Day five in the UK – an unbelievable (for the UK) fifth straight day of sunny skies.  This morning we headed north once again for a visit to Packwood House, yet another National Trust property, about thirty minutes away from Chipping Campden.  On the way we passed right through Stratford-upon-Avon where we will be returning later this week.

Packwood House is a 15th century timber-framed Tudor mansion noted especially for its garden of Yew trees.  It was acquired early in the 1902 by the Ash family for their then 16-year-old son Graham Baron Ash (Baron being a name, not a title).  As he got into to 20’s he made it a project to make it a very livable home.  He was quite the gentleman, and in WWI he piloted reconnaissance balloons over enemy territory.

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The famous Yew Garden containing over 100 trees was laid out in the mid-17th century by John Fetherston, the lawyer. The clipped yews are supposed to represent “The Sermon on the Mount”. Twelve great yews are known as the “Apostles” and the four big specimens in the middle are ‘The Evangelists’. A tight spiral path lined with box hedges climbs a hummock named “The Mount”. The single yew that crowns the summit is known as “The Master”. The smaller yew trees are called “The Multitude” and were planted in the 19th century to replace an orchard.  (End of Yew tree lesson)

Then we enjoyed our modest picnic lunch before heading back toward Campden for a stop at the Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park.  It is noted for a Naples collection, a British folk art collection, and a brilliant Chinese collection of food, wine and ritual vessels.  But the highlight was the temporary “Shakespeare in Art” exhibition, a good prelude to our planned Thursday return to Stratford-upon-Avon for an afternoon performance of a Shakespeare play.  No pictures allowed in the museum, but the link above will take you to their web site where you can the collections.

Then it was back to Campton Mews for a rest before our 7:00 PM dinner reservation at the Chef’s Dozen.  Elaine had scoped out this place which promised to be the dining highlight of the entire trip.  It was!  Owned and operated by a South African couple, the Chef’s Dozen offers a four course set price menu that we enjoyed with a bottle of Côtes du Rhône red wine after cocktails – delicious champagne for Elaine and a Sipsmith gin and tonic for me.

The meal:

First course:
Elaine:  hand-dived Orkney scallop – scallop broth
Joe:  rabbit raviolo – cooked and served in its own consomme

Second Course:
Elaine and Joe:  crisp lamb sweetbread – duck egg, watercress, anchovy mayonnaise and caviar

Third Course:
Elaine:  Halibut  – wild garlic, bone marrow sauce, braised snails, Jersey Royal bits and bobs
Joe:  Fallow buck – broccoli, ripe pear, toasted almond and Oxford Blue

Fourth Course:
Elaine:  ‘rhubarb and custard’ – duck egg custard, rosemary and Arlette pastry
Joe:  dark chocolate – toasted hazelnut, beer caramel and hazelnut ice cream

Then bed!  Cheers until tomorrow.

The National Trust (NT) is a charity founded in 1895 by three people who saw the importance of the UK’s heritage and open spaces and wanted to preserve them for everyone to enjoy.  We belong to its American partner, the Royal Oak Society. which gives us full access to all National Trust properties in the UK and Northern Ireland.  Today we visited two National Trust properties under, against all odds, partly cloudy skies.  Our good luck with weather cannot last forever.

After a good night’s sleep we headed out at about 9:30 AM for Charlecote Park, about 18 miles north of Chipping Campden.  We arrived in good order a few minutes before the grounds opened and, in fact, we were the first people to enter the park.  Charlecote Park is a grand 16th century country house, surrounded by its own deer park, on the banks of the River Avon.  The Lucy family has owned the land since 1257 and it remains the family home today.  Although acquired by the National Trust for financial reasons, the family has a right to live in the house in perpetuity.

We explored the park and gardens for a bit and saw the deer still residing on the ground.  Then we visited the kitchens and finally did a self guided tour of the house.  Each room in the house has a friendly and communicative docent that explains interesting facts about the room.  All in all, it is very well done.

Pictures tell the story (Click to enlarge)

Then it was another five minute drive to the next NT property, Baddesley Clinton.  This was the home of the Ferrers family for 500 years.  They were a prominent Catholic family noted for sheltering Catholic priests during the Reformation, and the house has several “priest holes” where the priests, who under the threat of a death sentence, could hide during raids by the priest hunters.  After our picnic lunch on the grounds, we toured the beautiful house before heading back home to Chipping Campden.

We stopped in the Red Lion Pub for beers and had an interesting chat with the very young female bartender.  There isn’t much we don’t know about her (except her name).  She’s a native of Campden.  Her grandmother has nine cats and lives in an unheated old airport control tower.  She has a girl friend.  She used to work at King’s Hotel but didn’t like it.  She cannot abide the Donald or Hillary but she adores Bernie.  Needless to say, it wasn’t busy, and she talked the whole time through two pints of IPA.  God bless her.

Dinner was the Eight Bells Pub, and it was quite delicious.  No pictures, sorry.

Joe: Smoked Mackerel & Horseradish Pate with granary toast and a small salad, Homemade Cod & Salmon Fishcakes with dill butter sauce and seasonal vegetables, and a delicious duo of Ice Creams – Vanilla and Chocolate – served in a brandy snap basket.

Elaine: Field Mushrooms pan fried and finished with a Stilton cream sauce, served on toasted ciabatta, Local Asparagus, Spinach & Sun-dried Tomato Risotto topped with crispy fried rocket and Parmesan shavings, and Lemon Posset with raspberry coulis and homemade shortbread.

Until tomorrow.

Weather wise, Sunday was about perfect.  Cool, sunny, and bright.  Cloudless skies gave way to big fluffy white clouds by afternoon.  Elaine made me my desired breakfast of a slice of toast with a fried egg on top.  The landlord had provided eggs from her own chickens.  That and a cup of tea hit the spot.  Also in the morning, Elaine made ham and cheese sandwiches to take along in the car for a picnic somewhere during the day.

Our first stop of the day was at the Wellington Aviation Museum in little Moreton-in-Marsh, about 15 minutes away.  It is an eclectic little place that is only open on Sundays.  As we knew in advance, no planes here (except a few models)!  In fact, it’s a one room affair that is filled to overflowing with Gerry Tyack’s collection of WWII airplane memorabilia – mostly odd parts from vintage aircraft and interesting photos from the nearby RAF Moreton in-Marsh Air Base, a WWII hub of activity.  Poor Gerry passed away a few years back at 90, but volunteers continue to keep the museum open on Sundays.  The “curator” was a treat and impressed that we had come all the way from Arizona.  He was full of interesting facts.

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Next stop would be Hidcote Gardens, one of England’s best gardens and run  by the National Trust (NT).  We are NT members, so we get free admission and free parking.  Because of its popularity, I had planned this for during the week rather than on a Sunday, but the weather was perfect for outdoor time so we moved it up to today on the sightseeing list.  The gardens are quite beautiful and filled with blooming flowers.  As expected, it was filled was Brits (who love their flowers).  Lots of kids, so not very peaceful, but enjoyable none the less.  At the end of our walk through the gardens, we picnicked at the car (since I was starving and unwilling to search out a picnic spot).

Just a few miles away from Hidcote stands Kiftsgate Court Gardens, quite well known in its own right.  It even has its own rose, the Kiftsgate rose.  Sure doesn’t look like a rose!  This place is not nearly as well known as Hidcote, so it was pleasantly quiet and peaceful.  It too is quite beautiful, and Elaine picked it as her favorite of the two gardens of the day.

Then it was back to Campden Mews for a nap (for me) and then cocktails before heading out to dinner at the Ebrington Arms Pub just a few miles down the road.  The pub dates back to early 1600’s before I was born.  Dinner was very good accompanied by a bottle of Vacqueyras red wine from France, a region I had never heard of.  It was great.  Dinner:

Elaine: Squash soup, pork roast, and strawberry rhubarb trifle.

Joe: Scotch egg, prime rib with Yorkshire pudding, and a cheese plate.

Until tomorrow, here are a few shots of Chipping Campden!

With the Renault debacle behind us, we looked forward to a good day two in the UK.  The weather so far is cooperating fully.  The week before we arrived was warm and rain, rain, and more rain.  For us yesterday was beautiful, weather-wise, that is, and today turned out just as good.

We checked out of the Oakwood House B&B in West Drayton after a nice breakfast and a chat with the owners, an interesting couple, and two guests from Australia.  We did indeed head back to Hampton Court Palace, about 30 minutes away.  Aside from a normal traffic glitch for some construction, we arrived at the Palace at 9:45 AM, just 15 minutes from the opening time.  Got a prime space, and we were among the first to enter the grounds.

We visited here way back in mid 1980’s before the devastating fire in the William III apartments in 1986.  That is long forgotten as the Queen reopened the site in 1992.  Hampton Court Palace – you history buffs think Edward VIII, William III, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, et al.  If you are up on your BBC history shows, it will all sound familiar.  The apartments are very nice; the gardens are beautiful and in full bloom.  All-in-all, well worth the revisit.  We concluded the visit at about noon with cups of hot chocolate and a shared piece of Elizabeth cake in the café (that sufficed as lunch), and then it was back to Vic, the Volvo, for the ride to Chipping Campden.

The ride was just over two hours made slightly longer by motorway construction around Oxford.  Chipping Campden is a lovely town, and our cottage, Campden Mews, is dead in the center on the High Street (Britain’s answer to Main Street) but behind a gate and surrounded by stone walls, shrubs, and trees.  One minute to the bustling street but a sea of tranquility.  Our house, Campden Mews, is beautiful.  Full kitchen (but with a small fridge), dining area, and a large sitting room with TV on the ground floor and two large bedrooms with en suite baths on the second plus a delightfully secluded yard.  We had drinks in the yard – it was cool but sunny and very nice in the sun.

On the way to Chipping Campden, henceforce to be referred to as Campden, we had stopped off in Stow-on-the-Wold to visit their Tesco Superstore. We stocked up on water, cranberry juice, vodka, wine, and household essentials including some Spanish chicken with roasted potatoes for tonight’s dinner.

Today’s issues were two:  figuring out how to operate the gas stove and oven, and, more ominously, dealing with an electrical outage that happened soon after we arrived.  Shoshana, the landlord, dispatched her husband James to deal with the electricals, but I had figured how to reset the circuits before he even arrived.  The wi-fi is excellent!

Dinner and wine was great, and it was nice not having to deal with a restaurant meal on our first night in Campden.  The king-size bed is comfortable, and a good night’s sleep was had by all.  It is now Sunday morning and the weather looks excellent once again.  We will probably visit a famous nearby garden and a quirky air museum near here today, but more on all that tomorrow.

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After a brief stop in Boston where I joined Elaine at a reunion of the participants of her recent Vietnam adventure (pictures below), we arrived in London early Friday morning.  First job, of course, was to pick up our new Renault Megane Estate.  Little did we know that we were about to match and exceed the car rental woes of our trip to Florida last Thanksgiving.

Renault hires an agency at Heathrow to act as their agents in delivering and returning cars to customers.  We have dealt with them numerous times, and the father/son team is (are?) very nice.  Alas, the gasoline automatic transmission Megane that Renault delivered for me was rather a diesel manual transmission model.  Oh, oh!!  I drove a standard transmission car in driving school back in 1958 and have not been in one since then.  And now I am going to drive one for 32 days in the UK/IE on the wrong side of the road?  I don’t think so.  Naturally I refused delivery.

The agents tried to deal with Renault, but the buck passing between different divisions within Renault resulted in four hours of angst ridden waiting.  Finally they offered a seven-to-ten day rental after which they would deliver a new Renault to me.  Not bloody good enough!  I had no confidence that they would deliver it in a timely fashion.  I told Pierre, the Renault agent in France, that Renault had not delivered as promised and that I wanted a full refund.  He agreed and said he would arrange it.  I expect a hassle.

Meanwhile the father/son agents proposed a solution (independent from any connection with Renault).  They would rent me a similarly sized Volvo with an automatic transmission for the same price quoted me for the Renault.  I sense this was a good deal for them, but it was a good deal for us too.  A Volvo is a step up from a Renault, the car had only 6,000 miles on it, and the vacation would proceed immediately without worrying about changing out to another car at some point.  The deal was struck!

By this time it was too late for our planned time-killing sight-seeing trip to Hampton Court Palace but yet a bit too early to proceed to our nearby B&B for check-in.  We drove to the B&B (the GPS, or as the Brits refer it, the SatNav) got us there in good stead, and we enjoyed a beer or two at the pub next store.  At four PM, much the worse for wear, we checked in to the Oakwood B&B, settled in, and took naps.  Having enjoyed Vietnam food at the “reunion”, hefty snacks the airport waiting for the Virgin flight, and a full dinner and a breakfast on-board the six hour flight, Elaine wasn’t hungry come dinner time at 7 PM, so I ventured on foot down the street for fish and chips (excellent!) for myself.  I stopped at a little variety store and bought some waters for the room.  We were in bed and asleep by 8:30 PM.

After a good night’s rest (it is 6 AM Saturday now) we have put yesterday’s stressful experience behind us and will begin the vacation anew.  After breakfast, I think we will proceed to visit Hampton Court Palace after all (I do have pre-purchased admission tickets – why waste them!).  After a short visit there we will embark on the two hour (or so) ride to our first cottage rental in Chipping Campden.  More on that tomorrow with the first UK pictures.

Until then, here are the pictures of Elaine’s Vietnam reunion with our friend Mianne, the Lees, and the infamous Savin Hill girls.  Also present but not pictured were me, Mianne’s husband Bill, and Joe & Fran Murphy who had been scheduled to be on the trip but had to cancel.

One month to take off!  We leave on May 11^th for our 2016 UK/Ireland adventure.

Here’s a map followed by a description of the trip:

Day 1: We land at Heathrow, pick up our brand new 2016 Renault Megane Estate, and stay overnight at the Oakwood B&B in West Drayton near Heathrow Airport.  Since we arrive in the UK to early to check in, we will visit Hampton Court Palace, a short drive away.

Days 2 through 8:  We will be staying in a self catering cottage (Campden Mews) in the town of Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds.  That will be our base for exploring the Cotswolds, an area that we have not visited before.  We will also be taking a performance of Shakespeare’s rarely performed Cymbeline at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, just a short ride from Chipping Campden..

Day 9:  This will be a driving day.  It’s about 3.5 hours from Chipping Campden to Pembroke Dock in Wales.  We’ll have to leave early because we have reservations on the 1:45 PM Isle of Inishmere ferry from Pembroke to Rosslare in the Republic of Ireland.  We have been to Rosslare several times, usually as a stopover prior to taking the ferry the other way.  We will stay at Archways, one of our favorite B&B’s, and enjoy a meal cooked by the owner/chef.

Days 10 through 15:  We’ll leave Archways after breakfast for the four hour drive to Dingle in County Kerry, our Irish home where once again we will stay in Greenmount Cottage.  Dingle is our Irish “home”, so there won’t be a lot new here.  We will walk the beaches, enjoy our favorite restaurants (especially the Chart House – no connection or resemblance to the US chain), drink some Guinness with Tom Geaney at his Dingle Pub, and listen to Mr. O’Flaherty belt out some Irish tunes at O’Flaherty’s.

Days 16 through 19:  A 3.5 hour drive from Dingle will take us to Galway, a spot we visited only briefly back when we were both working stiffs..  We’ll be staying just steps from Galway Bay at the Marless House B&B in the Salthill section of Galway.  No specific plans are on tap, but a day trip to the Aran Islands is a distinct possibility.  Despite many visits to the Emerald Isle we have never made it to the Arans.

Day 20:  It’s just about a two hour drive from Galway to Dublin where we will spend the night at the oft-frequented Croke Park Hotel.  Before checking in we will check out the new Epic Ireland exhibition that opens for the first time this month.

Day 21: We’ll be up early to catch Irish Ferries’ Dublin Swift to Holyhead (Wales) at 8:45.  After two hours on the ferry and two hours in the car, we will briefly revisit Liverpool and stay the night at the Nadler Liverpool.  Dinner, perhaps, at Lunya for tapas and wine.

Days 22 through 28:  A four drive from Liverpool will get us to Craster in the Northumberland area of the UK.  This will be virgin ground for us, and I think we’ll enjoy our seven nights in the self-catering Craster Rocks overlooking the North Sea.  We’ll explore the area, perhaps seeing Hadrian’s Wall, and definitely taking a bird watching boat trip to the Farne Islands.

Days 29-30:  After a rather boring five hour drive on the motorway we will arrive in  Cambridge for our first ever visit.  We should have the afternoon and the next day explore this university town while staying at Sayle House B&B.

Day 31:  It’s about 2.5 hours from Cambridge to Windsor, our final stop in the UK, where we will stay with Julia at her 76 Duke Street B&B.

Day 32:  Turn in the car and catch Virgin Atlantic’s flight to Boston where we will change to American Airlines for the onward flight to Phoenix.