marjorie73 | Entries tagged with stourhead

My parents were here to visit this weekend.

I noticed a little while back that Kaffe Fassett was due to speak at Topping and Co in Bath, and knowing that my mum has been a long-term admirer of his work, I asked her if she would like to go, which she did, so I booked a couple of tickets, and she and my dad arranged to come for the weekend.

The event was on Friday night, and I found it interesting despite being there primarily to keep my mum company! (I like Fassett's work, but probably would not have chosen to go to the event if it were just me!)

The talk was as part of a tour to publicise his new autobiography, and he spoke about his journey from painter to knitter to quilter and embroiderer, his passion for colour. He showed 2 of his current works in progress (photos aren't very good, as we were sitting quite far back!)

It's clear he has a passion for his work, and a huge enthusiasm for his work, and for sharing it and encouraging others to explore their own creativity.

On Saturday, the three of us went to Stourhead for a walk. It was a lovely day - very cold, but bright and clear.

We started by walking up to the obelisk, and then walked down through the woods and around the lake.

There was a 'festival of song' taking place which meant that there were 3 or 4 choirs singing at
different places around the grounds, so there were faint echoes and the sound of distant song as we walked around.

There is a rather nice pub just outside the gardens, so we treated ourselves to a delicious lunch (and some totally unnecessary and extravagant desserts) and then went for a short further walk, as a result...

I noticed, for the first time, that the relief on the outside of the 'Temple of Flora' includes these rather nice ox skulls.

Detail, Temple of Flora

We'd timed it all well. As we left, it started to rain.

Sunday was a much quieter, lazy day. In the morning, we went into Frome, which was having it's 'Christmas Extravaganza' - the High Street was closed, and there were all the usual stallholders from the Farmer's Market together with various craft-stalls. After that, we spent the rest of the day relaxing, reading papers and such, finishing with a supper of venison casserole and an early night.

A most enjoyable weekend!

Current Location: Stourhead House

Dear me! It's been weeks, hasn't it?

I haven't had a lot to blog about. My car got its annual service, and I got my flu jab, but neither of those is very exciting!

Last weekend my parents came to visit, as they had a dinner to go to near here. I always enjoy seeing them, and I had had a really
shitty week at work and was feeling very stressed, so it was lovely to have company to distract me from brooding too much over things I couldn't do anything about until Monday morning...

On Saturday we did a little early christmas shopping, distracted only by the police doing a fingertip search of the High Street, and then on Sunday, which came a gorgeous sunny day, we went to Stourhead for a walk.

The colours were even better than when I was there a couple of weeks ago - mainly because the sun was out this time.

In addition, we saw a heron. I don't think there is much risk it will go hungry - we aslo saw lots of leaping fish, in the lake.

There may have been a cream-tea before we went home, too.

This morning was rather grey and damp, but it wasn't actually raining (at least when I got up) So I decided that I would go to Stourhead, to see the autumn leaves.

I was a little startled that when I arrived, about 15 minutes after opening time, I found that the main car park was full and the overflow was getting pretty busy. I suppose that's what happens when the National Trust goes onto BBC Radio 4 and says that this weekend will be the best one to see the colours...!

Just as I got tho the entrance of the grounds it started to drizzle, and although this did stop when I was about half way around the lake, it continued to be pretty grey, so the colours didn't look as dramatic as they do when you manage to catch them on a day of glorious autumn sunshine!

There were swans swanning around on the lake, as well as the ducks, gulls and coots, and I saw a heron, too, fishing near the Pantheon, although it very uncooperatively had it's hed down making it hard to photograph sucessfully.

I enjoyed the walk, and the views - I didn't even mind the rain, as it wasn't cold.

After leaving the main grounds, I drove along towards 'King Alfred's Tower', which is on the edge of Stourhead's park. On the way, I found a little space to park from which I could walk along to 'St Peters Pump', which is a little monument marking the source of the River Stour.

I then moved on to King Alfred's Tower itself. The tower is a folly, built in 1772 to mark the spot where it was belived Alfred the Great rallied his troops before defeating the Danes in 878AD. It's an interesting building - a triangular brick tower with a staircase in a little turret running up one corner, and is totally empty, (and very damp) It is claimed that when it was built, it marked the point where the counties of Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire met, with one corner in each county, but I am a little sceptical.

You can climb up the tower (160', around 250 steps) and it is well worth doing so - the views from the top are stunning. By the timwe I got to
the top, the sun had come out.

Although I visit Stourhead fairly frequently, this is the first time I've been to the tower. I'm glad I did.

more pictures in my flickr set here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/34526827@N07/sets/72157628021700838/

Most of this week has involved work, which while necessary, yields little in the way of interesting blog material (especially as this isn't, and isn't intended to become, a Law blog)

However, as the weekend approached things became more interesting. My mother had booked in to do two, one day patchwork workshops just down the road from me, so she and my dad ~~invited themselves~~ asked whether they could come down for the weekend, and I of course was happy to have them.

I was able to book Friday afternoon off work, which meant that I could get many of the dull weekend chores out of the way before they arrived, and also to take my car into the garage to have 2 new tyres, tyres being one of those things which cars do seem to need on a fairly regular basis.

All of which meant that once they did arrive, I was able to enjoy their company without having to do much housekeeping.

Saturday was a cold, grey day, with intermittant rain, so my dad and I stayed home, annd read the papers and (in my case) chopped up oranges for a new batch of marmalade

In the evening, I'd invited my dad's cousin, who lives in Bath to come over to join us for dinner, so I wanted to make a 'proper' meal - I made roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and all the trimmings, and then a lemon meriengue pie for dessert, (and drafted my dad in as chef's assistant to help with potato peeling and the like!)

We had a nice evening of food and conversation - at least, I did, and everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves!

On Sunday my mum was at the second of her two workshops, but it came a beautiful, clear, bright sunny day, so my dad and I decided to go over to Stourhead to go for a walk.
I love Stourhead, and it is always good to see it, and to see it change with the changing seasons. The last time I visited was in October, when the woods were a riot of copper and crimson and gold.

This time, the colours aare much more muted - the beeches and acers are bare, the rhodedendrons and yews have foliage, there is much less variation in colour, although there are a few trees with vivid red or yellow bark, making them look aalmost as if they are burning.

On the other hand, the naked trees have wonderful skeletons, and there are beginning to be snowdrops under the beeches. We walked up to the obelisk, which is on the South side of the lake- there are views back down to the lake, and to the huse (which is not open at this time of year) aand then walked down, and around the lake. There was still frost around where the sun had not yet reached, and patches of ice in the lake, and the smaller ponds, and above it all, a perfect blue sky.

I saw a pair of great crested grebes on the lake, who seemed to be doing very well catching numerous little fish, as well as the usual ducks and geese.

As much as the walk, and seeing the changes to the place, I enjoyed having the time with my dad, on a one-to-one basis, which tends not to happen very often!

Later in the day, we (he & I) ventured up into the loft to retrieve some of the boxes which my sister has been storing there, and which my parents are takng to her, now she has a loft of her own (The boxes were originally in my parents' loft, moved to mine when they moved house, and are now slowy returning to her - althoug I still have 4 or 5 boxes in my loft...) and also used his cunning little widget to work out where the wires run n my walls, so that I can hang some more pictures without worrying I am about to hammer a nail through an electrical cable, as I understand that that tends to end badly..

Then, my mum got home (with more, partially completed patchwork panels to finish at home) and we had a relaxed evening.

All in all, a most enjoyable weekend. Although it turned out that I had not got the marmalade quite right, as by this morning it was still showing no sign of setting, so once my parents had left, I decaanted it back into the saucepan and tried boiling it a little more, to see whether that will encourage it to set as it ought. It tastes absolutely fine, so it is really an aesthetic issue, but despite that I hope that it will set this time round.

And the books I mentioned?

I was lucky enough to win a copy of Martin Millar's book 'Lonely Werewolf Girl', in French ('Kalix: La loup-garou solitaire') when Martin gave away a couple of copies on his blog, and it just showed up. New books are always good. New books which come free from the author are best of all, and what better way to practice my somewhat rusty French than reading such a good book?

I also just learned that I won 3 SF novels, trasnslated from Japanese, in a draw run by the Science Fiction Fantasy Translation Awards blog!

Aren't I the lucky one :-)

Current Mood: content

I had planned to catch up with housework, and other things which have piled up over the last couple of weeks, while I've been busy partying in Dublin and then being sick-unto-death. And I started well, this morning: I finally managed to post a birthday present to my best friend (admittedly her birthday was a week ago, but it felt like an achievement)
I even did some vacuuming and some laundry. However, I noticed while I was in town that the trees are looking rather colourful just now, and that it was actually a rather nice day, so I decided to change my plans and head to Stourhead to go for a walk, and enjoy the autumn colours.

Stourhead is owned by the National Trust these days, but it used to belong to the Hoare family, who were London bankers. They had a manor house built in the 1720s, and the gardens were laid out between 1740 and 1780.