the Forest Council. Labrador puppies appreciate the miles of clear creeks and the several lakes on the trails. The ducks and geese aren’t disturbed by a puppy, but the swans ruffle up and hiss protecting their territory.