Clytha Castle

Happy birthday Morgan!!!  For Morgan’s 35^th birthday I organised a surprise weekend away with the help and company of our lovely friends Josh, Helen, Mike, Rachel and Jeremy.

Before setting off we spent a day at the lovely Wokingham home of Jeremy and Rachel, and finally got to meet their adorable button of a daughter, Maia.  They were very welcoming, although we can’t say the same for their neighbours who didn’t quite get out the pitchforks, but weren’t far off.  After a chat with the lovely local constabulary we relocated the van to a nearby campsite and set off on an epic shopping trip to Coscto- where I found that Rachel is a shopping demon!

Clytha Castle- wow!

The following day we set off in convoy.  Morg was stoked to find himself in Wales, and even more thrilled to see our destination- Clytha Castle.  This is one of the gorgeous properties owned by the Landmark trust and available for holiday rentals.  The “castle” is actually a folly, basically a piece of eye candy built to enhance the view of the local landowner, although lived in in later years.  It’s a seriously beautiful building with very high ceilings, lots of light and a stately manor feeling.  There was an amazing view of the countryside, particularly from the top of the turret where we let off lanterns one night.   

Due to a slight over-estimation of the amount of food needed (by myself and Rachel!) and some kick-arse cooking, we basically spent the whole weekend eating.  Highlights were definitely Morg’s braised ribs and Helen’s freshly baked scones, served with clotted cream, strawberries and raspberry jam.  Afternoon scones on the lawn washed down with some Moet- bliss!  We mostly sat outside in the surprisingly warm sun or in front of the fire talking, although we did manage one afternoon ramble (with Maia off-roading in her buggy) and Helen was seen doing some impressive stretching! 

Here follows some illustrative pictures....enjoy.

Your home is your castle, so they say

The gorgeous kitchen- well used!

Our stately bedroom- la di da

View from the turret- moustachey

The boys settling in

Jeremy and Maia

The gorgeous Miss Maia

Busy, busy.....

Nom, nom, nom....what's this pain in my chest?....clotted cream embolus

Mike admires the view from the front door- seriously it was just the door and then the view.

Lanterns on the turret roof

The one that got away

Man makes fire

The lovely Josh and Helen- ridiculously photogenic

Sunday afternoon ramble

Ladies and gentlemen, please bring a plate...

Rachel

Josh in repose

On our last day we headed off to look around Ralgan Castle.  These ruins are quite beautiful and you can see it must have been a seriously ornate, gorgeous place to live.  After a picnic lunch in the van, where we manfully tried to finish off some more of the food (!), we all headed our separate ways.  It was so lovely to see our friends and catch up- thanks guys for making it such a special birthday weekend!

Raglan Castle

Kent- March 31 to April 7

Our first trip!  It was very exciting and a bit nerve wracking to finally set off on our first trip away in the van.  We headed to Kent in South East England. 

Leeds Castle

Our first stop was at Leeds Castle.  The castle grounds are beautiful, with a little stream, fields of bluebells and daffodils, and peacocks, ducks and geese.  The castle itself is smaller than you might expect but has some impressive features inside, and is an active, lived-in castle, which was really interesting to explore.  The dog collar museum also on site however….

Leeds Castle

We then pushed on to our first campground, Homing Park in Whitstable.  Turned out that we were actually there a day before they opened for the year but they were good enough to let us in!  We walked along the sea front to the Sportsman, a pub-restaurant recommended to us by David and Justine.  It was fabulous- three courses of gorgeous, indulgent food and wine!  Highlights include the Thornback ray, Slip sole and apple sorbet with pop rocks!  Whitstable itself is a lovely little quaint town.  The number of optometrists and dentists hints at a bit of a retirement town but there are an equal number of gorgeous gift shops and deli’s.  The waterfront is also very picturesque and I imagine it’s heaving in summer.  We also visited Whitstable castle, a stately home built by a former resident to house his mistress- oh la la.

Waterfront at Whitstable

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury with cathedral in the background

Ruins of St Augustine's

From here we headed to Canterbury where, after a terrifying series of extremely narrow roads, we arrived at a quiet site.  We stayed here two nights while exploring Canterbury and it’s churches.  The first we came to when walked in to town was St Martins Church, which is the oldest continually operating church in the English speaking world (!), having been built in the year 597.  Loved the “squint”, an angled hole in the external wall to allow lepers to follow the service!

Ruins of St Augustine's

St Martin's Church

Outside of Canterbury Church

Just along from this are the ruins of St Augustine’s Cathedral, where we joined the English Heritage Group- quite the joiners aren’t we?! 

After lunch in Canterbury town we explored Canterbury Cathedral.  This is a huge, seriously impressive church.  Outside the corners are decorated with carvings of saints and inside there are gracious pillars and enormous, ornate vaulted ceilings.  The stained glass windows are particularly impressive.


Out on the east coast of Kent we visited the Richborough Roman Fort, or rather the ruins of.  The remaining walls date back to the year 275 and inside these are remants of the fort, which date back to the roman invasion of 43!  Crikey.

Richborough Roman Fort ruins

Our spiritual homeland!

From there we drove to Sandwich, another very pretty little retirement town with very narrow lanes and sloping houses.  Sandwich does a fine pub dinner, roast lamb with buckets of gravy (and yes Jane finished it all!) and the biggest piece of fish ever!, and we found a gorgeous little deli on No Name Street to stock up.  Nom nom. 

The name says it all really!

Deal Castle

Self portrait in front of Deal Castle

We then headed out to the eastern coast of Kent, first stopping at Deal Castle.  This is a seaside fortification which is shaped like a flower when seen from above, but inside is much more business like than other castles we’ve seen.  The audio guide was the most boring ever! 

The White Cliffs of Dover were something I’ve always wanted to see, and they were as grand as I’d hoped and actually made of chalk!  The view down towards Dover and the ferry terminal is a bit of a shame in comparison.  We explored Dover Castle on a miserable gray day in the bitterly cold wind.  The tunnels offered some respite and were very atmospheric- spooky.  The castle itself is very plain and verging on ugly.  Inside though they’ve done a good job of recreating the look of the period.   The Roman Pharo (lighthouse) and adjacent church are lovely.

Dover Castle 

Inside Dover Castle Church

Church and pharaoh at Dover Castle

White Cliffs of Dover

We decided to skip Dover town and headed down the coast to Hythe.  The town church houses an ossuary, which in a bit of good luck, was open due to a team of visiting osteologists.  There was a good collection of skulls and bones but even more interesting  (geek alert!) were the displays of pathological bony specimens.  It was really neat to see the pathological correlate of the conditions I see on x-rays.

Hythe Ossuary

The following day we visited Sissinghurst Castle….which was mostly closed.   The grounds are lovely though, with lots of spring flowers and some lovely oast houses.  This marked the end of our first trial run in the van, although we spent just one night at David and Justine’s (thanks again!) before heading off for Morgan’s surprise birthday weekend………..

Crooked as

To the cloy of cod?  Ha ha