Castle Combe with Flat Eli

We received a visit from Flat Eli, all the way from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania! We took him on a walk to Castle Combe, Wiltshire, voted prettiest village in England.

It was a chilly morning, 0 degrees C when we left, and dropped to -1.5 on the way.

Castle Combe is fairy tale pretty, with only 350 residents.

Our walk took us from Castle Combe, through the woods to Long Dean, and then across a meadow to Ford, where we had an early dinner at the White Hart pub, then walked back.

Very fuzzy, very friendly donkey.

Mud and Sticks!

This was a favorite stile of Mike's.

I love how this tree is growing in, around and between an old stacked stone wall.

Piggies!

I like seeing livestock on our walks. I'm not sure if it's true, but it seems like the animals we eat in England have better quality of life compared with most US livestock. We see lots of small farms.

Arriving at the teeny village of Long Dean.

Icey puddles.

Notice old, overgrown stacked stone walls.

Flat Eli at the White Hart.

Video of us starting our walk back to Castle Combe from Ford. I love how Mike uses his stick to herd the boys.

Loads of love from England!

Hartley-Wintney

In early December, Babette and I drove to visit the large village of Hartley-Wintney, Hampshire. It is a gorgeous town with lots of antique shops. We walked around, visited the duck pond, with a thatched duck house...

saw the Mildmay Oaks, about which the Hartley-Wintney parish website describes:

In 1805 Admiral Collingwood, who was in command of the Navy after the battle of Trafalgar, was appealing to landowners to plant oaks: “What I am most anxious about” he wrote “is the plantation of oak in this country. We shall never cease to be a great people while we have ships and we cannot have ships without timber.”
Lady Mildmay, who had become Lady of the Manor in 1786, seems to have responded to his appeal by instructing her steward in Hartley Row to plant out acorns. From these grew the now famous Mildmay or Trafalgar Oaks.
They provide Hartley Wintney with its most impressive and historic feature and are believed to be unique – despite extensive research it has not been possible to find another surviving regimented plantation of Oaks planted in this country at that time.

Babette amidst the Mildmay Oaks.

Hartley-Wintney has the oldest continuously played cricket pitch in the world!

Lunch at the Cricketers.

"Cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth, certainly greater than sex, although sex ísn't bad either." Harold Pinter

And then we happened upon St. Mary's, a 13th century church built on a hill above the village.

I loved it. I love graveyards. I like reminders of our mortality, it brings me back to what I care about most.

nello!

As I walk among the ancient signs of lives lived, I think about the here and now.

I want so badly for this life I have to count.

I think about my children, and their precious gift of now.

What a blessing it is, all this.

Matilda Anne dead and gone at 44.

London Getaway

In early December Mike and I had a magical two day, one night getaway to London. Babette very generously offered to entertain the boys and we thrilled to bits left her to it.

A view from Waterloo Bridge.

We left as early as we could manage and took the train into town. So exciting!

View from Waterloo Bridge.

The morning was glorious, as you can see from the photos. The weather in general has been so much warmer and sunnier than last year, we can hardly believe it's the same country.

View from Waterloo Bridge.

Our first order of business was getting tickets to the Da Vinci exhibit at the National Gallery! I watched a program about the recently restored and authenticated Salvator Mundi, but when I tried to buy tickets online, they had already sold out. So we opted to wait in line. For three and a half HOURS! Fortunately, we had a fun queue-mate to while away the frosty morning.
And the sky looked like this, lovely to behold.

We lucked into the 8:30 pm viewing, the last of the day. Many people behind us didn't get tickets.
At the suggestion of our queue-mate, we had lunch at Joe Allen in the West End. It was so much fun, the ambience is warm and lively and the food was crazy good. I ordered the tagliatelle with truffles, despite the price tag because I thought, what the heck! Soooo yummy, worth every pence. Also, they have secret burgers that aren't on the menu but are yummers!

We arrived right on time to see the Da Vinci exhibit, after seeing a movie, which was a huge mistake. What a waste of 2 hours, we should have walked around town instead. Oh well.


Seeing the collection of Da Vinci's work was thrilling, it felt like a gift. Included in the exhibit was a life size photo of The Last Supper painted by Da Vinci, and a near contemporary copy which hangs at Magdalen College, Oxford. The copy is painted on canvas and is hardly deteriorated, giving a good idea about the detail and color of the original.

The next morning we went our for a walk/run.

And discovered a German style Christmas market on the Southbank by the London Eye. Crepes!! And mushrooms! And sausages!

Later that day we went to see Billy Elliot, and we both agreed we could understand 75% more than we would have if we had never lived here.

After we had dinner at a restaurant in Covent Garden Market, serenaded sweetly by a guy with a guitar.

Croome Court

Thanksgiving weekend, Babette, the boys, Mike and I made a trip to Worcester to visit our friends Anita and Kwesi and their boys Henry and Owen. Anita is one of my sister's favorite people from high school and her sister Denise became one of my best friends. Living far from our dear ones feels a lot like being hungry all the time, so at this point, I was dying to spend some time with a family who we know and love so well.

Happy!

I wasn't the only one who was enchanted. Dominic fell head over heels for Henry.

We headed to Croome Court which is a National Trust property near Pershore, south of Worcester in Worcestershire.

It has an interesting recent past that includes being a Catholic boarding school for poor children and a Hare Krishna compound. Seeing the pegs and cubbies of the poor children made me sad, I imagined it was grim. Then the Hare Krishnas partied it up and painted some of the plaster work jolly colors of the rainbow.

The park and house were designed by Capability Brown in 1751 for George, the 6th Earl of Coventry.

Grandma!!

You cannot visit a National Trust property without learning about the landscape artist Capability Brown! He is everywhere.

Drunk on ginger beer.

Croome Court was his first landscape design and his first major architectural project.

The landscaping is called gardenless because it was created to appear completely natural, with rolling hills, rivers, and lakes. An interesting feature of this style are "eye catchers'', which are buildings constructed at a distance from the house to draw the eye. Some of them were built to mimic ruined castles, and there are a few pretend ruins at Croome Court.

Your toes are so....gross.

Our boys had a fantastic time exploring the building. Some properties are stuffier than others, and this one was quite kid friendly.

Withdrawing.

Mmmmm, potted lamprey anyone?

Notice groovy Hare Krishna decor of plasterwork behind the dashing, young Earls.