Essex

We've been away again - do these people never stay at home? - this time down to Daughter 2's in London. We visited Forty House, a Jacobean (early 1600s) house in Enfield. The grounds haven't been built on, so there's a 273 acre estate with a pond, parklands, a big walled garden and so on. Amazingly, it's now owned by Enfield Borough Council and is open free to the public. The house itself is large by most people's standards but not uncomfortably huge - a lovely family home. Its most recent owners were the Parker Bowles family - Queen Camilla's former husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, grew up here. Lucky chap!

It's partly furnished, not with the original furniture, and this room has clothes for dressing up.

A very realistic elephant. 

The queen surveys her policies. (I've just looked up "policies", meaning the managed estate round a house, and discovered that this is a Scottish rather than a standard English use of the word. So I suppose it's wrong here, since the house is in England. But I like the grandeur that the word implies.)

The gardens are stunning, even at this time of year. 

Later, I drew a picture of Smallest Granddaughter and she drew one of me drawing her. I look encouragingly young and much smarter than in reality - though somewhat naked. (I was not.)

The next day we visited the little medieval town of Waltham Abbey. You can easily imagine what it was like 500, 600 years ago or more.

Small Granddaughter helpfully holds up this somewhat crooked house. She was dressed as a rabbit only temporarily; she became rather hot.

The town has a very pretty setting on a river

and a beautiful church, the remains of the abbey which was (inevitably) demolished by Henry VIII. I wish he hadn't.

Then we went to a children's farm, with lovely views over the Essex countryside. (Why do we live in a town?)

There were rabbits, guinea pigs, goats, meerkats etc. 

And many many pumpkins, and really good playparks. 

It was a lovely weekend. But now we're home again. 

Scotland

Goodness, life is busy! But fun. We went down again to Galashiels to see the Great Tapestry of Scotland (actually embroidery). There's so much to look at! Here's a snail in detail (not sure why it was there) 

and here it is again, in the corner of the King Macbeth panel. (He was a good king really and Shakespeare maligned him.)

Look at the detail on James III (of Scotland)'s tunic

and Margaret of Denmark's dress

and this rather dubious-looking man's coat. 

He's ceding Orkney or possibly Shetland to the Scots and doesn't look too happy about it. 

There are 160-something panels and we've only really looked at the first 50. After that, one is overwhelmed. We'll go back soon. 

We went with the family for a walk in the grounds on Lauriston Castle.

Autumn is still at the beautiful stage, though possibly about to tip over into the sodden-leaves one. 

We've had a lot of lovely days. 

And on Saturday we went out with our walking friends round Lasswade, again on a lovely day. 

So

pretty

and such a nice walk - only 5 miles. Slightly - it must be admitted - muddy underfoot in bits. 

And then, for a change, one can just walk along the beach. 

 

Away again!

We've been away again - not really like us except, seemingly, this autumn - this time to Crieff Hydro. We were there in the summer with the family and then the Hydro sent us a 20% off offer so we thought... well, why not have a couple of nights just by ourselves? It's very familiar territory - my family went there for the summer holiday every year from when I was 3 to when I was 12, and then we've been back fairly often over the years with our children, with my parents and my brother's family and then with the grandchildren and other family members. It didn't occur to us till recently that this was the first time we'd been there on our own since our honeymoon! It's only about an hour away and we only went for two nights, so it was very easy: not much packing or planning. 

The first full day, we visited Drummond Castle Gardens, dating from the 16th century, though obviously changed a bit since then. The autumn colours were beautiful - much better than shown in the photos. 

We've been before, but I don't think in the autumn. They're lovely at any time of year. 

These leaves look good enough to eat.

Then in the afternoon we climbed the Knock, as one has to do when staying at the Hydro. This is a hill just behind the hotel. 

I just can't express how much I love this place - the only trouble being that it's steeped for me in nostalgia: memories of my parents, of my small children, of my baby grandchildren - all now gone or different. However, the memories are happy ones. 

My parents' ashes are scattered under one of these trees. 

 

And then the following day, on the way home, we visited Scone Palace Gardens, where autumn was again very lovely. 

We had such a nice time. And we'll be back - I hope!

Richmond

We've been away for a long weekend with our walking chums to Richmond in Yorkshire. There were ten of us, staying in a big house, and we had a lovely time. Most of us have known one another for forty or fifty years, so it's very easy to be with them and we have a routine for catering for these weekends - baked potatoes and salad for dinner the first day, lasagna the second and a restaurant for the third. Sandwiches and fruit for packed lunches and George and Gill make the breakfasts. Simple!

The weather on Saturday was beautiful and we had an easy five-ish-mile walk on the outskirts of the town, via Easby Abbey.

It was built around 1152 and sacked on the orders of Henry VIII - as were so many abbeys and monasteries - in the 1530s, but there's quite a lot of it left (it was HUGE). 

We walked back along the River Swale. 

The next day was a lot harder!

None of us had done this walk before and it was trickier than it looked on the map. 

There was quite a lot of uphill,

a fair old bit of "path" like this 

some walking along beside quite steep drops - this isn't one - I couldn't take any photos for fear of plunging to my doom. We came to Williance's Leap, a memorial for a horse which fell several hundred feet off an escarpment with its rider. The horse was killed, while the rider bounced on the horse and... well, let's say he survived but it was a gory story. So encouraging for those scared of heights (me). 

And then we came down again to the river and we thought, ah good,

but then had to go up again for a while because the river bank disappeared. 

But it was all fine, especially once we were back in the house, drinking tea and other things. Five and a bit miles if it were flat, but there was a lot of climbing and (harder on the knees) getting back down again. 

We had such a good time; lots of laughs and silliness. I feel very lucky still to be able to do such things and to have such good companions to do them with. 

We've agreed to go back to Richmond next year. I hope we're all still alive!