A busy Saturday
The humidity we had yesterday has continued today and although there have been grey clouds that look heavy with rain in the sky, we've not had any rain at all.
At 10am we went on a Nordic walk with our group - it was warm (24C/75F) and the humidity made it feel sticky. It was a fun walk and we kept under the treeline so it wasn't too sunny. In the end, we walked around two and a half miles (4km), had a lovely catch-up with various people on the walk and got quite sweaty. We ended up heading home just after an hour and had showers when we got in as we really needed them!
After a quick sandwich lunch, we drove to Chartwell - the home of Sir Winston Churchill (the Prime Minister during World War II). I had been there years ago (I have a guidebook from 1968!), and Mr Cee remembers visiting it before, but it was good to explore it again. Some photos are under the cut.
The house was originally an old Tudor mansion, but was altered over the years by various owners, and was eventually bought in 1922 by Churchill when he was 48 years old for £5,000. He ended up having to pay out a further £24,000 to get it habitable as it had no electric lighting, terrible plumbing, a leaking roof and dark dingy rooms with mould. The renovations took two years and he lived there for over forty years.
It's an impressive house from the front
From the back of the house you can see for miles.
A view of the back of the house - the terrace I took the photo above from is at the bottom of the building.
The rooms have mostly been dressed to reflect the 1930s when the house was in its heyday and Churchill made a lot of the design choices for the decor and the remodelling.
This is the drawing room:
They have a painting by Claude Monet of London Bridge (1907) - painted when the artist was in London staying at the Savoy Hotel.
The Library
Set into the wall, there's a souvenir of the war - the War Office presented this model of the plans for D-Day which was used as a way to plan the invasion. This recently featured in a programme on TV where they showed a conservator helping to preserve it (and re-glue the tiny ships that had detached from the base)
Lady Churchill's bedroom in the roof of the building (note the curved ceiling). It was really hot up there, but she apparently used the room very much as a working office and used the desk in the middle to plan the running of the household.
The Study - Churchill used this room to dictate his books and work.
Throughout the house, there are lots of paintings by Churchill. In the dining room, there is this one called 'Bottlemania'. It was a result of being given the large brandy bottle which inspired him to create the painting using bottles from all over the house that he sent the children to find.
The dining room - I really loved how simple it was and how it felt like a conservatory.
The kitchen - looking very dated now, which apparently was a concern to Lady Churchill, but not to Winston!
Churchill's painting studio was open today so we had to peak at some of his paintings. There were hundreds of them - this is just a few in an annexe of the main part of the studio.
By the time we'd wandered around the rather warm house we had had enough walking for today, so we're going to revisit the gardens another day (and Mr Cee's hay fever was really bothering him by the time we left!). Our trip home included a quick visit to the posh supermarket we were passing, and so we have a nice dinner for later. Youngest Cee and GF(P) have gone out to dinner so we will have a quiet evening.
Just time for today's question before we eat: 24 - World UFO Day: UFO simply means Unidentified Flying Object - not necessarily that it's an alien spaceship. Have you ever seen anything in the sky that you honestly couldn't figure out what it was? Even if you're pretty sure what you saw wasn't an alien spacecraft, do you think it's possible that Earth is being visited by aliens?
No, I've never seen anything resembling a UFO. I would have thought most aliens would pass us by - I'm sure we're not that interesting....
At 10am we went on a Nordic walk with our group - it was warm (24C/75F) and the humidity made it feel sticky. It was a fun walk and we kept under the treeline so it wasn't too sunny. In the end, we walked around two and a half miles (4km), had a lovely catch-up with various people on the walk and got quite sweaty. We ended up heading home just after an hour and had showers when we got in as we really needed them!
After a quick sandwich lunch, we drove to Chartwell - the home of Sir Winston Churchill (the Prime Minister during World War II). I had been there years ago (I have a guidebook from 1968!), and Mr Cee remembers visiting it before, but it was good to explore it again. Some photos are under the cut.
The house was originally an old Tudor mansion, but was altered over the years by various owners, and was eventually bought in 1922 by Churchill when he was 48 years old for £5,000. He ended up having to pay out a further £24,000 to get it habitable as it had no electric lighting, terrible plumbing, a leaking roof and dark dingy rooms with mould. The renovations took two years and he lived there for over forty years.
It's an impressive house from the front
From the back of the house you can see for miles.
A view of the back of the house - the terrace I took the photo above from is at the bottom of the building.
The rooms have mostly been dressed to reflect the 1930s when the house was in its heyday and Churchill made a lot of the design choices for the decor and the remodelling.
This is the drawing room:
They have a painting by Claude Monet of London Bridge (1907) - painted when the artist was in London staying at the Savoy Hotel.
The Library
Set into the wall, there's a souvenir of the war - the War Office presented this model of the plans for D-Day which was used as a way to plan the invasion. This recently featured in a programme on TV where they showed a conservator helping to preserve it (and re-glue the tiny ships that had detached from the base)
Lady Churchill's bedroom in the roof of the building (note the curved ceiling). It was really hot up there, but she apparently used the room very much as a working office and used the desk in the middle to plan the running of the household.
The Study - Churchill used this room to dictate his books and work.
Throughout the house, there are lots of paintings by Churchill. In the dining room, there is this one called 'Bottlemania'. It was a result of being given the large brandy bottle which inspired him to create the painting using bottles from all over the house that he sent the children to find.
The dining room - I really loved how simple it was and how it felt like a conservatory.
The kitchen - looking very dated now, which apparently was a concern to Lady Churchill, but not to Winston!
Churchill's painting studio was open today so we had to peak at some of his paintings. There were hundreds of them - this is just a few in an annexe of the main part of the studio.
By the time we'd wandered around the rather warm house we had had enough walking for today, so we're going to revisit the gardens another day (and Mr Cee's hay fever was really bothering him by the time we left!). Our trip home included a quick visit to the posh supermarket we were passing, and so we have a nice dinner for later. Youngest Cee and GF(P) have gone out to dinner so we will have a quiet evening.
Just time for today's question before we eat: 24 - World UFO Day: UFO simply means Unidentified Flying Object - not necessarily that it's an alien spaceship. Have you ever seen anything in the sky that you honestly couldn't figure out what it was? Even if you're pretty sure what you saw wasn't an alien spacecraft, do you think it's possible that Earth is being visited by aliens?
No, I've never seen anything resembling a UFO. I would have thought most aliens would pass us by - I'm sure we're not that interesting....