We got an earlier start today – which really only means that we got tired earlier, but we’ve had a full day. We started out the day at the Wedgwood factory – the place where they make Wedgwood china (pottery). It was really funny trying to find the place. Roger and Pam have a Tomtom (don’t know how it’s spelled) – one of those new gadgets that use satellites to guide you around to places. Anyway, we’ve been using that to help us find places, and they set it to find the address for Wedgwood. We’ve discovered that sometimes “Tom”, as we call it, tends to lead us in a strange way, and sometimes we just ignore his directions and do our own thing. When we followed his directions to Wedgwood it told us to turn right to our destination – it was a sewage treatment facility! We laughed and went back out onto the road because we knew we were in the right area, and it told us to turn right again a little further up. It was another entrance to the sewage treatment facility. At this point, we turned Tom off and discovered Wedgwood just a little further up the road, but on the left!Wedgwood was the kind of place we wanted the other one to be yesterday – it was absolutely fascinating! The best thing that happened yesterday was that we found a tourist center where we found a booklet with discount coupons for all kinds of places we wanted to see. So we got discounted admission for both Wedgwood and the Shugborough estate today. We were pretty proud of ourselves.
At Wedgwood we got on a shuttle bus that drove us to the entrance of the factory. We were allowed to walk around on our own, as long as we kept outside the chains, and watch the people working. They had signs up along the way to explain what process was going on. I will never again wonder why Wedgwood china is so expensive! It’s worth it! The detailed process is unbelievable, and so much of the work is done by hand. The basic pot or plate or figurine is made with molds, but those molds are filled and turned over and unmolded and cleaned by hand, individually. If you’ve ever seen the typical Wedgwood china, the light blue vase or bowl with white intricate patterns and pictures on them, those designs on them are called Jasper. We watched how they made the Jasper in molds and then how those pieces were attached to the pottery, each piece individually, by hand. We also watched some of the detail painters work on other kinds of china, where they would hand paint the little, intricate details with real gold, or with different colors of paint. I was fascinated. If Dad had been there, they would never have got him out of there!
We had lunch there, and then decided to pass up the Wedgwood shop, because we had other things to do and we all knew that we wouldn’t have enough money to buy anything. We intended to try to get to Tamworth castle, where I wanted to go, if we had time, but it didn’t work out that way.
We went to Shugborough next, and it is a huge estate with a completely separate walled garden, with a big house attached where the Head Gardener lived. We found out that the wall was really hollow, and the
y had furnaces of some kind that blew warm air into the walls, which created a warmer climate within the walls, and they used to grow all kinds of exotic plants – even pineapple! There also used to be big greenhouses attached to the Head Gardener’s home, so they grew vegetables for the mansion all year round. Then up the road was the estate farm, with another house and the fields, etc for the farm animals. Saw horses, donkeys, rabbits, chickens with baby chicks, sheep, some really cute baby pigs, and a HUGE ugly black pig named Tinkerbell, who could only have been named that when he/she was a very small, cute piglet. In the room where they baked bread, the guy in there baked us a flat cake on a pan over the fire, squeezed fresh lemon on it, sprinkled sugar on it, and gave us a taste. It was kind of like a pancake, only thinner. They have people in period costume who work there at the estate – they actually work in the garden, or take care of the farm, or do laundry or make cheese, that kind of thing. There weren’t a whole lot of them there today – we were there on a kind of late-season day, and not even a weekend at that.
After the farm, we got a little train that took us way up the road to the Mansion Hou
se. (The idea was that they didn’t want the sight of the farm or the garden to ruin the appearance of the beautiful gardens around the mansion, so they were quite a ways from the mansion). The mansion was unbelievable – sculptures, paintings, old furniture, and huge dining table in a huge dining room with magnificent china and crystal on the table, huge murals painted on the walls all around the room. You walked up into the mansion on these big steps, and the mansion is surrounded by miles of green grass and beautiful flowers and trees. It’s far bigger and grander than anything I’ve seen in my head when I read books about women coming to live in a mansion house to be the governess there, or something. I bought one of the souvenir books with the story of the family and the house, and everything. The next-to-the-last lord of the manor was a professional photographer, and was kind of considered the royalty photographer or something. There were several photos around the walls that he had taken of the Queen and when Diana married Prince Charles, etc. It was pretty cool.
When we got off the shuttle to take us back to our car, Mom discovered she had lost her sunglasses, and they are a pair her eye doctor lent to her before she left because hers hadn’t come in yet. She is very upset about losing them, and being tired doesn’t help any. She’s always so careful to put them back in the case or her purse when she takes them off, and I suspect she thought she was sliding them into her purse and just missed the pocket or something, and we didn’t notice. Roger went in and asked them to look for them, and we’re supposed to call tomorrow after 11 and see if they found them. I hope they do, even though it will mean a 45 minute drive back to get them – Mom would feel much better if we can.
Tomorrow we’re going to a bigger, fancier estate, called… have to look it up! Rats, can’t find it. Chatsworth. That’s it. Pam walked in and I asked her. There’s a movie coming out called The Duchess, I think? She was from Chatsworth. Anyway, this is supposed to be even bigger and more beautiful, etc. We’re not chasing ancestors right at the moment – we’re finding out how the other people we’re NOT related to lived! Tomorrow is our last day here, we’ll take off Friday morning and head towards Scotland. From what Pam says, our cottage there is very close to Loch Lomond, so we’re looking forward to it. Mom’s starting to have a little home sickness too, and she’s tired, but I’m pretty sure she’ll perk right up when we get into Scotland, where she’s always dreamed of going, and didn’t ever really think she’d get there.
We’re also hoping for more comfortable beds and a shower that does more than spit on our heads and that maybe gives out warm water instead of just very hot or very cold. This cottage is really, really cute and comfortable though, it really is. Just not home, you know. Still looking for an internet connection….
y had furnaces of some kind that blew warm air into the walls, which created a warmer climate within the walls, and they used to grow all kinds of exotic plants – even pineapple! There also used to be big greenhouses attached to the Head Gardener’s home, so they grew vegetables for the mansion all year round. Then up the road was the estate farm, with another house and the fields, etc for the farm animals. Saw horses, donkeys, rabbits, chickens with baby chicks, sheep, some really cute baby pigs, and a HUGE ugly black pig named Tinkerbell, who could only have been named that when he/she was a very small, cute piglet. In the room where they baked bread, the guy in there baked us a flat cake on a pan over the fire, squeezed fresh lemon on it, sprinkled sugar on it, and gave us a taste. It was kind of like a pancake, only thinner. They have people in period costume who work there at the estate – they actually work in the garden, or take care of the farm, or do laundry or make cheese, that kind of thing. There weren’t a whole lot of them there today – we were there on a kind of late-season day, and not even a weekend at that.After the farm, we got a little train that took us way up the road to the Mansion Hou
se. (The idea was that they didn’t want the sight of the farm or the garden to ruin the appearance of the beautiful gardens around the mansion, so they were quite a ways from the mansion). The mansion was unbelievable – sculptures, paintings, old furniture, and huge dining table in a huge dining room with magnificent china and crystal on the table, huge murals painted on the walls all around the room. You walked up into the mansion on these big steps, and the mansion is surrounded by miles of green grass and beautiful flowers and trees. It’s far bigger and grander than anything I’ve seen in my head when I read books about women coming to live in a mansion house to be the governess there, or something. I bought one of the souvenir books with the story of the family and the house, and everything. The next-to-the-last lord of the manor was a professional photographer, and was kind of considered the royalty photographer or something. There were several photos around the walls that he had taken of the Queen and when Diana married Prince Charles, etc. It was pretty cool.When we got off the shuttle to take us back to our car, Mom discovered she had lost her sunglasses, and they are a pair her eye doctor lent to her before she left because hers hadn’t come in yet. She is very upset about losing them, and being tired doesn’t help any. She’s always so careful to put them back in the case or her purse when she takes them off, and I suspect she thought she was sliding them into her purse and just missed the pocket or something, and we didn’t notice. Roger went in and asked them to look for them, and we’re supposed to call tomorrow after 11 and see if they found them. I hope they do, even though it will mean a 45 minute drive back to get them – Mom would feel much better if we can.
Tomorrow we’re going to a bigger, fancier estate, called… have to look it up! Rats, can’t find it. Chatsworth. That’s it. Pam walked in and I asked her. There’s a movie coming out called The Duchess, I think? She was from Chatsworth. Anyway, this is supposed to be even bigger and more beautiful, etc. We’re not chasing ancestors right at the moment – we’re finding out how the other people we’re NOT related to lived! Tomorrow is our last day here, we’ll take off Friday morning and head towards Scotland. From what Pam says, our cottage there is very close to Loch Lomond, so we’re looking forward to it. Mom’s starting to have a little home sickness too, and she’s tired, but I’m pretty sure she’ll perk right up when we get into Scotland, where she’s always dreamed of going, and didn’t ever really think she’d get there.
We’re also hoping for more comfortable beds and a shower that does more than spit on our heads and that maybe gives out warm water instead of just very hot or very cold. This cottage is really, really cute and comfortable though, it really is. Just not home, you know. Still looking for an internet connection….
1 comment:
The garden looks like our's should. Did the horse match the size of his feet? Pretty big feet.
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