Random thoughts and photos of my journey through life…
This morning I enjoyed my brief walk from the car park to my office. The trees are full of autumn glory and the leaves had lined the footpath so I was able to swoosh my feet through them as I walked along, behaving as if I was a little girl. Unfortunately I have no photos to share but I was reminded of a holiday to Bruges in 2010 which was also in early November. The trees around Bruges were showing their full splendour of autumn colour. Perhaps they were a gift for me 
14 Comments CherryPie on Nov 1st 2016
The stained glass in the Chapel at The Vyne is the finest in the National Trust’s care and considered to be among the most beautiful 16th-century glass in Europe. It features King Henry VIII, who visited The Vyne several times, as well as his sister Margaret and first wife Catherine of Aragon, together with their patron saints.
The stained glass windows are believed to have originally been created for the nearby Holy Ghost Chapel by Flemish glaziers. The craftsmen were from the school of great European artisans involved in major schemes such as Henry VIII’s King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.At some point, possibly to protect it from ransacking Roundheads during the Civil War, the glass was removed and hidden, later re-appearing in the chapel at The Vyne.Among the scenes depicted is an image of a young King Henry VIII. He stayed at the house on several occasions, first with Catherine of Aragon and later with Anne Boleyn, as the guest of William Sandys, his Lord Chamberlain.Another window depicts Catherine of Aragon and a third shows Henry’s sister, Margaret, who married James IV of Scotland when she was just 13 years old.
10 Comments CherryPie on Oct 31st 2016
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
Albert Camus
10 Comments CherryPie on Oct 30th 2016
After breakfast we checked out of the hotel and made our way to the Hospital of St Cross. This turned out to be a bit of a challenge, it was Winchester College’s graduation day so with the ceremony taking place in Winchester Cathedral there was traffic congestion.
The Hospital of St Cross is one of England’s oldest almshouses and it is still in use as an almshouse. The Hospital is a special place; it is very peaceful and has stunning architecture. After we had bought our tickets, we made our way to the Master’s Garden which was lovely and tranquil in the October sunshine. When we had finished walking around the garden one of the brothers starting talking to us. The party of people he was due to take round the Hospital had been delayed so he had time to very kindly take us into the Church of St Cross and to some of the many interesting features in the church before leaving us to explore for ourselves.
We spent a long time in the church before leaving to look at the brothers hall. Making our way to the hall we inadvertently found ourselves walking along a path in a private part of the hospital. I am not quite sure how we missed the sign but I do feel quite bad about it.
After our visit we made our way to a National Trust property, The Vyne, for lunch. We toured the house which was only partially open due to roof repairs before taking lunch. It was interesting to see the scaffolding needed for the roof repairs being put into place and we enjoyed listening to the very informative commentaries about the history of The Vyne from the room guides.
We then set off on our long journey home, bringing to a close an enjoyable break in Winchester.
6 Comments CherryPie on Oct 29th 2016
After breakfast which was much quieter than the previous day, we walked through the Cathedral close towards Cheney Close so that we could show mum the church over the bridge. On our way we saw the Christmas market being set up in the Cathedral close but as we turned the corner we were dismayed to see that Cheyney Court was partially obscured by scaffolding. When we passed through the Priory Gate we were even more dismayed to find that The Church of St Swithun upon Kingsgate was covered by scaffolding and boarding because it was being re-roofed. I was hoping to show mum the church because she would have loved it, however it wasn’t meant to be. We continued on our way past the rare Victorian post box, which is just around the corner from the church, towards Peninsular Barracks.
After a steep walk we arrived at Peninsular Barracks to find noisy building works which detracted from the peaceful square. Our hopes up a cup of tea in the Cafe Peninsular were also dashed, we found that it was shut on Mondays! I had secretly been looking forward to lunch there too 
We made our way to the Royal Green Jackets museum next door to the cafe which was our reason for visiting Peninsular Barracks in the first place. Mr C and I wanted to see the Waterloo Diorama that we had missed by just one day on our previous visit to Winchester. The Napoleonic display was well worth the wait with the diorama being the jewel in the crown. The son et lumiere display gave a great insight into the battle and how it played out. We found that other displays in the museum had changed too, adding interest from our previous visit.
We then made our way to the nearest teashop for a cup of tea before visiting the Great Hall. When we had finished the tour of the Great Hall it was time for lunch so we made our way to the Cathedral Rectory where I enjoyed a delicious mini quiche. Afterwards we enjoyed browsing around a second hand bookshop, a cookshop and indulging in some ‘Christmas’ purchases from the Cathedral shop. We then had some more refreshments in the Cathedral Rectory before returning to the hotel to chill out before dinner. Our timing was perfect, the heavens opened just after we arrived back at the hotel.
We dined in Rick Stein’s restaurant, which was easily the meal of the weekend. The food, service and ambience were excellent, a perfect dining experience.
After dinner we relocated to a bar that was ‘interesting’. The football was on and there were televisions squeezed into the most unexpected places so that there was no escape from the visual display. A couple arrived shortly after we did, they were quite vocal and mum remarked that it was like watching Coronation Street. We stayed for a short while before moving on to a more genteel location.
When we returned to the hotel mum went to bed but we weren’t quite ready for sleep so we decided to have a drink in the bar area. There were people in there but the lights had been turned off…
We were about to give up on the idea and return to our room when we saw the night porter and asked him if the bar was open. He said “yes I will serve you”. He accompanied us into the bar area and turned the lights back on before he served us. Eventually the bartender turned up and asked Mr C to sign the bill (which had already signed) because he was closing the till, by now it was 11pm. He was advised that this had already been done and he replied ‘no you haven’t’. We both chimed up at the same time ‘yes we have’. He looked at us and said ‘oh! did you do it with the night porter”? We said “yes”. He then marched off in the direction of the night porter and didn’t even come back to apologise.
4 Comments CherryPie on Oct 28th 2016
The breakfast was every bit as good as we remembered from our first visit. The breakfast room was rather full due to the wedding guests from the day before. Thankfully the kids had worn themselves out and were quiet during breakfast.
We set off to Portsmouth to visit the Mary Rose Museum. The journey went smoothly but there was a bit of a saga when we tried to purchase the admission tickets. There were clearly only three of us but we were sold four tickets!! There was then a delay whilst someone (in fact two someones) came to sort out the problem and refund the money. Eventually we got past the ticket desk and had our bags searched as we entered the dockyard. We were surprised to see HMS Victory had changed colour and we wondered if she was in the middle of being repainted and what we were seeing was the undercoat. It was only when we came out of the Mary Rose museum that I noticed a sign that explained what we saw was her new paint scheme. During conservation work in 2013-14 up to 72 layers of paint had been removed to reveal that the paint scheme that she had been wearing for years was not the one she had worn at Trafalgar; the new one is.
The Mary Rose is now completely unwrapped and there are no drying pipes or screens obscuring the view giving a full view the ship. The exhibition blew me away. The ship is alternately illuminated to reveal the ship and then darkened to show living displays to various areas that bring ship to life. On arrival at the top level of the exhibition we found that the view of the ship was completely open without even the Perspex.
We had lunch in one of the dockyard cafes before moving on to Hinton Ampner which is a National Trust property that on our last visit had been only partially open due the roof being damaged in gales. We thought we might enjoy the gardens first but we soon changed our mind when it started to rain leading us to proceed into the house. The upstairs is very much a work in progress as repairs continue but it was good to see the upstairs rooms which had been closed on our previous visit. By the time we had finished our tour of the house the sun had come out and we toured the gardens in glorious sunshine with the colours enhanced by the rain. We took time to enjoy the gardens before returning to the hotel to chill out before dining in La Place. Whilst we were ordering our meal the French waiter told Mr C he was a lucky man to be dining with two beautiful ladies.
We stopped briefly in the Old Gaolhouse (A Weatherspoons pub, what were you thinking…) before returning to the hotel for the night.
14 Comments CherryPie on Oct 26th 2016
We didn’t set off to Winchester as early as we planned and after picking up my mum and a brief stop on the motorway led to us arriving in Winchester at lunch time. We parked on the hotel car park and Mr C went to reception to tell them that we had arrived and would be leaving our car on the car park. He was informed that the rooms were ready so we decided to book in before having lunch. Booking in turned out to be a bit of a saga… The French receptionist couldn’t understand why two identical room bookings had different room rates. Mr C tried to explain that it was because one was single occupancy and the difference was the breakfast rate. The receptionist didn’t understand, but thankfully a colleague sorted him out. Eventually we booked in and took our bags up to our rooms!
After the booking in saga we set out for a late lunch in the Cathedral Refectory. Mum,Mr C & I all chose cheese and watercress scones, watercress being a speciality of the area and they were delicious We then made our way to the cathedral, stopping off at its gift shop along the way. The gift shop had some delightful christmas decorations and advent candles, which we decided we would come back and buy just before we left Winchester.
Our visit to the Cathedral was not as peaceful as it had been was on our previous visit. It was a Saturday and lots of guided tours were taking place. Previously I enjoyed peace and tranquility in the North & South transepts but on this occasion both were disrupted. The North transept is housing a temporary structure to display the Winchester Bible whilst the South transept is undergoing restoration. and is currently closed. It houses the Fisherman’s Chapel which I found so peaceful last time. The disruption led to us noticing features unseen on our previous visit and we very much enjoyed seeing the historically important Winchester Bible in its temporary home. We just missed seeing it on our previous visit when it was being shipped to America for display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
As we left the we were caught by a brief shower of rain, so we retired once again to the Cathedral Rectory for a refreshing cup of tea, before returning to the hotel to unpack our bags, before we dined in the ‘Old Vine’, which was just as good as we remembered it from our previous visit. We called in at a pub on our way back to the hotel, but the music was so loud that we couldn’t hear ourselves think. We returned to the hotel where we could chat more easily and enjoy a nightcap before bed even though there was a wedding disco with kids noisily charging around the hotel.
14 Comments CherryPie on Oct 25th 2016
