The home of the Sackville-Wests:

The house is now in the care of the National Trust; however, the Trust only owns the house and about 43 acres (170,000 m2) of the park. Considerably more than half the house is still home to the Sackville-Wests. Lord Sackville and his family still own the gardens and the rest of the surrounding estate. As a walled garden, Knole’s is very large, at 26 acres (30 including the ‘footprint’ of the house),[citation needed] and indeed is large enough to have the very unusual — and essentially mediaeval — feature of a smaller walled garden inside itself. It contains many other features from earlier ages which have been wiped away in most country-house gardens: like the house, the garden has not been assiduously kept up-to-date with changing fashions over the centuries. These include clair-voies, a patte d’oie and even some bosquet hedges.

In September 1992, archaeologists from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust working alongside contractors on a new road link between Dover and Folkestone discovered the remains of a large wooden prehistoric boat thought to be some 3,000 years old, belonging to a period known to archaeologists as the Bronze Age.

It was a find of both national and international significance which will shed new light on early seafaring and woodworking skills in Northern Europe.

An interesting article on the finding and salvaging of the boat can be seen on the Current Archaeology website.

The second birthday was celebrated by a couple of days away from home in the Yorkshire Dales.  It was a nice relaxing time, but it flashed by  far too quickly.  More detailed posts with photos to follow (soon)   On my return from this break I had to quickly get sorted and packed for a train journey to the moon for the third birthday (a 40th celebration).

The train journey was quite relaxing despite an agitated Chinese lady, who was speaking continually on her mobile (loudly at times).  She didn’t speak English and didn’t have a clue where she was, but needed to get off at Euston.  The relaxing part was an ‘on train picnic’ of salmon, salad and potato salad accompanied (dressed with lemon vinaigrette) by wine.  An added bonus was that I was able to catch an earlier connecting train, which meant arriving at my destination half an hour earlier than expected.

I was staying with family and one of the first things I needed to do when I arrived was remove my contact lenses because the journey had dried my eyes out.  When I entered the bathroom to do this I was mesmerised by some rather sparkling black eyes!  I was being assessed by a HUGE spider that was peeping out from behind the blinds.  Each of us hoping not to be seen by the other…  I made it out of the bathroom in one piece Then I arranged for the spider to be re-homed in the garden amongst the flowers.  The window was shut so he couldn’t sneak in again.

The weekend was enjoyable but hectic and on arriving at Euston station for the return journey I did wonder if I was going to be able to get back home in time for work.  There had been a major electrical fault at Watford Junction which had caused the signals to fail.  In addition to that there had been a fatality on the line in another location.  The amount of people milling around at the station was very reminiscent of weekday rush hour.  The station information and advice to passengers wasn’t very clear, causing confusion all round.  Some of the passengers had been waiting for over an hour, luckily I didn’t have to wait that long.  When the train did arrive (half an hour late) it declassified the first class section so that all passengers from the previous trains could be accommodated too.  The first class passengers were given advice on how to get a refund.

The joy of train journeys…

It is good to be home