Well, I finally got a shot at one – with the camera!!

And here’s my pheasant:

I was finally able to get a lovely picture while I was visiting friends near Leeds. We made a trip to Harewood House while we were there, and that’s where we found this old boy just hanging out along a path.

The Angel of the North is a large piece of sculpture that is just off the A1.  We’ve driven by this piece of art a couple times, when we go up to Scotland on the route that takes us past Newcastle. We don’t normally go this route, so I’ve only been by once or twice. The weather has never been particularly good, or we’ve been in the frame of mind “must get to Dundee,” so photographing it has never been foremost in our minds. This time, however, we made a special stop to capture Flat Stanley in front of this artwork, and a quick pic for my blog. So, here you go!

Brighton! You would think that in the years we’ve been here in London, we would have spent some time in Brighton by now. But no, we’d only been once before, and that was just a quick drop by on our way someplace else. So, we thought that since we wanted to go somewhere, and conserve holiday time, that Brighton seemed like an ideal spot. And overall it proved to be a wonderful place to spend a weekend.

We left work on Friday night, caught the train and arrived around 8:00 or so. It was pretty dark and frigid cold when we got there. We had no idea what to expect the next morning. We were pleasantly surprised when we opened the blinds to this:

Yep, this is the West Pier that burned down a few years ago. If we looked left, we saw the pier in the picture above. All in all, not a bad view.

We started the day with a brisk walk down to the lively Brighton Pier, and spent about 20p playing the penny drop slots. The majority of the rides at the end of the pier were closed due to high winds, (I wasn’t too crazy about the look of them, either) so we turned around and headed back in to town. We then spent the rest of the day wandering around the city, doing some shopping in the Lanes, where we bought a clock for our living room, and then finished the evening off in a pretty nice pub. Not a bad way to spend the day.

Of course, it was all made the better because it started off with Paul’s breakfast in bed…

Doesn’t he look happy?

Not as happy as he was when his robots showed up in the mail!! Sadly, there is no photographic evidence of that. Anyway, I think it was a pretty successful birthday for him this year!

It started when Paul brought home my birthday cake:

Absolutely yummy. Paul brought this home for me from Patisserie Valerie last Friday. Granted, that was October 31, but we were on our way out the door for my annual birthday trip. This year it was a bit low key, completely different from the year before. But that’s ok, because I had a fabulous time, and I finally got to celebrate Bonfire Night in the UK.

My birthday falls on November 5, which  in America is most often just a normal day, unless it happens to fall on an election day. Which it doesn’t this year. Close, but not quite. In the UK, November 5 is Bonfire Night. Bonfire Night – what is that, you ask? Well, it’s a holiday the UK has to celebrate the foiled plot of Guy Fawkes’ attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

The weekend before my birthday, Paul took me up to Derbyshire for my annual trip. We went there specifically to tour the house Chatsworth and go to their Bonfire Night celebrations. Not to mention enjoy the beautiful countryside up there.

Chatsworth celebrated Bonfire Night in style. Not only did we get to see this massive fire, but they also put on an impressive display of fireworks.

It was a great night. Not too cold, and only minimal rain. The event started at 6:30, and they had food vans selling pasties and sausage sandwiches, along with beer, tea and coffee. It was a bit of a carnival, with people on stilts all dressed up and then they also had performers who were juggling fire batons and all sorts.

It was a quick weekend, with the Saturday spent touring the house and exploring the gardens. I was having a terrible afternoon with the camera, though, and didn’t manage to get many pictures, which is a bit disappointing. It was a nice break and one I’ll definitely remember for a while.

There are two main bits to see when you go – the house and the garden. The gardens were definitely the highlight. The house was ok, but not fabulous. Perhaps it was because it was really busy that I was put off a bit. Entry is by timed ticket, which means you have a fifteen minute window to get into the house. Then you can stay in as long as you want – and boy were people sticking around. Getting in wasn’t the problem, it was moving around once you were in. People just were not moving along. Slow shuffle was definitely the speed of the day. There wasn’t much in the way of “house” to see inside, there were a couple dressed rooms, but then the rest was set up as a sort of museum to Churchill. I might have been more appreciative of it had there not been so many people. I thought the gardens were much better.

The amount of space and land was what struck you as you drove in to the place. That was what I liked about Knole Park as well. But not only did Chartwell have space, it was also beautifully landscaped, with other smaller garden areas throughout. My favorite bit was Lady Churchill’s Rose Garden. Not to mention the swimming pool, which is one of the first things you see as you walk into the property.

As big as the space was, it did seem rather homely. It wasn’t nearly as ostentatious as you would think. In fact, the interior was quite humble, and one of the gardens actually had – gasp! – vegetables in it! That was nice to see, considering I haven’t seen a proper growing garden in long long time.

I enjoyed it. If only there weren’t so many people!

Some more pictures from the gardens:

There are further pictures in the gallery.

Now, we didn’t go to Dover, but went to a place just outside of the town, in the country. We’ve been to Dover before, and it’s not a spectacular town. It’s a port, and so it isn’t the best, certainly not much to write home about. But, you can’t beat the idea of seeing the White Cliffs and so we stayed a lovely hotel outside of town in the countryside. The hotel was Wallet’s Court, a hotel and spa. We didn’t do much except get away from home on the Saturday. I think we spent the majority of the day eating. We had a nice cream tea when we arrived, and then because we weren’t going into town, we had a wonderful dinner there. Seriously, the dinner was gorgeous, and we were able to take our time with it. Normally when we go out to eat, we always are rushed through the meal, only to have to wait ages for the check to come. It was actually refreshing to be able to take our time, especially when the whole point of the evening was to spend some actual real time with one another. It was lovely.

The next day, we drove down the road and had a lovely view of Dover Castle. We didn’t visit the castle on this trip. However, we did walk by the cliffs, and I was able to get some pictures, which I’ve been wanting to do for ages. This walk, I have to say was breathtaking, and a big highlight. We live so close to Dover, and I’ve seen the cliffs from the ferry, but to see them so close was amazing. The walk takes you right along the top of them, all the way to a lighthouse.

The weather, as usual in England, was a bit unpredictable. When we started the weekend out, it was sunny and just warm enough to get away with a heavy sweater. Then, it cooled down quite a bit while we were away. It started to snow (of all things!) while we were walking, so we turned back after we were about halfway. Paul had left his coat in the car, thinking his sweatshirt would keep him warm enough. Unfortunately, he was wrong, and we had to turn around so we could go get him warm again.

It didn’t help that we had just cut his hair, so he had nothing on his head to keep him warm either!

And that just about sums up our trip to Dover. It made for a very nice weekend trip away, and it was a very happy anniversary for us.

Initially, Paul thought these were roe deer, but the National Trust says that there are fallow and sika deer found in the deer park. Either way, it was pretty nice to see them there, and further pictures from the day can be found here in the gallery.

Tonight, they’re trying to difuse the thing – which seems to be a good thing because reports say that it’s been ticking.  “They” are the Royal Engineers. Apparently, they seem to have a bit of experience with this sort of thing. There seem to be any number of left over unexploded bombs in London. It’s good to keep in mind that some of those on that list have been taken care of since it was produced, so it isn’t definitive. So, why are these bombs all over London? Well, they are all a consequence of The Blitz.

When you start to think about this, you begin to realize that there’s a bit more to the reason why people are constantly bringing up “The War.” Somehow, it doesn’t seem quite so out of touch to me now.

So inspired by our drive – and because we’re being cheap at the moment – got to find funds for a caribou hunt someplace! – we decided to go for a walk in the country last weekend. For a walk in the country – I sound like Londoner when I say that. At home, and so many other places, you just walk out the door. Here, you drive for an hour to get to the country, and then you’re still not far from everyone.

So we took a six mile wander around Kent on public footpaths. It was the first time in a while I’ve been surrounded by countryside. It was gorgeous. We were lucky as well. On our drive the weekend before, I noticed the bluebells had been out for a while. Happily, I caught some of these beautiful flowers with my camera. I got my macro lens out and had a bit of fun with that. The bluebells don’t have much longer to go before they’ll fade. They’re such pretty seas of blue in the woods here in Kent, they easily make spring my favorite season in the UK.
The countryside in Kent is beautiful, and quite walkable as well. It’s so easy and accessible for us as well. I hope this is the beginning of a wonderful summer. We have plans to get a tent and hopefully do some more exploring of the English and French countryside – rustic style!

Just keep your dog on a leash and don’t let it worry the sheep!

But here we are at Easter weekend – what did we do? Not much, it was Easter. But, we did take some time to visit the lovely city of Bath. It was also insanely busy. We seemed to have arrived in the middle of a rugby game – which was unlucky, as Paul would say.

This meant we didn’t get to spend a lot of time there in Bath. Most of our time was spent finding a parking space. Seriously, it was crazy busy. By the time we were parked, and out of the car, we really felt like getting back in heading home. Especially as the weather was a bit crap and there were so many people milling about.

However, once we made our way up to the abbey, the weather broke and the blue sky came out. Still cold, but at least we had sunshine. I was able to get a beautiful shot of the abbey, with this brilliant blue background. If you look at the picture you can see the angels going up and down the ladders, to and from heaven. We didn’t go in to the abbey, or even the Roman baths. I’d been before, on my first trip to the UK, and Paul wasn’t as keen as I was to see scenes from Jane Austen.

And that was my real reason to visit Bath again – to see bits I hadn’t seen before… things I’ve seen in movies and had read about in books that I wanted to see in real life and to dream a little bit. So, we had a bit of a wander and followed some other tourists around. We took a few funny pictures of ourselves, and then went to the Sally Lunn bun place, which was highly overrated with very bad service. Although, how can you resist a cream tea, I don’t know.

I really liked Bath the first time I visited, and I’m sure we’ll go back. I think when we do, we may spend an evening and explore a little more. Our trip this time wasn’t very well thought out, or timed right at all. A bit of a spur of the moment decision which turned out to be a very nice day.

Our way back home was maybe just as interesting as our day. One thing I didn’t get a picture of, and really wish I had, was we drove through a town called Pennsylvania!! I was completely flabbergasted! There was even a B&B there – maybe we’ll go spend a night in Pennsylvania some time!