Sunday at Kentwell

Up early on Sunday as we had a freecycler coming round to collect two divan bases from the garage. In the end she took all three, and now we have half a garage clear. And Tim will be taking L’s stuff up to her in a couple of days, so that’ll be another couple of square feet 😉

After that I pottered around and put together a picnic lunch, and we slowly gathered ourselves and went off to Kentwell via Hadleigh. I think the Hadleigh detour was partly so that L could say hello to somewhere she used to live, partly so that I could buy extra salad for lunch, and partly so that Tim could show me an area of Suffolk with gentle rolling hills 😉

Hadleigh seemed nice. They are still fighting off Tesco as apparently they have been for years, and I popped into the Solar coop which was absolutely heaving at just before lunch on a Sunday. Good range of stuff though.

Then we had a very circuitous drive to Kentwell, with probably half an hour added by various road closed signs, where apparently the roads were not closed at all. Irritating. But we got there, and indulged in our cloak and dagger operation by going and picking up a very large not-very-tudor bag from near Ye Bob. Took that back to the car and ate lunch in the baking sun before going in to start our wander around the grounds with a second visit to the military pavilion.

Lovely to catch up with Bob, although a little disconcerting meeting a friend with a cod piece. Small was desperate to head off round the grounds to find some topiary he’d spotted on his plan, but we insisted on going a little more slowly and taking in some of the sights. This resulted in us being accosted by a tudor dentist/doctor offering remedies for his “melancholie humor”. Took a little while, but brought a smile to his face eventually. Then he was distracted by the Leonardo da Vinci air screw and accompanying tent, complete with skull and heart in a jar. Those fascinated him, as did the model platonic solids, some of which are at least passingly familiar from Montessori 🙂

Then we went on to find the topiary, passing the rather hungry carp on the way. Quick trip inside the house to see the gentry and then out through the front door where we came across the maze. Small was having a great time exploring it, then one of the men from the da Vinci tent stopped to tell him how to do it properly and that mean he was there for ages.

Worked our way round past the dyers and sculpture, via a peacock to see if the fayre was starting. It got underway eventually but in the meantime I went and found Ye Katy in the cott. She was on her own, so we had five minutes for a chat, although I was very impressed she stuck with the tudor lingo throughout 🙂 Eventually the rest of the family came to find us, and managed a drink from Katy’s pot which was lovely. After that Tim took Small for another trip around the maze, and the rest of us went to find the stableyard cafe, but got distracted by the forge.

Was worth getting distracted there – they had a chainmail set and when Small caught up with us, let him try the head piece on. It was very heavy and rather oily, but he didn’t seem to mind in the slightest, or at least not until it was time to try to get it off his hair!

Drink and icecream later and we walked back down the front lawn past some women weaving/ sewing. Tim went back to Bob to look at more pointy things while the rest of us went off to spend tudor coins in the market. At around about this point the heavens opened and there was a brief heavy shower. We should have cut and run for the car at that point as it did stop for a little while, but we didn’t, and we played run from tree to tree and then Tim made a dash and heroically brought the car round to where the rest of us were sheltering.

Rain didn’t dampen our spirits though, and a mile down the road it wasn’t raining, so we had another detour and called in on the graves of Lily’s grandparents in the grounds of a very beautiful Catholic church.

I was quite surprised by my emotional reaction to the graveyard, which was that really, I wanted to be somewhere else, but Big provided ample distraction by having a meltdown over needing the toilet despite having gone less than 10 minutes earlier.

I honestly wish she would just get over this particular little concern. We’ve been to the doctor’s and checked that there is no physical problem, if anything I suspect that she doesn’t drink enough so has rather confused her body’s signals, but bar holding her down and pumping liquids into her I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Whatever I was supposed to do in that graveyard I certainly didn’t and all in all, it was a very difficult 20 minutes or so.

Back in the car and back home, very tired all around. Family pizza night which was lovely, and then tired children packed into bed and tired adults got to unwind in the living room for a while, but a much earlier night that we’d been having, as L had a train booked for 10 in the morning.