Snowdrops, delicious food, exciting places. It must be spring! Click HERE for spring 2022, HERE for 2021, and HERE and HERE for photos from Spring 2020, including our trips to Paris and the Isle of Wight.
We returned to the Isle of Wight to celebrate Nick's birthday with our favourite chef at his newly re-opened restaurant. In the morning, we visited Quarr Abbey, a Grade I listed monastic building and church, completed in 1912, considered some of the most important twentieth-century religious structures in the United Kingdom. A community of fewer than a dozen monks maintains the monastery's regular life and the attached farm.
After Quarr, we went into Ryde to seek out interesting architecture. Then on to the Garlic Farm for lunch.
We had delicious halloumi and Scotch egg outside while watching the peahens and red squirrels.
Arreton's Church of St George (left) dates from the 12th century. The church features a Saxon wall and a Burma Star window. The short tower with its unique buttresses contains a ring of 6 bells the oldest of which was cast in 1589. The other photos are back in the wonderful Thompson's restaurant, where we enjoyed a tasting menu with a view of the kitchen.
Robert's food is so good, it has brought tears to my eyes. We bought his prepare-at-home food kits during lockdown. It was wonderful to be back in person. .
The next day, we went to Carisbrooke Castle, a historic motte-and-bailey castle where Charles I was imprisoned in the months prior to his trial.
The organ was given as a gift to Princess Beatrice, Queen Victoria's daughter.
This Art Nouveau café used to be a shoe shop. We had a burger and macaroni and cheese before catching the ferry back to the mainland.
Nick's birthday present was a February weekend in the Cotswolds. We stayed near Cirencester in a sumptuous AirBnB cottage with a wood burning fire.
Cirencester's St John Baptist is one of the largest parish churches in England and has been a place of Christian worship for well over a thousand years. The church disapproved of the muscular baby Jesus and asked the artist to re-work it, but he refused.
Chedworth Roman Villa is located in Gloucestershire and is a scheduled monument. It is one of the largest and most elaborate Roman villas so far discovered in Britain and one with the latest occupation beyond the Roman period.
Nick made his own Invader to match the ones we most recently saw in Vienna.
The villa was full of beautifully preserved antiquities.
Photos above and below show the model village in Bourton-on-the-Water. One of the first model villages in the country, it was started in 1936 and completed in 1940.
Tiny Cow enjoyed scaling the chimneys and towers of the model village. Can you spot the pooch's nose beneath the net curtains?
Newark Park, a Tudor hunting lodge rescued by a gay Texan, with far-reaching views from the edge of the Cotswolds across Gloucestershire. The golden dragon weather vane is named Spike.
Some views of Newton Park and the cottage where we stayed
The town of Bibury was stuffed full of tourists, like the rest of the Cotswolds villages in the area. We discovered Lidia Poët, a new Italian series on Netflix while we were staying at the cottage.
Arlington Row was built in the late 14th century as a wool store and converted into weavers houses in the late 17th century. It is the most photographed row of cottages in the country and features on the pages of many UK passports.
On our way home, we stopped in Laycock, a Wiltshire National Trust town that features in Harry Potter films, Cranford, and other well-loved series.
The National Trust shop is used as the cobblers in Cranford (2007). Behind Daniel Radcliffe is Horace Slughorn's house from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009).
The Sign of the Angel is also seen in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and the house with the blue door is Harry's parents' house in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001). The bakery features in Cranford.
Natural phenomena and the creation of our world was explored in this spectacular immersive sound and light show by Luxmuralis. Earth, Air, Fire and Water were represented by light and sound vividly magically transforming four areas of Winchester Cathedral.
We agreed that this was the most vivid and beautiful rainbow we had ever seen, photographed from our bedroom window. Also shown are various springtime baked goods, including a wonderful German Vollkornbrot recipe that tastes just like the bread I know from living in Freiburg.
We returned to our local beach and Nick photographed Tiny Cow, reflected in an Airstream trailer.
At the end of Easter break, we travelled to London for the day. Our first stop was Brixton, where we found an unflashed Invader and an outdoor exercise group. Also shown are the blooming tulips, whose bulbs I bought in Amsterdam last July.
The graffiti David Bowie artwork is the work of Australian artist James Cochran, who completed the portrait in 2013. Electric Avenue, of the song by Eddy Grant, the first market street in the world to be lit by electricity in the late 1800s. The Foxes and Cherries sculptures were created by artist Lucy Casson
Staff accommodation for Bon Marché was provided in a specially constructed large block called Topland House, now The Department Store. Also shown are the Fenchurch (Walkie-Talkie) Building, one of many George-themed venues, the Philpot Lane Mice, the ruins of The Church of St Dunstan-in-the-East, and Monument.
Atmospheric Leadenhall Market features in one of the Harry Potter films. We had coffee and Belgian treats at Aux Merveilleux de Fred, a patisserie famous for Le Merveilleux, a must-have dessert made with meringue. I loved the neon Invasion artwork by Shezad Dawood. It represents the "other" that so many people fear.
More Leadenhall Market before busing off to Shoreditch.
Shoreditch was full of wonderful street art, including a scene from Romeo and Juliet, which was first performed there in the 16th century at The Theatre.
More street art, incuding an Invader we already knew and a Banksy dog with a bazooka.
Banksy's His Master's Voice.
Banksy’s “Designated Graffiti Area,” is located in the back the Cargo Club. After leaving Shoreditch, we went to the Art Deco Daily Telegraph Building, and to see Christopher Wren's steeple on St Bride's church, which is said to have inspired a baker on Ludgate Hill to create the first multi-tiered wedding cake.
We were the first customers to eat outside at The George this season. We had tasty cheddar bites with cauliflower puree.
Shown above are the oldest tea shop in London, a dad who got roped into Easter antics in Covent Garden, the Dickensian Goodwin's Court rumoured to be the inspiration for Harry Potter's Diagon Alley, a skateboarder waiting his turn, pigs pursued by naked man on The Pig and Goose, and the ghostly closed Strand Underground station,
This picture popped up when I Googled "Daniel Radcliffe photos": adventures with Ron in Diagon Alley. Also shown are Paul McCartney's office building, another known Invader, Mexican cocktails, the last flashable Invader, and Chinatown lanterns.
More Amsterdam tulips, some cheeseburger tacos, golden divers silhouetted against the skies, and the new Fourth Plinth Commission, Antelope, by Samson Kambalu.
London’s “Sexy Oklahoma!” was an outstanding re-interpretation of the 1940s classic, directed by Daniel Fish. Having never seen the original staged, I can’t now imagine it done any way other than this gripping, violent, funny, blood-stained version, which won a Tony Award for Best Revival of a musical before transferring to the UK. It starred Doctor Who’s Arthur Darvill, who won the 2023 Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance as guitar-hammering Curly, and Patrick Vaill, as the misunderstood loner, Jud Fry. Vaill originated the role when he was a student and has been playing it, wearing the same brown Sears plaid shirt, for over fifteen years! They used to cook chilli and cornbread on stage during Act I and serve it to the audience at the interval, but this stopped with Covid
