Well, it has been a LONG time since I have blogged! Whoops!
For the most part life has been hectic, work has been crazy and I have been flat out. The other day I realised that I have been overseas for 6 months! I can't believe it has been that long, time really does fly when you're having fun (or busy haha).
Last week was the half term school break and Michael had just arrived back in London from Australia so we decided to hire a car and go explore some more of what England has to offer, aside from beautiful, crazy London.
First we battled the London traffic for about 2 hours just trying to get out of the city, I would never ever want to own a car in this city and for the first time in my life I am eternally grateful for public transport!
First stop was Oxford, home of the world famous Oxford university. It was pretty late by the time we arrived here but we did manage to get out and walk around to soak up some of the Oxford atmosphere (while being freezing cold).
We visited one of the colleges (this is the equivalent of a faculty in Australia) and this was the home of the dining room, on which Harry Potter is based on (not that I have ever read these books or seen the movie), it actually reminded me of Dead Poets Society.
I don't know if this particular dining room is still in use but they definitely still use others, there was even a kitchen that people must have been working in because I could smell food (I was hungry as usual).
Michael being careful not to step on any of the beautifully manicured and well watered lawns in one of the Oxford Colleges, the gardens are actually beautiful, a little different to Monash Clayton that's for sure!
Some photos of the streets of Oxford, the entire city is full of imposing, beautiful old buildings. Most of the buildings are quite tall and have a kind of gothic style. We spent some time basically wandering around the streets.
That night we stayed in an Air BnB in Eversham, a small country town in the Cotswolds, which was supposed to be our base for the next few days. Our hosts were absolutely lovely and were happy to give us their National Trust membership cards for the duration of our stay, this meant we got to visit pretty much any attraction in the area for free, which we were stoked about!
The first free place we visited was Croome Court, which was designed for the Earls of Coventry in the 18th Century. Supposedly, this is supposed to be one of the earliest examples of 'British Landscape' aka. wide open paddocks with trees and sheep.
Croome Court was mostly full of a huge landscaped garden, designed by a famous gardener at the time. Above is me by the rotunda, I am not really sure of the point of it to be honest.
There was a really nice little nature trail, which was a nice little walk in our venture to escape London city life for the week, although it was absolutely freezing.
Above are photos of Croome Court, the actual house the Earl's lived in. It has been restored since those days but the vast majority of the floors and rooms were original and there was also some original furniture.
I really liked these old fireplaces, obviously the quotes and paintwork is all new but the fireplaces were all original. I am loving a good fireplace on a cold English day!
Next stop was a small and rather picturesque town in the Cotswolds called Broadway. Our Air BnB hosts had recommended a pub to us and we were in search of some British pub food for lunch!
Michael and I enjoying some delicious food and drinks at the Broadway Hotel - I had an amazing apple cinnamon cider and roast lamb, which if you ask me, is the best of all the roasts!
We spent the afternoon wandering through Broadway, stopping in lots of little stores and window shopping.
As you can see by the pictures Broadway is a very traditional looking small British town, we really liked it and it looked beautiful with all the colourful winter leaves. I couldn't believe that even all the way out here the still had red phone booths - those things are literally everywhere!
The next free place we visited with our National Trust Cards was an old house in the Cotswolds called Snowshill Manor.
Snowshill Manor has a huge a beautiful garden, complete with a lovely view of the English countryside and of course lots of random collectibles.
The story behind Snowshill Manor is quite a strange one, the owner was a really eccentric guy and a collector of anything and everything. He never even stayed in his huge old mansion and instead used it as a house for his collections, while he stayed in a little house out the back. He kinda sounds like a hoarder but his collection is worth billions of dollars now and has over 20,000 pieces. From old model ships, to suits of armour, to swords and old silverware, this guy would collect anything!
Our final stop in the Cotswolds and probably my favourite, was Charlecote park. This is a huge old estate built in the late 1800s by the Lucy family (yep, I actually remembered this) and part of it is still owned and lived in my some members of the family (obviously visitors aren't allowed in this wing).
Below: I loved the old library, which was filled with hundreds and thousands of old classic books, including some early edition Shakespeare plays!
As you can see the house was gorgeous and is all still in one piece. The man married into a rich family and used his wifes money to fund this house, they literally spent their lives making this house what it is today and very little has been done to it since the mid 1900s. It was huge and gorgeous!
The house was filled with beautiful antique furniture, for people of this time it would have been absolute luxury.
From here we headed to the famous Stratford upon Avon, the home of Shakespeare! This is a beautiful little town in the northern Cotswolds, the whole town has an old school feel to is as most of the buildings were built in the 1800s and early 1900s (some even earlier). Below is one of the local pubs and the court house.
We visited Shakespeare's childhood home - this is Michael standing out the back of it. It has done well for something so old!
More photos of Shakespeare's childhood home. Michael standing out the font and some of the interior. Shakespeare's dad made gloves and other leather products and sold them to passersby from one of the windows of his house. They were considered a very rich family in this era and were fortunate enough to have a double story house. Below is their dining room and one of the children's bedrooms.
We spent the afternoon being a little traditional and got some tea and scones in historic Stratford Upon Avon. I do love scones and jam, it was delicious!
For our final few days we did some more driving! We headed from the Cotswolds to the Lake district. The weather was usually good for an Octobers day in England and we got to see lots of very traditionally English looking green paddocks with sheep!
First stop was the Hawkshead Brewery.
We stopped here for a Brewery tour (only £6 each!) and each got some beers and lunch.
Pictures of Michael with his sampler beers enjoying the brewery!
Most of the beers were pretty nice, I am not really a beer person so Michael would definitely be able to provide more info as far as this goes!
Below: some pictures of my amazing spicy sweet potato soup (YUM) and some more beer!
Some pics of the brewery tour. We learnt all about hops and things that I have since forgotten but I do know that they produce a lot of beer each day (check out those kegs) and it is a long and not so pretty process!
After a long day of driving and beer we stopped by the small town of Kendall to check out a famous old chocolate house, first opened in 1657! They are famous for having 18 varieties of hot chocolate, so of course we had to try some. Michael got the most minty peppermint minty mint hot chocolate I have ever tasted in my life and I got a much some subtle but yummy caramel hot chocolate. We also bought one (yes, only one) small chocolate each - it was so hard to choose!
Our last full day in the Lake District and the good weather had suddenly disappeared (don't worry it reappeared the next day when we had to drive home the whole day). The autumn scenery was pretty gorgeous though, there was bright red leaves everywhere, unfortunately it is not easy to get a good photo of this in a moving car, while its raining!
We finally made our way to the historic and beautiful town of Hawkshead, where a little over a year ago some very good friends of Michael's tied the knot.
The whole town has a very traditional feel and the small cobblestone streets are lined with houses painted white with dark edgings.
Michael posing outside the Queens Head Hotel in Hawkshead, where his friends celebrated their wedding.
We spent some time in the Queens Head hotel, getting some drinks and relaxing. It was a very cute and very traditional British pub. Michael got some sampler beers we soaked in the atmosphere (there were A LOT of people coming and going!).
I had THE MOST delicious cider I have ever had in my life, it was Kiwi flavoured, I don't think I can just go back to normal ciders now!
That pretty much summarizes out week off driving around London. We had a fantastic time and it was a great opportunity to get out of the city and see some of what the countryside has to offer.
I have also added a few random photos of some of the things we have been getting up to in London, they aren't very exciting but it's just a short update.
Some photos of my house mates and I getting ready for a night on the town. One of them in Colombian and dances salsa, so we went to a salsa club in central London and after several drinks I gave salsa dancing a go, it was really fun but it's safe to say that I am completely awful at it!
Michael and I went and saw the Book of Mormon on Broadway, WOW!
It was absolutely amazing!
It was the most inappropriate, offensive, insulting thing I have ever seen but also one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life, the entire audience was in stitches and the cast got a standing ovation afterwards. If you are not worried about potential being offended this is an amazing show to see and possibly the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life!
Halloween in London - this is big! Everyone gets far too excited about this! There are costumes on sale in every store and pumpkins all over the place! Michael and I went to a halloween party, I came as a crayon, terrifying, obviously. Michael came as Zoolander, which would have been great except that Europeans don't seem to be overly aware of who Zoolander actually is.... whoops!
Some amazing graffiti in East London - I do love this part of the city!
Finally, I thought I should put up some photos of my classroom and the school I work at. Top right is all my students books (yes, how strange that we look after their books, this is such a weird concept to me that they don't take care of their own work). Bottom right is my classroom (you can see my desk in the corner, which is where I am most of the time during the working week). Also, some rather amusing things my students write - if nothing else they are entertaining!
