On Books...And Houses...

What do I love? Country houses!
When do I love them? All the time!

Wouldn't make a very catchy protest chant, would it? They genuinely are one of my favourite things in all the world though.









Top to bottom: the library at Batemans, Benthall Hall, Stokesay Castle, Bodiam Castle, Sissinghurst, Calke Abbey, Hever Castle, Montacute.

I am an unashamed history geek. I would (and do) quite happily spend a lot of my free time and most of my holidays poking around country houses and castles, large and small. I even work in one! Dream job, I tell you, absolute dream job.

There are endless stories woven into these buildings. Famous lives, insignificant ones, wars, treasure, royalty, scandals, stunning craftmanship, beauty, love, loss and everything in between. You don't have to look hard for them. Visit, read and listen, let your imagination wander. It's all there.

The way I feel about people who don't like looking around them is the same way I feel about people who don't liking reading. I just don't get it. How can you possibly think they're boring when they're the best thing ever?

Nicola tweeted me a link to a course on FutureLearn (I'd never heard of them before but their course list is most interesting), enticingly titled Literature of the English Country House and I nearly exploded with glee. Books and houses! Houses and books! Could anything be better than that?  Yes: it's a free course. Books and houses and bargains - three of my favourite things!

I shall report back once I've finished it (the course only starts today) but I am looking forward to it an enormous amount.  Pleasingly, so are quite a few of my Twitter chums.  Consider this a small public service announcement for any of you that might also be interested in it, cos you can still sign up for it now and I would love to have more people to talk to about it.

Cake and Castles

Whilst halfway up a mountain in Wales over Easter, I turned round to my mum and said something along the lines of "Cake, coffee, second hand bookshops and castles: today has been pretty perfect, hasn't it?"  We were being merrily buffeted by wind and rain at this point, I had a serious case of Castle Hair going on (does anyone else with long hair get this? The tangles are EPIC) and it was generally quite grim but I was so, so content with life.

Britain is an endlessly fascinating place. Trips abroad are all well and good but there's so much to see right here. We stayed in Bishop's Castle in Shropshire which is only about 80 miles away from home. Plus I've visited Shropshire quite a lot over the years and have done most of the obvious tourist things there. That doesn't mean we were short of things to do!

Bishop's Castle itself is tiny but rather lovely. You've got to love a place with polka dot houses and lots of yarnbombing, haven't you?





So where did we go? What did we do? We didn't stay in the cottage reading and playing Bananagrams all week, I promise.

We went to Montgomery and found:

Bunners, the BEST shop in the whole world. It's a proper treasure trove of ironmongery, hardware and kitchenware and even has old fashioned petrol pumps outside!

Also the world's most tasteful Spar



And a ruined castle. As I mentioned above, the weather was not great so it wasn't ideal for arty photos. Also I was too busy facing my fear of falling through gappy bridges to get my camera out. They scare the crap out of me. You can't see it properly but there's a drop of about 50 feet below this and oh my god, what if I fell through the gaps and DIED? It's a looooooooong way down!

We went to Much Wenlock and looked around the very beautiful priory. It was a visit full of topiary and Highland coos and lady selfies in the ruins of the Lady Chapel. Also me utterly failing to pose properly for photos.

We went to an Iron Age hill fort (as you do). It used to look like this:

Now it looks like this:

Imagination is a very helpful thing when visiting places like this!



We went to a stone circle in the middle of nowhere.

We went to Benthall Hall which is beautiful and has the friendliest volunteers. My favourite fact of all time is that one of the previous owners used to eat 16 sausages a day. Sixteen!! Also see that room on the left hand side of the ground floor? There was a Civil War battle in that room - cannons through the windows and dead soldiers all over the floor.

We went to Shrewsbury for the day where I had a delicious lunch and a lovely afternoon with Char.





We went on quite a lot of zooming around Z roads (my mother is a truly intrepid driver) looking at odd place names. Snailbeach or The Bog anyone?

Then on my birthday we all had cake for breakfast and went off to Stokesay Castle and Ludlow. The sun shone and it was utterly blissful.

Cats in shops alert!! This brilliant cafe/bookshop/record shop in Bishop's Castle (which also sells the best apricot slice I've ever eaten) has an excellent ginger moggy.

Then in a tiny, cluttered antiques shop in Much Wenlock we found this enormous fluffmonster. Apparently he lives in a pub, is called Carling and pays a daily visit to the shop.

ps - I bought some books. Quelle surprise.

To The Manor Born

Last weekend was bliss and a real escape from how stressy real life has been recently.  I rounded up eleven of my favourite bloggers - Rosie, Char, Maria, Sarah, Lucy, Chloe, Sarah, Becks, Alice, Gemma, Sophie (and Bodhi the dog) - and we went on a jolly holiday to Norbury Manor in Derbyshire.

It really was the most amazing house I've ever stayed in. And HUGE! If I'd taken a photo of everything that was beautiful then this post would be so long you'd all fall asleep reading it. I'll try and narrow them down a bit. Read on, mes amies. I promise you it's not a sleep-inducing post. And there is a mystery treat for you at the end!

Thank you Mr Martin. Mr Stapleton Martin? I dunno. We found his grave in the churchyard next door and he actually had about 8 names.  Anyway, Marcus, do forgive the informality. You and your house rock and I'm ever so glad you rescued it.

I had the pink bedroom. I put aside my violent prejudice against the colour because it had a) window seats, b) a chaise longue, c) a dressing room and d) the most excellent floors for sliding around on in your socks. 

Also e) a Char to share it with. She may have wished for a different roommate after we got overexcited, jumped on the bed at the same time and I elbowed her in the knee. She has a massive bruise now. Me and my pointy elbows.

It was a deliciously relaxing long weekend, full of epic amounts of laughter, gossip, photographs, cake and wine and amazing food (massive thanks to Chloe for menu planning, ordering and cooking it all!). Yay for fantastic bloggers who share tastes in how a good holiday should go.

We love our cameras.

Becks managed to take a photo of me taking a photo of Lucy taking a photo. The mind boggles.

And we love cake. Did I mention cake? There was lots of cake. So much cake that I had some for breakfast. What?! I was on holiday. It's totally allowed.

We did some active things too. Look, walks!

The debate rages on as to whether it was alpacas or llamas that we saw when we were out in the countryside. Can anyone give a definite answer as to what these creatures are?  The little white one looked remarkably like a sheep to me.

I was gobsmacked to discover that some of the girls had never even heard of Poohsticks, let alone played it. We promptly had a game. Um, shortest game ever. We rather underestimated how fast the river was flowing and I don't think we ever did find out who won. Still fun though!

I do mostly believe in being lazy when you're on holiday though.  Walks are lovely, especially when the sun is shining, but if you're away with that many fantastic people you mostly want to lounge around and talk to them. The Manor had many, many places where this could happen and you could guarantee that you'd always find a group of people gathered around the kitchen table, curled up on the comfy sofas in the sitting room, tucked up in the snug, holding court in the dressing room, sitting on the stone benches in the garden or just generally frolicking around enjoying themselves.

Thankfully there are no photos of me sitting round in my pjs drinking wine (bravo for the unspoken group decision not to take any photos in the evenings) but there are a lot of me in my typical daytime pose - curled up somewhere enjoying a Persephone book.  Here I am:

On a window seat

In the amazing roll top bath

And on a different window seat. There were many to choose from!  I'm wearing a divine pair of new Irregular Choice shoes which the girls got me as a present for organising the holiday.

What a truly lovely bunch of people they all are. I did not expect a present at all! I was just pleased that everyone had managed to make it there and that we all got on so well. Just goes to prove that the best people live on the internet.