Country Estates

Travelling around England I have been making the most of my Australian National Trust card, which gets me in to all the UK National Trust properties.

SCOTNEY CASTLE, KENT

 the front of Scotney Castle 

   Beautiful carved stone around the doorway

Above the front door reads  "Heath and happiness attend, The coming and the parting friend"  The last couple to live here had no children, but loved having friends come and visit.  The house felt well-loved.

                                               The original moated castle at Scotney was allowed to become a ruin and a folly when the 'new' castle was built

The Brits would never let a drop of rain spoil their day out.  It's on with the jacket, up with the brolly, and onward with the stroll around the gardens.            Such fortitude.

What a shame I wasn't able to 'take the waters'  Where else would you find something that can 'loosen the clammy humours of the body' and 'dry the over-moist brain.  I hate to imagine what the symptoms might be.

After some excellent sunny weeks, it is now interspersed with some heavy rain

A Squall

The people in this painting looked like they were doing a circle dance to celebrate the harvest.

LANHYDROCK ESTATE, CORNWALL

The entry gateway to Lanhydrock House

Walking up to the front of the house.  The lawns are looking very dry after all the hot weather

Every lady should have a boudoir.  This was a very cosy room in an otherwise rather unwelcoming house with huge rooms. 

These tiny childrens' boots looked incredibly stiff and uncomfortable.  Their poor little feet.

This room had a pretty tiled mosaic floor

The morning room walls were covered in tapestry

The last line reads "a good cigar is as great to a man as a good cry is to a woman"

The great hall with domed roof with biblical scenes depicted in the ceiling

Never a truer word spoken.  Most of these old country houses only had one flush toilet, although they had a pot in a small cupboard in the corner of the the gentleman's room for their use.

I would rather have been eating in the grand dining room, than working in the kitchens.

An early version of a slow cooker, in a box packed with straw, and somewhere to keep the porridge warm

CROATIA JUNE 2018

It was a quick turnaround after Greece.  I was only back in England for a weekend before taking off again, this time to Croatia for a week of dancing on the Istrian Peninsula with Barbara Driscoll at Butterfly House in a little village in the hills.

Butterfly House.  I slept in the sky room at the top. 
It was a tiny room but had spectacular views and a balcony on 2 sides.

One of the many butterflies that visited the garden daily

We danced in the garden every morning, on the decking in the shade of a large tree

The week was a perfect mix of dancing and sightseeing.  We visited the hilltop village of Motovun, seen here in the distance

We danced in Motovun on the summer solstice 

Followed by a meal overlooking the valley and the forests where the truffles are harvested

I saw these containers high up on a ledge.  It is the local way of making liqueur at home.  They put alcohol and fruit in a jar and leave it out in the sun for some weeks.

The local towns were full of character.   The streets were paved with travertine which had been there since Roman times.  It was VERY smooth and VERY slippery, especially when walking up and down the many hills.  Luckily we all survived unscathed.

This old town wall had wood from an olive tree embedded above the gateway, as a symbol of peace

In the old town of Poric we saw some beautiful examples of 4th century stone mosaics

And the Basilica was full of fine mosaic work on a huge scale, made with real gold leaf

At the top of yet another hill, overlooking the bay

GREEK ISLANDS JUNE 2018

I had a slow start to my UK travels, after picking up a persistent cough on arrival.  I had to lay low and recouperate for a while.
The first circle dance event was at the end of May - a dance day with Brenda Kelly in Oxford.  A great day and some wonderful new dances, all to music by Pink Martini.  Brenda and I spent a few days in Oxford at an airbnb and returned to Sussex just in time for me to pack a bag and head to sunny Greece.  (The English had been saying how good the English weather had been, but I couldn't see it myself.  Cool winds and showers interspered with a dab of sunshine is not enough warmth for my liking)

I did a bit of island hopping before Stefan and Bethan's Greek circle dance holiday.
My first stop was MYKONOS  Blue skies, if rather windy.

The first practical difference I came across in Greece was putting toilet paper in a bin and NOT in the toilet.  Took a bit of getting used to...










The windmills of Mykonos no longer have sails and are merely a tourist attraction these days

Lots of lovely little waterfront cafes

       






Mykonos harbour with traditional white houses dotted on the hillside








There were plenty of steps and hills to be negotiated






Pretty white churches
   

There were many family-owned private churches around the island.  These are tombs for family members. After being buried for around 5 years in consecrated ground, the bones are relocated to the family church, as there is not enough land for permanent burial places.

A blue roof signifies a family who are fishermen.  A brown roof means they are farmers.  Churches with a white roof belong to families who are originally from a different island.

Once a year the families go to their church to have a meal and remember their loved ones.

The streets of the old town were like a labrynth.  They were designed like this to confuse the pirates.  It works on tourists too!!

The balconies going from one house to another served as a way of escaping attackers.  They were also useful for getting out if the pathway below was flooded.

The houses and streets were all treated a limestone wash, to repel germs and insects.  These days any people use modern plastic paints.  The houses must remain white, but the home owner can choose what colour to paint doors and windows.

NEXT STOP NAXOS.  JUST A SHORT FERRY RIDE FROM MYKONOS.

This was an ancient hillside quarry where this marble statue of Dionysos was abandoned.  A rough image would be made at the quarry, before the task of moving the huge statue to where it would be completed.  This one was abandoned at the quarry, so it was either damaged, or perhaps the purchaser didn't pay his bill.




The inland village of Apeiranthos is made of marble.  The streets, the steps, everything.   The marble would have come from a nearby quarry so was plentiful.
Very pretty, but rather slippery underfoot.







The archeological museum in Naxos was so interesting.
This ram's head vessel was used for ritual libations, dated 13th centure BC. That is seriously old!!!
 

They had literally hundreds of old pots, all centuries old.








The mosaic work was excellent of course.






         
The Temple of Apollo, god of light and music, near Naxos harbour, is set on a small peninsular and a wonderful place to watch the sunet.

The marble Temple of Demeter, goddess of  fertility of the earth, constructed around 530BC. There's a tiny Christian church to the right, built on the same site.



Naxos is a very productive island (as opposed to tiny Mykonos which, a Naxiot told me, contains nothing but tourists).  Naxos has lots of springs, so is able to grow plenty of fruit and veg, as well as grazing cows, sheep and goats.  The inland roads are extremely narrow and winding.  I am glad I wasn't driving.


AND SO TO PAROS TO DANCE WITH STEFAN & BETHAN

I just had to get myself out of bed early one morning to watch 'Sunrise Over Naxos' which is also the title of one of Stefan's dances.

We mostly danced indoors but had one morning dancing by the sea right outside our hotel.

We took turns to create the centres for dancing.  I thought this was an odd jumble of stones, until I realised that there were many cats in there.





Like these two. 

As well as the dancing, we went out most days, and had lunch twice at this lovely shady restaurant by the sea

It was quite hot in Paros and the sea was perfect for swimming.  Lovely walks along the beach too.  Hotel in the background, with rooms staggered up the hillside, each with their own little terrace or balcony.



A pretty little corner we discovered when we got lost in some village laneways.  Bouganvillea abounds.

A centre I created from shells etc from the local beach, for our night of labrynth dances.







And another for sun mediation dances.  The rock formations along the beach had some interesting shapes.

One day we walked from one village to the next along part of the old Byzantine Way.  Much of it was still paved with marble

We went to a local town to see a display of dances from around Greece.  It was great, and the men were very impressive with their leaps and twirls.





And so, happily tired, I headed back to England, which was having wonderful sunshine and temperatures as hot as it was in Greece.  Hurray.