1066 and all that...

We broke our journey to the south coast at St Albans to take in Verulanium and the Abbey. There was a visiting choir singing Evensong in the abbey - technically quite good but not to our (musical) taste

Being fully paid up members of the National Trust we visit as many properties as we can. This one is Batemans - home of Rudyard Kipling.

And so we arrived at our destination - Hastings. In the picture are the "net shops" in the old town built high with a small footprint to minimise the taxes payable and used (originally) for drying and mending nets.

We started exploring and arrived at Bexhill on a sunny day but with a gale force wind blowing. So we found a sea-facing shelter where we were sheltered from the wind but in the sun. There we watched herring gulls dropping mussels from a great height onto the shingle and then diving down quickly to gobble up the exposed flesh before any other birds on the beach stole their food.

Of course we had to visit the site of the "Battle of Hastings" which is confusingly adjacent to the village of Battle and we relived the battle with the help of an audio guide. The abbey was supposedly built as an act of penance for the terrible bloodshed by the winner - William (the Conqueror) and there is a stone set into the ground (supposedly) marking the place where the loser (Harold) got an arrow in the eye.

The rain was never far away on this holiday and when we visited Beachy Head there was no let up so we just grabbed a couple of photos and moved on.

Having joined English Heritage at Battle, we decided to take advantage of the proximity of one of their more recently opened properties - Down House - on our way home. It may have been a mistake to let "Jane" guide us there because we drove a long way on winding, single track roads. The property was the home of Charles Darwin. Thanks once again to an audio guide we are now up to date with how he came by his theory 'On The Origin of Species'.

So we crammed quite a bit into a 5-night holiday (which was a good thing), but we had to contend with quite a bit of rain and some so-so accommodation (which was a bad thing).

Mentioned twice in dispatches...

If you haven't heard the story ask about why the Jim Jams did not win overall and whose correct answer was turned down by the team!

*[The Loughborough Echo, Friday 20th August 2010]

Biddulph Grange Garden (NT)

On a rather dismal day we set out for the Longton Portmeirion Factory Shop and combined it with our first visit to Biddulph Grange Garden (National Trust) - an "amazing Victorian garden created by James Bateman"

Each 'room' in the garden was supposed to be a different country - above is the Italian garden

The Chinese garden was styled after the blue "Willow Pattern" often seen on plates, etc.

This was the nearest we got to seeing the sun.

Qu. Is this Bateman anything to do with the brew that carries the name?

Snettisham and Hunstanton

Having been trapped by the builders all week (the skip blocked the drive) we 'escaped' to the coast on Saturday. First stop was Snettisham of which I have hazy memories from when I was taken as a child for a caravan holiday by my parents - but this time our main target was the RSPB reserve

The walk down to the reserve provided more butterflies than birds (this one is a Gatekeeper)

The tide's reach was littered with razorshells but very few cockleshells. I remember as a child gathering cockles with our bare hands (from just under the sand) and taking them back to the caravan and then trying to cook and eat them. A bit gritty as I recall as we did not pay enough attention to getting all the sand out.
The tide was well out (remember this is the Wash) so no birds to speak of - one of the most interesting things on the beach was this wreck. We moved on to RSPB Titchwell but were thwarted there because it was almost completely closed due to the rebuilding of the main path.

Hunstanton boasts of being the only East coast resort where you can see the sun set over the sea. It certainly provided us with a good fish supper. It remains to be seen whether we got caught by any speed cameras - like we(=I) did last time we ventured out in this direction.

An engaging gift

Those who need to know will know who bought this and for whom

Out with the flat, in with the pitch

Two men working for one week...

This transformation can be seen in even more detail