Half term in Shropshire

We spent a very happy half-term weekend in Shropshire. Some of our friends had been to the area a few years back and recommended it for a short break, so we decided to follow their advice.

We stayed in a cottage (a converted mill) -- in the hamlet of Vennington, about 30 minutes from Shrewsbury. It was lovely -- lots of wooden beams and floors, white walls and a wood burning stove, just perfect for cosy nights in.

As for sightseeing, we visited Ironbridge -- to admire the iron bridge, of course. It is quite hard to imagine that this now picturesque, steep valley was the heartland of the Industrial Revolution -- but it was.

There are several museums to visit in and around Ironbridge, but being on a short break, we visited just one -- Blists Hill. This is a living museum, which recreates a small Victorian town, complete with mine and working steam railway. The 'residents' (staff who are dressed in the clothing of the day) are very knowledgeable and eager to answer any questions that you might have. We really enjoyed our visit here, finding the museum both informative and entertaining. This is a really good way to engage young people with history.

We also visited Shrewsbury, which is a lovely medieval market town. We spent a long time wandering round the abbey, which is beautiful, and enjoyed lunch in one of the cafes on the market square.

Finally, we managed to fit in two National Trust properties -- one on the way there and one on the way back. Attingham Park is a Palladian mansion -- we particularly enjoyed the extensive and very interesting 'below stairs' area here. Wightwick Manor is a Victorian manor house, built and furnished in the style of the Arts and Crafts movement.

We thoroughly enjoyed our weekend in Shropshire and, if you are looking for a short break somewhere in the Midlands, would certainly recommend it.

Picnic at Waddesdon

We managed to dodge the showers on Sunday to visit Waddesdon Manor. We took a bit of a gamble with the weather and packed a picnic, which we love to do but don't do often enough. In fact, the sun shone for us and we were able to sit on our tartan blanket and enjoy our lunch on the lawns in front of the manor.

Next up was the woodland playground. Our kids are well and truly teenagers now, but they still love to have a go on the huge slide and the zip wire! My husband and I did a quick tour of the house, which is very impressive, while the kids (who have visited the house before and feel that once is enough, unlike us) relaxed on the grass and fiddled with their mobile phones.

We then popped into the shop for a nose around. This is always interesting --  lots of lovely things, but not much that you'd actually want to buy. I was amused to see that the book I'm currently reading -- The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild -- was for sale there. It's always useful if you have a family business in which you can sell your wares!

Finally, we enjoyed (very overpriced, but delicious) brownies, cupcakes and drinks in the cafe.

All-in-all a very pleasant afternoon.

Eltham Palace

A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated  my birthday with a day trip to Eltham Palace, which is near Greenwich.The last time we visited was when our oldest daughter was a tiny baby, so more than fourteen years ago...

We found Eltham as interesting now as then. It was a royal palace for centuries, dating back to the time of Edward II, and Henry VIII spent much of his childhood there. Only the great hall of the original medieval palace remains, but this has been incorporated into the modern mansion, and it is really stunning.

The modern house that stands now was built in the 1930s. It is a beautiful mansion, with an enormous, wood panelled entrance hall. It is really interesting to see a stately home from this contemporary period when what you are used to visiting is ancient houses from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Even the kids were impressed -- they really enjoyed seeing something newer and different.

The gardens surrounding the mansion are also beautiful and we spent an enjoyable half hour strolling through them. We finished off with lunch in the newly-built visitor centre, which was very good. There is also an outdoor adventure playground, which will be of interest to families with young children.

We all thoroughly enjoyed our day out at Eltham Palace, and I would certainly recommend a visit.

Chedworth Roman Villa

We had a good day out today at Chedworth Roman Villa, near Cheltenham.

Chedworth was a large and high-end Roman country house, with underfloor heating and on-site bathhouses, and is now owned by the National Trust. There is little left standing and as a visitor you are reliant on the plaques telling you what each room was. However, you can see well-preserved mosaics and the remains of the hypocaust. There is also a small museum displaying a variety of domestic artefacts.

The villa is set in beautiful countryside and manned by friendly and knowledgeable staff. There is a pleasant cafe on site, selling the usual National Trust fare, and a small gift shop.

We very much enjoyed our visit to Chedworth, not least because it made a change from the grand stately homes that are more generally the province of the National Trust.

Easter weekend on the Jurassic coast

We had a lovely Easter weekend on the Jurassic coast, staying in Weymouth. The weather was a bit stormy at times, but otherwise things were great.

We stopped en route at one of our favourite places -- Stourhead. The weather that day was perfect and we absolutely loved wandering round the beautiful grounds in the bright spring sunshine. The kids, despite being teenagers now, were insistent that we do a National Trust Easter egg trail (they're still prepared to do it for the chocolate!!) and so we did. The (gratefully received) prize was a Cadbury's chocolate bunny each. We also enjoyed eating sandwiches and cakes on the terrace outside Stourhead's cafe. We managed to secure a table in the sun after braving the rather stressful queues for food -- unfortunately only too common in National Trust restaurants these days.

Saturday saw us in Lyme Regis in the pouring rain and howling wind. We visited Dinosaurland, seemingly named for marketing purposes rather than accuracy, given that this museum was more about small fossils than dinosaurs. However, it proved rather interesting -- a large, eclectic collection gathered together over the years from Lyme Regis' beach by a husband and wife palaeontologist team. We did a bit of fossil hunting on the beach ourselves, but didn't come up with anything more than a couple of pretty coloured stones. The wind and rain were a bit of a deterrent, to be honest...

We drove back to our holiday cottage via Abbotsbury -- a beautiful village, originally the site of an abbey. We climbed the hill behind the village to visit the picturesque and windswept fifteenth century church, which was built by the monks. Despite being bare inside, apart from some nesting birds, the chapel still occasionally hosts (presumably standing) services. Well worth a visit.

On Sunday, we visited the absolutely beautiful Athelhampton House. This is a fifteenth century manor house with lovely, award-winning gardens. We truly enjoyed our visit here. It is privately owned and so doesn't have huge numbers of visitors, and when we arrived we were warmly welcomed and actively encouraged to sit on any seat we saw -- most unusual in a stately home! We particularly enjoyed sitting in front of the roaring fire in the magnificent wood-panelled great hall.

We came home via family in Bournemouth, having enjoyed a fun-filled, relaxing Easter weekend.

Greenwich

We had a great day out in Greenwich a couple of weeks ago. I worked out that this was one of the few areas of London that I hadn't visited and so we decided to make a day of it.

We travelled there by the Docklands Light Railway, and this in itself was quite an experience. The Docklands area is very dense and we found ourselves travelling along very close to many skyscrapers (largely owned by financial companies), interspersed with small modern housing developments and lots of restaurants and eateries. This looked like a good place for a young professional to live -- if you could afford to buy a property here!

We started off by visiting the Old Naval College. This was beautiful -- both the Painted Hall and the chapel are open to the public and they are covered in stunning eighteenth century frescoes. Furthermore, this is free. So well worth a visit. There was also some filming going on outside the collage when we visited, which the kids found fascinating.

We went on to the maritime museum -- again free and full of interesting exhibits to do with the ocean. We particularly enjoyed the environmental exhibition, the exhibit showing artefacts of sea travel throughout the ages, and the hugely ornate Prince Frederick's Barge (built in 1732 and used for royal occasions).

Last but not least, food. We ate lunch and tea at the Waterstones Cafe in Greenwich. This was a pleasant place -- not as busy as the other local cafes and with very friendly and welcoming staff. We ate supper at Cantina Laredo on Upper Saint Martin's Lane. This serves delicious Mexican food and is one of our favourite restaurants in town.

We didn't manage to visit everything that there is to see in Greenwich, so we plan to go back at some point to see the observatory, the Queen's House and to have a wander in the royal park.

421 words for snow

I read a very interesting article the other day about  the compilation of the first Historical Thesaurus of Scots. Academics putting together the tome have discovered that there are 421 Scottish words for snow, in all its multiplicity of forms. For example, 'blin-drift' means drifting snow, while 'flindrikin' means a slight snow shower. This puts the Inuit total of only 50 worlds for snow well and truly in the shade.

In addition to weather, the thesaurus will cover sport. It turns out that there are 369 different Scottish words associated with the playing of marbles, a game that has been extremely popular with Scottish children for generations.

Despite having lived in Scotland for a number of years, I am not familiar with any of the words connected with snow or marbles that were quoted in the article. I guess this is because I am not a native Scot and because neither snow nor marbles featured high on my agenda during my time living in the country.

But this got me thinking about how easy it would be to invent words that don't exist and, if enough people were prepared to take part in the mass deception, convince others (non-natives) that these words were legitimate and had been around forever. If you did that, I imagine that people might actually start using those made-up words and, voilà, they would enter the language for real.

And that is exactly how vocabulary does--or can--develop. Not the mass deception bit, of course, but someone starting to use a new word or an old word in a new way, others following suit and, before you know it, that word becoming ubiquitous.

An interesting article, as I said...

Easter weekend in Venice

We were lucky enough to spend the Easter weekend in Venice. My husband and I visited many years ago and, much more recently, our kids have been telling us how much they want to visit the city. So, we decided to indulge them (and us!).

Venice is still as beautiful as it was last time we visited. Its shabby air and dilapidated buildings are what make it so appealing -- to me at least. We spent a lot of time just wandering the streets, seeing what we came across, and that really is the best way to experience the city. You find yourself in awe and experiencing sensory overload. There is so much to take in, so much to see, that you end up wishing you had eyes in the back of your head!

One of the highlights for me was Ca' Rezzonico -- a palazzo built in the seventeenth century and eighteenth centuries, which boasts some beautiful frescoes. The rooms in the palace are presented as they would have been in the eighteenth century, with furnishings and artwork of the period. Another highlight was the Secrets Tour at the Palazzo Ducale, an hour-long guided itinerary taking you to hidden parts of the palace which aren't usually open to the public.

Venice was full of tourists -- much more so than when we visited fifteen or so years ago. Whether this was because it was Easter weekend or whether it is just that many more people are travelling now than then, I don't know. However, as is always the case, you only have to turn down a small side street to find yourself practically alone, since the vast majority of people seem to prefer sticking with the crowds on the main drags.

The kids particularly enjoyed the 'watery' aspect of Venice and loved the various vaporetto rides that we did. We took an Alilaguna boat from the airport to Venice and this was a real hit -- approaching Venice by boat ensures some fantastic views and also provides an understanding of the city and its canals. The kids were on the edge of their seats snapping photos out of the window.

A weekend really wasn't long enough to see and do everything in Venice. Maybe we'll return in another few years to complete the job!

The Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock

I have been meaning to visit the Oxordshire Museum in Woodstock for some time, and the kids and I finally got round to it this half term.

It was definitely worth the wait! We really enjoyed ourselves and managed to spend two-and-a-half hours there, including a stop for lunch, which is longer than some much larger museums have detained us in the past.

The building that hosts the museum is beautiful -- a large eighteenth-century house in the heart of the historic market town of Woodstock -- and each gallery or room of the house includes a wall plaque telling you a little about the history and past uses of the room itself.

The museum collection is eclectic, but broadly covers artefacts from, and periods of history pertaining to, Oxfordshire. There are galleries covering dinosaurs, Roman times, the Victorians, wildlife, innovation, the people of Oxfordshire, and more. The artefacts are very well presented, there are hands-on activities, and the theme running through much of the museum is that history is about people and the way they live their lives.

The museum also boasts a spacious and lovely garden (full of spring flowers when we visited) with a terrace where you can sample the food from the cafe on warmer days.

An added bonus when we visited was 'Keeping up Appearances', an exhibition of women's fashion through the two world wars, which told the story of how changing fashions reflected the changing status and lives of women.

I would highly  recommend a visit to the Oxfordshire Museum, and if you want to catch 'Keeping up Appearances', make sure you visit before 12 April.

Love of Greece

We spent our half term in Greece. In the Peloponnese, to be precise. This is one of my husband's and my favourite places in the world. We first visited more than 20 years ago (backpacking on the buses, and moving on to a new place each day), then 10 years ago (still itinerant, but this time with suitcases and a hire car), and now with our children (staying in the same apartment for a week and with a car).

There is something simply wonderful about Greece, in my opinion. For a start, I love the ancient history. I love tramping around archaeological sites, trying to work out what was what, imagining the people alive at the time going about their business in those buildings, walking along those paths. Some of the sites are magnificent and stunningly intact, considering their vintage (the Parthenon, the theatre at Epidaurus...) but my real favourites are the tumbledown sites that are so untouristed that you often have the place entirely to yourself. And these sites are invariably in the most stunning locations.

I also love Greek food. Greek salad, souvlaki, spanakopita, tiropita.... Can't be beaten.

And there's something about the atmosphere of the place. Outside the urban bustle of Athens, the people are lovely -- very friendly, helpful and welcoming to tourists. The overwhelming feeling I have when in Greece is one of relaxation and contentment. I love it!

Luckily, the children seem to share our love of Greece. They had been wanting to visit for a while, knowing that we really liked it, and they weren't disappointed. In fact, on our return, they declared it to be one of our best ever holidays. So, I think we'll be back in another 10 years, if not before!

Religion and biblical fables

Last week, the media reported on some research carried out by the Bible Society, which indicated a number of things:

• almost three out of ten children did not know that the story of the birth of Jesus comes from the Bible;
• a similar number had never heard stories about Adam and Eve or the Crucifixion;
• more than a third did not know that the tales of the Good Samaritan and David and Goliath come from the Bible;
• many of the parents in the study considered the Bible to be a good source of values for their children AND YET almost half of them did not recognise that the story of Noah's Ark comes from the Bible, and many muddled up biblical stories with the plot lines of well know films such as the Harry Potter series.

I was surprised by these findings -- and the fact that parents were confusing biblical stories with film plots struck me as laughable. How was this possible, I asked myself?

In a bid to understand, I asked my children about the stories listed above and where they come from. They knew the answers and, it turns out, they know a lot more detail about these stories that I do. Our family is not religious (I don't remember having told my children biblical stories), but we do have a good level of general knowledge and my children do attend Church of England schools. Maybe that's the answer, then.

Even though I'm not religious, it strikes me as 'a good thing' to know a bit about the Bible, the stories and morals contained within it, and religion in general. Why? Well, first off because religion is an important part of the history and culture of this country, and is worth learning about for that reason alone. Second, because religion has shaped and affected many of the events and thought processes in British culture (the Crusades, divorce, dissolution of the monasteries, ordination of women, to name but a few). And third because whatever one might think of the Bible (or indeed religion in general) it does impart some significant messages. The importance of putting sectarian differences aside in order to help an individual in need (aka the tale of the Good Samaritan), for example.

Granted the plot lines of the Harry Potter films do highlight some thought-provoking issues, but  for some reason I find myself baulking at according them the same level of historical, cultural and moral significance as our religious and biblical fables.

Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum

We had an interesting bank holiday Sunday last week visiting the 'Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum' exhibition at the British Museum. We'd bought out tickets well in advance and were looking forward to it.

The exhibition was busy. The reviews had been very good, so no surprise there. And, indeed, the exhibition was both good and informative, but not absolutely stunning, in my view. The presentation was fine, but not inspired. Rather than telling a story, as the title of the exhibition implies, this felt much more like a standard museum-type exhibition.

However, I did learn some things about Pompeii and Herculaneum that I didn't already know, despite having visited both sites a few years back. For example, I wasn't aware just how much of our knowledge of everyday Roman life is informed by the finds at Pompeii and Herculaneum. Nor was I aware that so many people still remain buried deep under the debris--only a small percentage of the populations have been uncovered.

And the artefacts on display were amazing. Things that particularly caught my eye were a baby's cradle (in tact), a loaf of bread which was perfectly preserved even down to the baker's mark stamped on the side, and a incredibly intricate and beautiful colander.

All of us (kids included) enjoyed the exhibition. Coincidentally, we also enjoyed the lunch that we ate at the British Museum--bought from a gourmet van in the front courtyard and eaten lolling on the grass in the sunshine. We later found out that the catering in the van was supplied by Benugo, who also supply the catering at our local Ashmolean Museum. Small world, it seems--or big company, more accurately!