A Good Weekend

For a really good weekend it started really badly. Dianne and I were scheduled for History Detectives and the Victorian Schoolroom back to back with two classes from the same school swapping classes at lunchtime so that both would do both workshops. This is a pretty standard arrangement which usually works well.

We set up the workshops.

We waited

. . . and waited

. . . . . .and waited.

Schools are supposed to arrive at 9.45 for a 10 o'clock start, but we knew that this school was coming further than most of the schools, so we were patient. However, when it was an hour late Dianne rang the office to find out whether they had heard anything. They hadn't, but Jo said that she would ring the school and get back to us.

She did this. And this is what she told Dianne they had said 'Oh, dear, hadn't anyone let you know? We cancelled because we couldn't get a coach to bring us.' 'Well, you will still have to pay as expenses have already been incurred and there are staff to pay.' 'Oh.' (They have since claimed that it was only a provisional booking and the office is negotiating. Just so long as we get paid . . .)

So Dianne and I put away our stuff, I got changed back out my nineteenth century gear, we had a cup of tea, filled in our time sheets and went on our way.

It doesn't actually take six hours to drive from Scunthorpe to Croydon - or, more accurately and more prettily, Normanby to Kenley, and there was no point in arriving early as Liz would still be at work.

I started my pottering with a visit to Tesco to buy a couple of bottles of wine (both very palatable as we quickly proved that evening and the next). A15, A46, A1. Time for a cup of tea. Detour to Rutland Water and a visit to the cafe (and loo). I was going to walk to the church and museum, but had just started my walk when it started hailing, so I gave up on that. A1(M), A14, M11 (stop at a motorway services to walk round and get rid of the terrible cramp which had suddenly assailed me) M11, M25 (slow, but not blocked at this time of day) and I arrived at Liz's abot 5 minutes before my host.

The weekend - the good weekend - had begun. This visit marks 50 years since Liz and I first met at Sunday School. Not, I add, 50 years of friendship since Liz can't remember me at all from this first encounter and I didn't like her a bit. Friendship began four years later at the beginning of junior school. Eric Morcambe was once asked how long he and Ernie Wise had been friends. He replied that they had known each other over forty years during which time they has been friends for about 35 minutes. Liz and I can do slightly better than this, but the early years were very rocky; little girls are volatile creatures.

Talk, eat, talk, feed cat, talk, talk.

Friday morning - continue talking. After the usual conversation in which we turn into the vultures in Disney's Jungle Book ("What do you want to do?" "I don't know. What do you want to do?") we opted for Leeds Castle which I have never previously visited.

Even on a cool, damp, grey day the setting is sublime. (The most beautiful in England? Well, quite close at hand I would have thought that Scotney Castle and Ightham Mote can both give it a run for its money.) However, it was the weekend of the 'Autumn Gold' Flower Festival and the castle was crowded with groups of WI ladies and other flower lovers. I am not a great fan of sculpture in flowers preferring more natural arrangements, so, while admiring the skill, I didn't much like most of what we saw and found that it got in the way of seeing the furnishings most of which were in any case rather faux historic for our taste.

Leeds Castle does not seem to have a cafe, just a little kiosk in the car park, so we set off in search of sit down refreshments which we ran to earth above a charity shop in Tonbridge (thoroughly recommended - in the high street, just round the corner from the castle, in aid of the hospice). Thence we went to the castle which I had previously visited around thirty years ago when we stayed in Tonbridge in 1977 prior to going to Uncle Harry's 92nd birthday party.

I remember Tonbridge Castle as a rather dull ruin in a boring municipal park. To an extent it still is as the only extensive remains are those of the gatehouse. But what a change! When we discovered that it had been turned into an audio-visual mediaeval experience we feared the worst but paid our £3.50 and took our audio hand sets. Was this to be another Connisborough?

It took a while for the tour to warm up - literally and metaphorically as it started outside the gatehouse while the reason and function of the defences were explained in detail. Once inside however it was very well done indeed combining solid information with an entertaining narrative. The teacher and the historian in each of us was well satisfied.

Home for more talk, wine, talk and food.

Saturday Another appearance of those pesky vultures over breakfast, then a trip to Down House (Darwin's place) followed by Quebec House (General Wolfe's home).

The former was another audio tour which was well done except for repeating the same information, and again on the boards in the exhibition rooms. Despite a long ago TV series "The Voyage of Charles Darwin", I hadn't quite expected to come away with such a strong impression of what a nice man he was - that he was a great man I had no doubt, but I really warmed to a man who had a sliding tray specially made for his children to play with on the stairs and who played billiards with his butler.

After a sandwich lunch at Down we went to Quebec House which was very nicely done although I must confess that my interest in military campaigns is distinctly limited and the exhibition probably told me more than I really wanted to know on this subject. It is clear that Wolfe was as great a national hero as was Nelson half-a-century later, but is now largely forgotten. Why?

Back in Kenley we watched "Strictly Come Dancing" ate dinner and played Scrabble. (I don't think that Liz keeps our Scrabble scores as assiduously as Charles and Emma Darwin kept theirs at Backgammon, but this was by no means one of our best games. I won, but not by much and the combined score was not high.) And we talked.

Sunday I woke early and went to All Saints Church at 8 o'clock - the same service (Common Worship - traditional language) and the same architect (James Fowler) as at Swallow, and at this time in the morning much the same congregation. I had woken early enough to walk, but it was siling with rain so I went in the car.

After breakfast it was still tipping it down and we went to Penshurst Place. This was my third visit. I remember on my first visit (the same trip as I visited Tonbridge) feeling a sense of great romance about Penshurst which I assume was associated with the Elizabethan Sir Philip Sidney - soldier, courtier and poet - and asume that he must have figured in a novel read at an impressionable age, but I haven't the faintest idea what the book was.

Penshurst remains a lovely house especially for those of us who really enjoy family portraits. (Judging by these the Sidney family seems to have used the same bolt of off-white brocade for dresses and doublets for much of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries before moving on to white satin.)

The rain was stopping as we left the house, and it remained dry while we looked round the garden. This was past its best at this time of the year, but is clearly very beautiful and delightful it its range of 'rooms'. Before we left we went to look at the toy museum and the rain was back in full pelt as we walked back to the carpark.

Antiques Roadshow, Strictly Come Dancing, James May's Big Ideas and Match of the Day.

Liz went off to work while I was still asleep, leaving me to say goodbye to Sid, who had spent the night with me (She's the cat) and to set off after the rush hour traffic had cleared. On the way home I took a halfway break at Kirby Hall,

after which I eschewed the motorways and pottered home via Stamford, Bourne, Sleaford and Wragby.

By the way, on the way home I was listening to a programme in which people were complaining about pubs and restaurants which advertise home-cooked food and serve stuff from the supermarket. It seems perfectly clear to me that, for example, what my friends Liz and Becky serve is as a rule home-cooked, while what Izzy and I serve is generally home-made. I expect much the same applies in the catering buiness. So why grouse about it? Is the home-cooked food bad? No, it isn't. All it is is not home-made.