Monday 31st May
May through the looking glass
You all have our sincerest apologies for the lack of content here recently. Both of us have been busy with work and with preparations for Robyn's arrival and hence not very inspired to produce content for the website. Hopefully June should be better and we shouldn't really have any excuse as we have a lot planned.
Robyn arrived safe and sound. She came to London via a two night stop-over in Hong Kong. It sounds like she had a good time there and managed to get her bearings really quickly. Nick went out to Heathrow to meet her and they arrived home a little after eleven last Tuesday. We gave her one day to recover before I had Thursday and Friday off and took her to see some of the London sights.
However she undermined this plan by attending a service to celebrate Shavuot at a local Shul. So she had her first Wimbledon adventure and wandered back through the village to window shop. On Thursday we again stayed close to home, merely taking a walk to look at Wimbledon's mall and other shops. I also introduced her to some of our furry neighbours when the squirrels came looking for their afternoon tea! On Friday we ventured a little further a field and went to the British Museum. Even though I have now been several times, the Great Court is always such a majestic sight that is really quite breathtaking. This time we visited more of the galleries than I had seen previously including the Assyrian galleries and some of the Greek and Roman galleries. I especially liked a reconstructed temple that had been discovered in Turkey. On Saturday we again undertook a shopping expedition. This time to Kingston. I think almost uniquely for us we didn't spend anything and returned home without new clothes to add to our wardrobes. (Although Nick did exchange a top he had previously bought). On Sunday we again decided to play at being tourists and headed into town. We went to the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. We again visited the dinosaurs but it is hard to tire of these so it was no great hardship. We did expand our horizons at the V and A, investigating the India, China and Japan rooms. The Japanese rooms in particular caught our fancy, Nick as he was fascinated by the swords and I loved the kimono and other robes.
Today, having woken to brilliant sunshine (contradicting both the weather forecasts and bank holiday tradition), we decided to visit Hampton Court Palace. Hampton Court has a reputation as the finest royal palace tourists can visit. It is only a twenty minute train ride from Wimbledon so is very conveniently located. The palace comprises a series of room, including Henry VIII's State apartments, King William III's apartments, Queen Caroline's (George III's wife) State Apartments and a series of Georgian rooms. This means that you can see a variety of styles of furnishings, decoration and architecture. Although all of it is on royal scale and therefore doesn't look very homely. There are also a number of parts of the palace that are still in permanent use including grace and favour apartments and the chapel. The chapel has regular services and Sunday evensong. There are audio tour guides available for many of the areas of the palace and these fill in some of the missing pieces about life in the palace. There were also actors in period costume roaming the palace to help create the atmosphere as it might have been.
In addition we toured the Tudor kitchens. At the moment there are people working and eating in the kitchens as part of a historical project. As a result Nick tells me there were glorious aromas throughout - mainly from the spit roast chickens and veal! Apparently they receive the same rations they would have in Tudor times, so this means no drinking water, beer for breakfast and wine at the other meals. We ate a picnic in the grounds, much of which have also been restored.
Nick and I were keen to do the maze that is the only remaining part of the wilderness area of the garden. It wasn't the most complicated maze in the world but was fun nevertheless and we found the middle and the exit without too much bother. We also looked at some of the more formal gardens including William's privy (or private) garden which has only fairly recently been restored. The palace was much less crowded than I had anticipated only really approaching busy in the lunch period. We had a very full day and were pleased we had set aside a whole day to see the palace and its gardens. Parts of the palace and garden are spectacular and I think we are all pleased that we visited today.
Robyn is on her own this week and then we head off to the Cotswolds next weekend. We will keep you updated...
Posted by Hayley