Four go wild north of the border UPDATED 6/23 About This Page:

[chezp]

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

Beautiful castle! The gold actually didn't seem that over the top, compared to some other places I've seen.
I can't even imagine the cost of a wedding there. I'd be tempted to invite everyone I know if I was already paying for that venue. But I guess then you'd have the catering cost, which are per person.

True....

[Cam22]

Warwick Castle is simply stunning, though I can't imagine the cost to reserve it for a wedding.

[SuperDave]

Originally Posted by Cam22

Warwick Castle is simply stunning, though I can't imagine the cost to reserve it for a wedding.

That would be amazing then you have to reserve it and consider the tourists who cannot visit there and that huge cost would be a definite factor! You're basically securing the castle for your wedding and not allowing the tourist traffic to visit for several hours, which would be a huge cost to add on to your wedding cost, which would be high outside of this! But an amazing locale for a wedding as I've been here!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Cam22

Warwick Castle is simply stunning, though I can't imagine the cost to reserve it for a wedding.

Oh my goodness, it's got to be expensive, but then again, it's probably no worse than Leeds Castle, as they do weddings as well. Can you imagine though - it's probably the fairy tale dream for a lot of people and I guess you'll pay what you have to pay for a fairy tale to come true?

[chezp]

Originally Posted by SuperDave

That would be amazing then you have to reserve it and consider the tourists who cannot visit there and that huge cost would be a definite factor! You're basically securing the castle for your wedding and not allowing the tourist traffic to visit for several hours, which would be a huge cost to add on to your wedding cost, which would be high outside of this! But an amazing locale for a wedding as I've been here!

I'd love to know how much closing it off to tourists really contributes to the cost, especially if you're closing off the castle at say 3:00pm and it closes at 5:00pm and the tourists have the grounds to walk around. I bet, in reality, Warwick Castle wouldn't lose that much money, as the majority of people would probably have already arrived by that sort of time of the day. However, I can imagine they probably still add a fair chunk to the cost of a wedding, regardless of how much they actually lose, if that makes sense, because let's face it, we'd never find that any information out...

[chezp]

Pre-trip report – part twelve: is he displaying to the hedge?

We stopped off at the chapel of Warwick Castle, the one place in the castle where they ask you, quite rightly, to show some respect and keep your voice down. So what did one mother do? Barge in, and told her toddler son in a very loud voice “and this is the chapel”… before she saw the sign. D’oh! There’s been a chapel in Warwick Castle since the 12th century, but this one was built in the 1600s.



The library was an interesting place, packed with books, and when I first went in, I thought it was packed with people, only to discover that they were actually statues!



We then went through some of the servants’ rooms, which looked really huge and very lavish for servants. This didn’t surprise me, given what we knew of Daisy, Countess of Warwick. After a critique was written of her lavish lifestyle (remember she went to parties dressed as Marie Antoinette?), she sought out socialism and donated large amounts of money to socialist campaigns. Not only did she do that, but she ensured her servants had a better life.



We next walked through an area overlooking the Great Hall below…



Then we headed into this amazing room – look at the carvings in the wood! I really would love to know how long this took to do, and how much it cost.



We made our way into the courtyard, and we felt a few spots of rain, but thankfully it didn’t come to anything.

We spotted a peacock in the distance, who was displaying his feathers, and headed that way. I figured he’d have stopped by the time we got there, but not a bit of it. We sat there for ages, somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes, and marvelled at how he was doing it. We thought he was stuck at one point…



Eventually, he did finally finish his long lasting display, although we were slightly concerned that he spent quite a bit of his time displaying to the hedge.



By the time we’d finished admiring him showing off it was only about 10 minutes to the eagle display they were putting on at 12:30pm, so we figured we’d stay there and watch it. I wasn’t sure if any of my photos would come out, bearing in mind I was sat on a bench way back from the viewing area, but I didn’t do too badly. Ok, so some photos were edited to zoom in a bit, but even so…



After that concluded, we were, in all honesty, going to make our way out, but my parents were determined to see more. We hadn’t been given a map when we arrived, so I had no idea what else there was, and I couldn’t find a map on their website. Of course, when I got home, I found the map on the website – typical! We gave in, and headed back, and I got some photos of the castle…



…. Then with map in hand, we made our way over to the peacock garden, named because of the peacock topiaries in there. I joked that we probably wouldn’t see a single peacock in there, but wouldn’t you know it, we saw loads!



We made our way through the rest of the grounds…



… and down to the river, where you could see how big the castle was…



I have to admit, I’m glad we did the walk, although it was a lot for me on my crutch, and it did mean us leaving a lot later than we thought we would. We ran into traffic on the way home, which delayed our return, but our precious cargo of flowers made it Ok…



Next: Scottish midges…

[cubfancolleen]

The grounds are just spectacular! And your close ups of the peacocks are wonderful. You really captured that vibrant blue.

[disney_duke]

Well that was nice of Daisy, even if she was a little... odd.

The grounds are beautiful! And both the eagle and peacock photos are wonderful. Definitely worth sticking around for.

[SuperDave]

Great photos of the grounds and various rooms as they are becoming familiar to me! Amazing photos and closeups of the peacock as you captured its' colors so well and was willing to pose for you!

[Cam22]

Every time you all visit a castle or mansion, I find myself wanting a home library like these folks had. Such beautiful rooms! That peacock (and your photos of him) are incredible. Great shots of the eagle, too. Love that Countess Daisy was so good to her servants.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Cam22

Every time you all visit a castle or mansion, I find myself wanting a home library like these folks had. Such beautiful rooms!

I hear you on that and I think we have about enough books to fill it, if we had one.

That peacock (and your photos of him) are incredible. Great shots of the eagle, too. Love that Countess Daisy was so good to her servants.

I really liked that aspect of her. It's not something you normally hear about the aristocrats of years gone past.

[chezp]

Pre-trip report – part thirteen: Scottish midges…

Monday 15 May

On the way home from work tonight, I listened to a very informative, but equally scary and creepy piece about “Scottish midges” and how they can be nearly as bad as mosquitos. What the heck? I am seriously beginning to wonder what we’re doing going on this trip. I figured in our own country, we be relatively safe from this sort of thing. Apparently not… And what advice did they have for avoiding this nasty little critters? Honestly… not very much. They reckon the various insect repellents would be of “some use”. Ok, helpful…. Not!

Tuesday 16 May

As I was driving home, I heard reports about a road closure in Scotland due to a wildfire. Not the sort of thing I associate Scotland with! I did some research when I got home, and found this, which is not a million miles away from where we’ll be passing through… scary… http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-39920679

Friday 19 May

I have a day off today, so you can guess what that means… … if you said time to do a bit more planning for this trip, you’d be right!

Having heard all about those darned Scottish midges, I figured I’d go into town, and a place called Mountain Warehouse, as I remembered them having some form of crops or trousers (pants) last year that related to mosquitoes. I walked around the shop, trying to find any trace of them, but no luck. In the end, I went and asked, and apparently all they have in stock so far are the men’s ones. Great! The guy was really helpful, and went on the website, and told me they were available there, and I could order them to go to the store. Ok… well, I’m back in Canterbury for work on Monday, and they have a store there, so do they have any? The guy rang them, and they had one pair in my size, so he reserved them for me. I did say that I might not buy them, as it would depend if they fitted or not. I don’t think I’ve ever worn beige trousers, and that’s the only colour they have them in, so I still might not get them… we’ll see.

When I got home, I printed out the days of our itinerary that are already sorted. There are a couple of restaurants that I still haven’t heard back from, so I decided to have another look for other options, as if they come back to me now, I’ll be saying but thanks, as I don’t expect to wait almost two weeks for a reply to an email… Hopefully my second choices will be more receptive!

I also went through and double checked we had full addresses of everywhere we’re going, as there’s nothing worse than getting to the day itself, and suddenly realising you don’t have those details. Everything was fine, apart from the last couple of days, which I think I finalised when I was in Newcastle, if I remember right, so that’s probably why those weren’t done.

I also realised we have no plans for dinner on our final night in Lincoln, so I’ve put that right and we’re now booked at a place called Brown’s Pie Shop and Restaurant. It may not sound like the sort of thing for a non-meat eater, and honestly, that’s what I thought too, but I decided not to judge a book by its cover, and carefully checked the menu, and it was more wide-ranging than I thought it would be, so I went for it.

I got caught up on emails and suddenly realised I hadn’t actually confirmed what time we’ll be meeting Maureen, so I suggested a time, which hopefully she’ll be fine with.

Later on, I came across this news article on BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-39976271 which is all about the Glenfinnan viaduct that we’ll be seeing, and perhaps if we’re lucky, we’ll even see the Jacobite steam train, but as far as I’m concerned, the further away I am from that train line, the better!

Saturday 20 May

I heard back from one of the restaurants I emailed yesterday, and now I have a booking for our first night together at a place called Jackson’s Bistro (the only webpage I could find was their Facebook page), which is well rated on TripAdvisor and is literally just round the corner from our bed and breakfast, so it’s perfect.

I put through our final online Tesco order before we leave, so the trip really is coming up quickly now! We order our groceries online for home delivery, and I’ve included lots of water, some Diet Coke, and some snacks, such as crisps (chips to you guys) and flapjacks, as whenever we go on a road trip, we always like to have those with us, just in case the munchies get to us at any point.

Sunday 21 May

We are officially into the teens now in our countdown!

This morning, we were watching a drama on the TV, where a boy was running away, as his father was going to take him to Scotland. Mark came out with the classic line about how he could understand how the boy felt, as “90% of the time, it rains and it’s miserable in Scotland!” I did ask him whether he realised that’s where we’re heading for two weeks next month… and he justified himself by saying the weather there is usually worse than our weather, and I will give him that, but I just hope that’s not the case for our trip…

We spent a lot of the day working outside in the garden, and of course that involved getting some of the plants in the ground that we picked up from my parents last weekend. I’m hopeful they will all be Ok, although my goodness, some of them didn’t have great rootballs, so that’s going to be a struggle for them. I’ll just keep my fingers crossed. So here’s where we are with everything…


These are the plants left to go out – still a lot, but less than last week…

Here’s the view from our kitchen out to the garden with the newly planted bed at the front of the shot

Here’s a close-up of it – in case you’re wondering why it has chicken wire all over it, it’s because it’s the only thing I’ve found that stops the flowerbeds being used as the neighbourhood cat toilets… It’s got a selection of double begonias in, although you can’t yet see the colours of them

Here you can see the colour – I had a spare red one, so I put it in this planter

The view out across the patio towards the back of the garden

Some more double begonias – these came with a nice present, an ant infestation in two of them! I used ant killer, and I just hope they’ll be Ok…

Fortunately no unpleasant nasties with these ones..

This is a closer view of our “rockery” with the flowerbed and wall basket above, both of which are planted out – in the basket is one begonia with trailing lobelia and the flowerbed has geraniums and alyssum

Unfortunately, all this gardening has taken its toll on me, and I don’t just mean on my chronic fatigue. Let’s just say the weather was a bit all over the place. One minute, the wind was whipping, and it was cold, and you needed to wear a sweatshirt, then the sun would be out, and you’d be really hot, but honestly it didn’t last that long. Therefore, I didn’t think about putting on some sunscreen. Well, Ok, that’s a bit of a lie. I thought about it, but I wasn’t sure I’d need it, and I was getting a lot done, so I didn’t want to stop. Well, let’s just say that was a mistake… A few hours later, I was reaching for our menthol aftersun to help deal with the sunburn! It’s probably just as well Mari’s bringing us some new supplies of sunscreen with her… after all, here’s proof – you can burn in the UK!

Next: a test drive for our road trip!

[chezp]

Pre-trip report – part thirteen: Scottish midges…

Monday 15 May

On the way home from work tonight, I listened to a very informative, but equally scary and creepy piece about “Scottish midges” and how they can be nearly as bad as mosquitos. What the heck? I am seriously beginning to wonder what we’re doing going on this trip. I figured in our own country, we be relatively safe from this sort of thing. Apparently not… And what advice did they have for avoiding this nasty little critters? Honestly… not very much. They reckon the various insect repellents would be of “some use”. Ok, helpful…. Not!

Tuesday 16 May

As I was driving home, I heard reports about a road closure in Scotland due to a wildfire. Not the sort of thing I associate Scotland with! I did some research when I got home, and found this, which is not a million miles away from where we’ll be passing through… scary… http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-39920679

Friday 19 May

I have a day off today, so you can guess what that means… … if you said time to do a bit more planning for this trip, you’d be right!

Having heard all about those darned Scottish midges, I figured I’d go into town, and a place called Mountain Warehouse, as I remembered them having some form of crops or trousers (pants) last year that related to mosquitoes. I walked around the shop, trying to find any trace of them, but no luck. In the end, I went and asked, and apparently all they have in stock so far are the men’s ones. Great! The guy was really helpful, and went on the website, and told me they were available there, and I could order them to go to the store. Ok… well, I’m back in Canterbury for work on Monday, and they have a store there, so do they have any? The guy rang them, and they had one pair in my size, so he reserved them for me. I did say that I might not buy them, as it would depend if they fitted or not. I don’t think I’ve ever worn beige trousers, and that’s the only colour they have them in, so I still might not get them… we’ll see.

When I got home, I printed out the days of our itinerary that are already sorted. There are a couple of restaurants that I still haven’t heard back from, so I decided to have another look for other options, as if they come back to me now, I’ll be saying but thanks, as I don’t expect to wait almost two weeks for a reply to an email… Hopefully my second choices will be more receptive!

I also went through and double checked we had full addresses of everywhere we’re going, as there’s nothing worse than getting to the day itself, and suddenly realising you don’t have those details. Everything was fine, apart from the last couple of days, which I think I finalised when I was in Newcastle, if I remember right, so that’s probably why those weren’t done.

I also realised we have no plans for dinner on our final night in Lincoln, so I’ve put that right and we’re now booked at a place called Brown’s Pie Shop and Restaurant. It may not sound like the sort of thing for a non-meat eater, and honestly, that’s what I thought too, but I decided not to judge a book by its cover, and carefully checked the menu, and it was more wide-ranging than I thought it would be, so I went for it.

I got caught up on emails and suddenly realised I hadn’t actually confirmed what time we’ll be meeting Maureen, so I suggested a time, which hopefully she’ll be fine with.

Later on, I came across this news article on BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-39976271 which is all about the Glenfinnan viaduct that we’ll be seeing, and perhaps if we’re lucky, we’ll even see the Jacobite steam train, but as far as I’m concerned, the further away I am from that train line, the better!

Saturday 20 May

I heard back from one of the restaurants I emailed yesterday, and now I have a booking for our first night together at a place called Jackson’s Bistro (the only webpage I could find was their Facebook page), which is well rated on TripAdvisor and is literally just round the corner from our bed and breakfast, so it’s perfect.

I put through our final online Tesco order before we leave, so the trip really is coming up quickly now! We order our groceries online for home delivery, and I’ve included lots of water, some Diet Coke, and some snacks, such as crisps (chips to you guys) and flapjacks, as whenever we go on a road trip, we always like to have those with us, just in case the munchies get to us at any point.

Sunday 21 May

We are officially into the teens now in our countdown!

This morning, we were watching a drama on the TV, where a boy was running away, as his father was going to take him to Scotland. Mark came out with the classic line about how he could understand how the boy felt, as “90% of the time, it rains and it’s miserable in Scotland!” I did ask him whether he realised that’s where we’re heading for two weeks next month… and he justified himself by saying the weather there is usually worse than our weather, and I will give him that, but I just hope that’s not the case for our trip…

We spent a lot of the day working outside in the garden, and of course that involved getting some of the plants in the ground that we picked up from my parents last weekend. I’m hopeful they will all be Ok, although my goodness, some of them didn’t have great rootballs, so that’s going to be a struggle for them. I’ll just keep my fingers crossed. So here’s where we are with everything…


These are the plants left to go out – still a lot, but less than last week…

Here’s the view from our kitchen out to the garden with the newly planted bed at the front of the shot

Here’s a close-up of it – in case you’re wondering why it has chicken wire all over it, it’s because it’s the only thing I’ve found that stops the flowerbeds being used as the neighbourhood cat toilets… It’s got a selection of double begonias in, although you can’t yet see the colours of them

Here you can see the colour – I had a spare red one, so I put it in this planter

The view out across the patio towards the back of the garden

Some more double begonias – these came with a nice present, an ant infestation in two of them! I used ant killer, and I just hope they’ll be Ok…

Fortunately no unpleasant nasties with these ones..

This is a closer view of our “rockery” with the flowerbed and wall basket above, both of which are planted out – in the basket is one begonia with trailing lobelia and the flowerbed has geraniums and alyssum

Unfortunately, all this gardening has taken its toll on me, and I don’t just mean on my chronic fatigue. Let’s just say the weather was a bit all over the place. One minute, the wind was whipping, and it was cold, and you needed to wear a sweatshirt, then the sun would be out, and you’d be really hot, but honestly it didn’t last that long. Therefore, I didn’t think about putting on some sunscreen. Well, Ok, that’s a bit of a lie. I thought about it, but I wasn’t sure I’d need it, and I was getting a lot done, so I didn’t want to stop. Well, let’s just say that was a mistake… A few hours later, I was reaching for our menthol aftersun to help deal with the sunburn! It’s probably just as well Mari’s bringing us some new supplies of sunscreen with her… after all, here’s proof – you can burn in the UK!

Next: a test drive for our road trip!

[purplegal]

The plans are progressing well. Your garden is beautiful, it must be a nice relaxing space.

[disney_duke]

That's interesting about the pants. I wonder how effective they are.
I saw that article about the Harry Potter fans and that train line too. Why are people so nuts?
Your choice for dinner that last night looks pretty darn good, especially the desserts!
You have a lot of patience to create a garden like that - but it's worth it. It looks very nice right now and I know it will look beautiful later!