The last few days away

On Monday, 9 August, Bruce and I went to our last National Trust property. We visited Berrington House and it was a lovely place to visit. Probably the highlight was the display of the outfits worn in the BBC Pride and Prejudice series (the one with Colin Firth as Darcy) and several other shows as well.

 The house was wonderful to wander around and had a very interesting history. I very much enjoyed seeing the servants' quarters and the laundry.

 Upstairs there were some original pieces of clothing on display.

 There were also some ladies stitching reproductions of these original garments. Lots of hand stitching and embroidery.

 These pieces were just on display in the house.

 If you wanted to, you could dress up.

 This old quilt was on the butler's bed.

 We then headed back for our last night at Hay on Wye. We had a very lovely time visiting Penny and John. We then packed up on Tuesday and headed to Oxford where we stayed nearby in a station hotel. Not a good choice as it happens as it was a bit noisy (not just trains but the large road nearby and some dodgy plumbing!). In the afternoon on Tuesday we went into Oxford and had a wander around. We had a quick visit to the Natural History Museum and the River Pitt Collection. There was so much in these museums that we really only saw a little. I think we were probably too tired to be tourists any longer!

We then got up early on Wednesday and drove to Heathrow and then spent the next few days on the plane. Lovely to get to Sydney and have a good sleep at Ma's place. We caught the train to Canberra on Friday and that was a very nice way to travel home. So lovely to see our kids and the little people on Friday night after being away for 2 months.