Leeds Castle

I stayed with mum and her partner for 2 weeks and then headed back to London as I had a couple of day trips planned for Red and myself.

Our first trip was to Leeds Castle.  I just ...L.O.V.E... castles so I was really looking forward to this trip.

the croquet lawn

We got here early so were given a special tour inside before the crowds arrived. Like most castles in the UK, Leeds Castle was built in Norman times (around 1119) and at one time was actually lived in by King Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon. The castle has been added to and rebuilt several times since it was first built so not much of the original castle remains.

The wing in the photo above is the newest part of the castle which was purchased in the late 20's by an American Heiress, Lady Baillie. She used it as a weekend getaway from London and would invite several houseguests to join her to swim (yes she built a swimming pool....with a wave machine), play croquet, tennis or watch movies in her own private cinema.  Some famous people who joined her where Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplain, Errol Flynn and David Niven. As well as Winston Churchhill and various royal guests. When Lady Baillie passed away, she left the castle to a privately owned charitable trust called the Leeds Castle Foundation and they keep it in tip top condition for the public to enjoy.

 You can of course still stay here yoursself (no doubt for a princely sum of money) and they also host weddings, conferences and the like.

The above 3 photos show the inside of the oldest, liveable, part of the castle and the decor is very much in keeping with those medieval times whereas the next photos are taken in the newest part and are done in the art deco style of the 1920's.

Outside, the castle is very photogenic and the grounds, once roamed by zebra!, are very extensive including a golf course.

 There is not much left of the original part of the castle.  Just some derelict walls, a gateway and part of the mill.

 After the tour inside we were left to stroll around the grounds for about an hour. Lady Baillie was very fond of birds and the lake is full of geese, ducks and swans.  Some of the swans are black and feature in the logo for the castle.  These are of course Australian Black swans and were gifted to Sir Winston Churchill as a postwar present from the Australian Government at the time. He had nowhere to keep them so left them with Lady Baillie. Their decsendents are still here tho' somewhat elusive.  Took me ages to get a picture and they were quite far away.

punting on the moat

I you would like to read more on the facinating history of this castle, go to the link here . Lots of lovely photos too.

 It really is a fabulous place to visit and I would have liked to have spent the whole day here as there was still so much to do and see but the bus tour was heading off.  Next stop Dover and Canterbury Cathedral.

Oops, a little late with Septembers WINNER

I have become so caught up in my travel posts that I forgot to pick a winner for my September giveaway. Very remiss of me but I seem to be running on that trend at the moment and trying to catch up.  I have steadily been going through my emails which on last count had somehow multiplied and quite rapidly to 3000.  Geez Loueez! Maybe its time to change my email address!

I only had 3 posts in September and Mr RNG picked out #3, which was, "Nostalgic Whitby". I am so glad to be getting such lovely comments from you all about my photos and my trip and I am really enjoying writing these posts as I get to relive my trip, making it more than just a distant memory.

Six of you left comments for this post and Mr RNG picked out #4 which was the lovely Sheila from Sheila's Quilt World who wrote: "Thanks for taking us along on your wonderful journey , I so enjoyed this post and would love to visit Yorkshire"

CONGRATULATIONS!

Something "sweet & small" will be winging its way to you very soon.

 

Liberty for Shopping

Nowhere confuses me more than Oxford Street even though I usually have an excellent sense of direction. Getting off the tube on the Oxford street corner, I had no idea which way to go to get to Liberty even though I had a map in my hand. Setting off in what I thought was the right direction I spotted one of those street maps on a lamppost (or something like that) and decided to have another look. Fortunately! I was just about to head off the wrong way. Quick U turn and one block down, there it was! The most beautiful building that is Liberty of London.

Liberty was originally opened in Regent Street, off Oxford Street,  in 1875. In the 1920's the current Tudor style building was built from the timber of two ships.  It is a gorgeous building inside and out.

A view of level two

A window in the stair well

the stairwell

Even though there was some absolutely gorgeous goodies here, most of them were too expensive for me so I took the stairs to the third floor to find the haberdashery department. I was quite keen to find some of those famous Liberty Fabrics for my stash. I was very tempted to buy some cross stitch designs and some other little haberdashery items but the prices were a little over the top so in the end I just bought 10 skinny eighths which cost me 50 Pounds which I thought was horrendous and even more when I saw the conversion on my return home.......$82!!! oh my! But look at the lovely little bag I got to carry home.

so posh!

And here is what was inside.

yum, yum

Street level windows

And there you have it a visit to Kensington Garden and Liberty in one day and I ended up having a very decadent late lunch just around the corner from here through the archway under the clock and down the lane to the pub next door.

Fashion Rules

Having a spare Saturday on my own, I decided to head into London, specifically Kensington Palace since there was an exhibit there called Fashion Rules featuring dresses worn by the late Princesses Diana and Margaret as well as the Queen.

Kensington Palace is at one end of Hyde Park and was the childhood home of Queen Victoria and so first off I had a wander around the royal rooms associated with her.

This is Queen Victoria's wedding dress. She was a really small woman and I was facinated to see how tiny this dress was.

Time to go and see the other exhibhit. I wouldn't have come to Kensington Palace if it hadn't been for the fact that I saw this exhibition advertised on the Tube.

The exhibit was small but I took my time walking around and around the glass cases examining all the fine detail and beautiful needleskills that went into these dresses. It started with gowns worn by the Queen to various Royal Evening Events. Mostly they were from the 50's and 60's.

Then we moved onto Princess Margaret's collection.The creation below was my favourite from Margaret's wardrobe as hers was mainly a 70s collection and I don't really find 70's style very elegant but wow, doesn't this earlier number exude elegance and style!!

And the room I was most longing to see was dresses from Princess Diana's wardrobe. Looking at  her dresses, it was really evident just how tall she was and unlike the Queen or Princess Margaret's attire, I remembed all of these dresses being worn. 

I really thought it was worthwhile doing the special trip into London to see this exhibit.  I could of done with a sandwich and coffee by now but the on site cafe was chockers so I decided to go and look at the garden before making my way back through Hyde Park to Queensway Tube Station.

This is a private garden and no access is allowed beyond these gates but you can walk the whole way round under a covered walkway.

Here are a few more of my favourite shots.

Now back through Hyde Park.  I was catching the underground to Oxford Park because that is where Liberty is so come back and visit again because next time I will be posting about that journey.

just had to take a photo of the carousel as I was passing

 
On the homefront: I woke up to a wheezing, coughing dog on Saturday and Hubby said he had seen Callie chewing on a stick so my first assumption was that she had something stuck in her throat and was choking.  I got Miss M over to help me take her down to the vets. The good news was she was not choking on a stick but the bad news was, she had Kennel Cough and so $200 later we came home with a bucket of medicine. One of the medications she got was an anti inflammatory  to open her throat and make it easier to breathe which I gave her straight away and the coughing stopped but about a hour later Miss M heard her having a bark at the gate and then she thought she heard the gate open so went to investigate.  She found the most awful thing. Callie was having a seizure.  She was thrashing around on the ground and throwing her head around banging it on the ground.  She called me and I raced out while she went and got the car keys.  I had to carry Callie to the car while she was still having the seizure. An exhausting exercise but I got her onto the back seat.  The whole seizure lasted about 3 minutes so by the time we got to the vet she was calm again.  The vet was amazing and gave her a thourough examination checking all her neuro responses etc, etc. We have an action plan for if it happens again and so far so good. Thankfully she didn't charge me for the second visit.

 

At home with mum

Once back in London Red and I parted ways and he started his tour and I made my way to my mum and her partner's house in Essex.

My focus here was to spend quality time with my mum and other than a couple of trips to surrounding shopping areas, we mainly stayed in, drank cups of tea and chatted.

The first morning I was here it had been raining over night and I was able to take some photos in their garden......rain drops and all.

Mums hydrangeas were looking incredible in full bloom, the blossoms looking like little cups full of water droplets.

and the apple and pear trees were absolutely laden with fruit but not quite ready for picking.

While here I also had time to work on a couple of my stitcheries for Bric-a-Brac.

 If I hadn't left one of my coloured threads at home, I could of finished this.

Reflective Newmillerdam

The morning after visiting Whitby it was time to return to London in time for Red to start his Contiki Tour (lucky him would be returning to York in a few days time) but we were not heading directly down to London on the Express train......No, we were stopping off in Wakefield which is very close to where my family comes from. Time for Red to learn some family history.

the absolutely ginormous clock at York Station

The reason I decided to get off the train in Wakefield is that it is the closest station to Newmillerdam and the best place I could find to hire a car (i.e. easy to get to and a direct road out to Newmillerdam).

The car hire was a little nerve-wracking.  I have never driven in the UK before and even though I mentioned it was a direct route from the car hire to Newmillerdam, I didn't account for the fact that we took a wrong turn at the start of our journey which had us going in the wrong direction right into the centre of town.....something I was keen to avoid! Eventually we got ourselves going in the right direction and once we got our bearings, it was just a 20 minute drive to our destination.

The reason that Newmillerdam is so important to me is that my dad was born here and we now visit him here in spirit.  I came here with my daughter back in 2011 so she now knows where to find her Granddads spirit and this time it was Red's turn.

We were quite hungry by this time and decided to park the car and head accross the road to have lunch at one of the local pubs, the Fox and the Hound.  I have eaten here before and the food is really special. There was a moment of frustration when we struggled to lock the car. It was a very basic model so no central locking and for the 'love of mike', we could not find the door locks on the back doors so in the end we locked up the front doors, put our luggage in the boot and locked that then left the car with unlocked back doors and hoped for the best.

There are heaps of waterbirds here...Various Ducks, Moorhens, Swans and Geese.  These are Canadian Geese

After lunch and a quick check on the car, we set off for our walk around the lake.  The lake is set in a wooded park that many years ago belonged to the estate of a local Manor house but it was gifted to the village some time ago.  It is a lovely place and was a great favourite with my dad. He was born around  here and I seem to remember years ago, when I was a young child, and visiting here with my grandmother, being shown the location of the house where he was born but maybe I dreamt that, I have no idea now.

 

 I found the spot where his spirit is strongest to us and we had a moments reflection under the leafy canopy before continuing on our walk

Red became quiet for a awhile after visiting this spot and I knew he was remembering his Granddad

After spending a hour here strolling around the lake we returned to the car, and everything was how we left it. Next stop, the house where I was born.

Red was my navigator and what a great navigator he was.  We did have a GPS  but it would not stick to the windowscreen so he was watching it and directing me.

I knew exactly where I was when we turned into the street and drove straight up to the house.  It is a little odd parking in the street and taking photos of houses. Last time I did this, someone stopped to ask if we were lost and when I explained why I was taking photos they knew exactly who we were and we ended up having a cup of tea with an old neighbour who still lived there after 40 odd years while she and my mum reminisced about old days. Most specifically, the day I was born.

Red was quite surprised to learn that I was born in the upstairs front bedroom of this house and not in a hospital.  It was quite the done thing back then.  Oh, that makes me sound old!

So, onwards to find some more special spots. Namely, the house where my mum was born and raised till she married my dad.  This house actually has a very special story. I am keeping that to myself and for my family but I will tell you that it was lived in by three generations of the same family. It is for sale at the moment so we were able to peek through the front window like perspective buyers.

A short walk away we visited the local Parish Church where my parents were married and I was Christened.  The churchyard is often mentioned when my mum tells tales of her youth so it is a special place to visit

There is a photo of my mum with her dad and bridesmaids in this very spot just before she entered the church to marry my dad.

What a lovely day, but we had to get the car back to Wakefield and back onto the train to London. I said expressly that I did not want to find myself on the motorway but the GPS had different ideas and, yep, you got it, I ended up on the motorway. Doing a steady speed I stuck to outside lane till I found the offramp.  Was not as bad as I thought and not surprisingly we survived the motorway and got ourselves back to the car rental without any ordeals.