Making a friend
Hi again, and welcome to another photographic tour of England inspired by the writer in me and images my husband and I took during his work assignments for Land Rover back in 2005.
Next week will be the last in this series as it marks the end of our last trip to the UK (so far! I dearly wish to go back someday). Next week will also mark another change as it will be the first “First Friday Photo”; these posts will become a once a month feature instead of weekly in concert with my Slow Blogging plan.
But that’s neither here, nor there. You may wonder where here is:
(for the moment, it is….)
Fields of rape or mustard seemed everywhere in England.
Strafford
While I had a few days to myself before my husband’s work ended and we could vacation, I spent another day (actually two) meandering around the Midlands. I visited the Boscobel House, The Royal Oak, the White and Black Lady Priories. I walked through towns.
When I walked down the steps to enter this section of the abbey, I had to stop and turn around… It was like entering another time
Though I believe this section of the abbey had once been enclosed (because of the line in the stone work where a floor was marked), the crypt was now a graveyard.
Once you get off the motorways and the “A” roads, a lot of roads in England were like this and yes, pheasants often fell out of the embankment onto the car as I drove by
I had to include the above image on my tour because of a wonder comment conversation I had with Ted Strutz (go check out his Thor’s World Tour for some fun) about driving in the United Kingdom.
The Boscobel House keeps up an image of a working farm. This nesting pair of geese certainly thought it was
A path leading from the gardens at the Boscobel House to a small “room” and a view of the fields beyond
I HAD to take a magpie picture. I’d never seen one until I went to England, despite having read about them constantly in books. They were a lot bigger than I expected
Leaving Birmingham
Like lots of cities, Birmingham had its share of contrasts
Despite having made several trips through Birmingham by this point, Dan and I had never really spent any time there. It was our last night… We went out for a bit and met some interesting people.
Just one of the pictures with people we met during our Birmingham Walkabout
To the East
After Leaving the Midlands, we headed toward the English Channel. We stopped at Audley End House and a few other sites (the peacock image is from Audley End), and I took picture after picture of topiaries and espaliered trees for my home garden plans.
This incredible place was the giftshop and bookstore library at the Audley End House. I wanted to LIVE in this room.
We ended up reaching the city of Rochester in time for the Beltaine Festivities. The city was packed, there was, literally, dancing in the streets. We had a lot of fun, but we wanted to reach Ramsgate by sunset, so we didn’t stay long.
Walking to Rochester Castle–I’m the one with the red backpack and pink shirt near the right of the picture
We ended our day at the White Cliffs. Not Dover’s White Cliffs… Those came the next morning.
Caves in the chalk rock cliffs of Ramsgate… I was standing there writing stories of smugglers and thieves in my head while Dan took pictures
Stopping at Dover
Dover Castle is a two day visit of its own. We did not know that when we arrived, and because we arrived in the middle of the afternoon, we missed a lot of the cool bits about how the fortress was used during the World Wars.
I never really felt dwarfed by tall buildings… at least not until I posed for this picture
There was a room in the castle for people to try on clothes and pretend they were actually living in a medieval castle. I played a scullery maid; Dan wanted grog
We didn’t have time to go back the next day, given that we had to be in London (Barking actually) in time to claim our hotel room, and I had made plans for the Lullingstone Villa and the Dover Museum as well.
Dover Castle, lit at night from the road outside our hotel
We made it… as you’ll see next week. Until then, if you would like, I posted more images in my Flickr photostream from this trip. Feel free to check them (and a few for next week’s installment) out.
If you haven’t seen the other installments of this series., check them out:
Many Worlds From Many Minds 