Canons Ashby at Christmas

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16th December 2022

Many National Trust houses reopen for Christmas and are decorated with a theme. We try and visit at least each year. There are some houses which are decorated in an extravagant fashion, such as our local house, Waddesdon Manor. This is a big money-making scheme and visitors are charged entry whether they are or are not members of the National Trust. These houses tend to become very busy. We typically visit the smaller houses which have been decorated by the volunteers and are still free to National Trust members. This year we have already visited Chastleton House in late November and squeezed in this visit to Canons Ashby to meet up with some friends of ours.

The weather had been cold and frosty for several days, and wonderful frost patterns had formed on the lawns and outdoor furniture. The house looked spectacular with the bright blue sky and the white from the snow/frost patterns. The house had been decorated with small paper Christmas trees, castles and Welsh dragons, the theme being Arthurian legends. Seems the volunteers had made many of the decorations. Brilliant and, of course, R cannot resist a dragon. There were even dragons eggs and a puffing, growling dragon.

Of course, no visit is complete without a visit to the cafe (not to mention the secondhand bookshop), where, on our second visit, we stayed and chatted until past closing time. Back at the car park, the NT staff were trying to figure out who was still in the gardens, and which cars belonged to visitors.

Cold winter in Kingswood

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11th December 2022

We have had a dry and very cold few days in the United Kingdom. The temperature in Kingswood dropped to -11C and has been below freezing all night and day. I haven’t felt anything as cold as this since we first moved here in the late 1980s. Despite this cold patch, the UK average temperature for 2022 averaged more than 10C, the first time ever it has topped 10C. The cold weather went on until the 18th, but of course warmed up for Christmas.

I grabbed a few pictures of the frost patterns on cobwebs and vegetation using my mobile phone.

Occulation of Mars

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8th December 2022

I was up at 4.00 UTC to see a rare event. The planet Mars was occulated by the moon. The next time this happens will be January 2025. I took around 80 photographs, discarded many, and superimposed each image on top of each other. You can see the moon in the center of the image, and images of Mars on the top left getting closer and closer to the moon. Eventually Mars was behind the moon. This occurred at around 4.59. I went back to bed, intending to photograph the moon when Mars reappeared on the bottom right. I was a little late for this and missed the initial image of Mars reappearing an hour later at 5.58.

I was lucky, a noticeably clear night in Buckinghamshire, though cool at -5C. The down jacket did little to keep my hands warm.

The occulation of Mars

Trip to Chastleton House

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30th November 2022

We visited the National Trust’s Chastleton House to see it decorated for Christmas. We try and visit a National Trust house at this time of year to see the Christmas decorations. We bypass houses such as Waddesdon Manor, as a protest, because they charge NT members who visit at Christmas time.

Chastleton House is a large house clothed in dilapidated splendour. The previous owners fell on hard times, with the resultant leaking roofs, no heating and poor decoration. The NT has preserved this look throughout the house. The house was decorated for a 1960s Christmas. You can see vinyl records, the old tube monochrome TV, the old 60s GPO phones and valve radios. The homemade crackers were brilliantly made by the volunteers from crêpe paper and toilet rolls. Do you remember making paper chains by sticking together coloured pieces of paper? The volunteers must have spent a while making all those on display! Great use was made of games and various glasses and cocktail paraphernalia. Champagne coups were a feature and some wonderful 60s food. There were also exhibits from before the 1960s. At Christmas in 1938, the children’s parcels were parachuted in by an uncle who was an RAF pilot. The parcels were scattered across the front lawn, stuck in trees and attached to the house. R spied a thriller written by one of the last private owners. Yes, she ordered a copy, but sadly could not find one with the same attractive jacket.

There was limited access to the gardens, but nice for a quick wander.

After our visit we looked for somewhere to eat (yes, shockingly there is no NT tea-room!), and ended up in the roadside Cotswold Cafe next to a garage. Excellent; it was very clean and served very good basic grub. I had a baked potato with baked beans, cheese and salad while R had a tuna mayonnaise filled roll with salad. The cafe was decorated with old motoring memorabilia, see the model campervan photo.

After our lunch we headed to the nearby limestone Rollright Stones, where you park in a layby in Oxfordshire. There is a nominal fee of a quid each to visit, which we put in the honesty box. There are three monuments – The Kings Men, a late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age stone circle, with nearby an Early or Middle Neolithic dolmen, named the Whispering Knights, while across the road (and in another county, Warwickshire) lies the King Stone, thought to be a single monolith Bronze Age grave marker.

Well worth a visit, though everything would have looked better on a bright sunny spring or frosty winter day, rather than the heavy overcast sky we were greeted with.

We have visited Chastleton House on other occasions. The previous visits were in 2007 and 2005. Did we remember doing so? Mmmm.

Portmeirion Number 5

Blasdale Home Posted on by

18th November 2022

Our final breakfast at 9.00, and then packed up and the porter ordered, to take our bags back to the car. We had timed this to the T. The weather is now typical wet Welsh weather, pouring with rain. It rained until we were out of Wales. We had planned to stop on the route but decided not to. The inclement weather making it unattractive. The car behaved, and we made it home with plenty of electrons in the battery. A lovely break.

Tomorrow we are off to Cambridge for a Gonville and Caius Feast.

Portmeirion Number 4

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17th November 2022

Our final day here in the village. A walk around the village and up to Castell Deudraeth and back. Visited areas of the village we had not looked at this week. Today we saw a couple of humans swimming in front of the hotel against the incoming tide. A bit chilly I would speculate, rather them than me. Tonight, I put the car on charge around teatime and watched some more episodes from The Prisoner over our G&Ts. 7pm soon came around so we decamped to the hotel, but this time for the tasting menu. Very good meal. It had two options, meat, and vegetarian. In the main, most of the courses were the same, except when there was meat for which a veggie alternative was served. I had meat, and Rosemary had the vegetarian, which included fish courses. We also added an excellent cheese course to the meal.

After dinner, the car was Fully Charged, so it was unplugged ready for the morning. We were stuffed.

Portmeirion Number 3

Blasdale Home Posted on by

16th November 2022

Another wonderful day, how wrong were the weather forecasts from a week ago. I rushed out before breakfast to take a few pictures during the golden hour. Back in plenty of time for our breakfast at nine. The breakfasts are excellent, a good Welsh/English breakfast, plenty of cereals. juices, pastries, and cooked fish delicacies. R made a mistake (for me) asking for Gluten Free toast for us both. So, my Welsh breakfast arrived without the fried bread, toast, sausage, and black pudding. A bit disappointing. This mistake was not repeated by R.

After breakfast we had our Wednesday Zoom call with the SadGits. We sat outside the hotel in the bright blue sky chatting to our friends across the world. I think we set a trend, when we left there were many others ordering cakes and coffee (not that I was allowed any cake).

Today we walked around the Chinese Lake, admiring the trees and reflections. We also visited the new motor-home camping spot which Portmeirion has built. It was very nice. All pitches have hedges delineating them. All pitches have power. There is even a charger for those coming in an electric camper. It is the price which would put us off. The price does include entry to the village, so maybe they are expecting people to stay only a couple of nights.

Again, we had some G&Ts back in our suite, while watching yet another episode of The Prisoner. At 7 we headed over for our supper.

Portmeirion Number 2

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15th November 2022

Today was predicted to be a lovely day, so we decided to walk to the furthest point of the woods. We often walk to a bench here and feed a Robin which appears to accompany us through the whole walk. Actually, it is highly likely to be several different Robins who follow for short distances. Due to a miscommunication with R, we headed along the coast path which goes through the Ghost Wood, and then up some steep paths. The path was also very overgrown and not clear. The guidebook we had showed the path but had some lines through the path. Examination indicated the path was closed. We made the bench, going beyond it to where R had not ventured for a long time. No Robin, so no one to share lunch with. There were Oyster Catchers feeding on the sand banks where the tide was coming in. They are very noisy.

The walk back was simpler, taking the route R had wanted, along the stone wall. We were soon back to civilisation.

Back at base for G&Ts, then supper at 7.00, this time a different menu.

Portmeirion Number 1

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14th November 2022

We were whisked to Portmeirion, the filming location for the TV series The Prisoner, by our stealthy electric car. We had a loo break at a service station on the M54, lovely industrial heritage steam hammer on display in the carpark, next to the Tesla charging station. We continued, stopping again at Oswestry to charge. Not strictly required, because the car was easily capable of getting to Portmeirion. I was unsure of the charging arrangements at our destination, we had not spotted them on a previous visit last year. At Owestry, R visited a charity shop, while I had a coffee at Costa. Back to the car and we set off for the rest of the journey. Not impressed by the charging speed of the InstaVolt in the carpark. It had been slow.

We arrived and checked in at Castell Deudraeth. The check-in was different to the previous years. Portmeirion had decided to try and make the village car free, asking us to check-in outside the village, then park in the residents’ car park, and have us and our luggage transferred by electric vehicle to our village room. This all went swimmingly well, and we were soon in our room. We stayed four nights in the Anchor 2 Suite.

I need not have worried about car charging. The residents’ car park had more than 8 chargers available. They were all 7KWHr chargers, the slow chargers were not an issue because we would only take 7 hours to charge, and we were here for 4 days.

The weather forecast for Portmeirion was dire, but other than a shower (see the rainbow pictures), there was clear sky for the four days.

Our suite was a couple of rooms, nice and warm. We brought some tonics and gin and had a pre-prandial drink before dinner at 7.00pm. One issue with the suite was the squeaky floorboards, our floorboards were not an issue to us, but must have been to the resident below. We were constantly reminded there was someone else above us, their floorboards were constantly squeaking.

We had an excellent meal in the hotel. There appear to be two evening menus. They switch the menu each night. Nice conversations with the two couples on either side of us.

After supper I took the opportunity to do some night-time photography of the village.

Kingswood Firework Party

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5th November 2022

Unusually we had the Kingswood Firework party this year on the actual fifth of November. But, as is usual, we had a magnificent bonfire & fireworks & BBQ. No guy to burn this year, despite plenty of candidate effigies, such as a lettuce, a Liz or a Boris. The weather was a little damp, although the rain did hold out to the end of the firework display. Those finishing off the burgers, bangers, beer and wine did have to shelter under the canopies when there was a short torrential downpour.

For a few, the evening ended in a Kingswood house where a considerable volume of whisky etc was consumed, amidst much camaraderie.