Back to reality...

We went back to work after the Christmas break last week, but this week it is definitely back to reality, with the kids back at school, my oldest sitting her mock GCSEs, and my husband preparing for a business trip to Australia.

I've therefore been reflecting on the some of the lovely things that we did over the holidays:

• spending new year's eve watching the Creation Theatre's production of "A Christmas Carol" (great fun!) followed by dinner at our local Wildwood Restaurant (very tasty!)
• having a lovely, family evening out at the cinema seeing "Pitch Perfect 3" (just as funny as the first two!)
• meeting friends for a walk up Boar's Hill followed by afternoon tea (great company and delicious homemade Christmas cake)
• enjoying lots of family time watching films, playing Scrabble and eating German Christmas biscuits.

We've also got some lovely things to look forward to. We've just booked our family summer holiday (11 nights in Montenegro, which looks beautiful), we'll be watching our oldest daughter playing Juliet in the school production of "Romeo and Juliet", we're booked in to see the play "Blood Brothers" in February, and much more.

That should be enough to get us through this dull and cold January!

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.

Bath weekend away

We had a good, child-free weekend away a couple of weeks ago. After depositing the kids with their grandparents, we drove on to Bath for an overnight stay. This is something that we've done a couple of times in the past, but not for a few years now, so we thought that it was time to re-visit our old haunts.

We stayed in Beechfield House, which is a small, country-house hotel about thirty minutes' drive from Bath. We really like it here. The rooms are smart and comfortable, the setting is lovely, the atmosphere is relaxed, and the staff are very friendly. We particularly like the pretty, open-air swimming pool which is heated sufficiently that it is open from March until October. This time, we also enjoyed sitting in the peaceful bar (a lovely room at the front of the house) for an evening drink.

The other highlight of our weekend was our two-hour session at the Thermae Bath Spa. We went on Sunday morning, which meant that we didn't have to queue for too long to get in. We always enjoy relaxing in the pools and dipping in and out of the (this time newly-refurbished) steam rooms.

Other things that we enjoyed were lunch sitting outside at The Cornish Bakery in the heart of the city and dinner at the swish, modern Mint Room Indian restaurant.

India celebrating twenty years

We have recently come back from an amazing holiday in India. We don't normally visit such exotic locations, but this was in celebration of our twentieth wedding anniversary, so was something rather special.

We flew out to Delhi and spent the first half of the holiday full-on sightseeing in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. Particular highlights for me were:

• In Delhi: visiting the spice market (a beautiful ancient building with an overpowering scent of spices that made us all sneeze!), a rickshaw ride through old Delhi (exhilarating!), visiting the Sikh temple (the kitchens where they prepared enormous cauldrons of daal over huge open flames to feed scores of homeless people every day were incredible).
• In Agra: the Taj Mahal at dawn was lovely -- such beautiful light and far fewer crowds than in the middle of the day.
• In Jaipur: sitting at the elephant pool watching the elephants commune with their keepers.

We then flew down to Cochin in the south. This was the relaxing part of the holiday and we spent quite a bit of time swimming in the hotel pool. We did some sightseeing, however, and the thing I particularly enjoyed was the day cruise that we took on a houseboat along the Kerelan backwaters. We had the boat to ourselves and were looked after by the captain and by the on-board chef who cooked us a delicious lunch in the boat's galley kitchen. We spent the day drifting along and watching the world go by, including women washing clothes, dishes and their hair in the river.

All of us found India an incredible experience -- it is just so different from life in the West. The traffic is crazy, the colours are vibrant, the poverty is on a different scale altogether. It simply feels like a different world.

The trouble is that we are now hooked and wondering when we can next afford to visit somewhere truly different!

Half term fun

It was half term last week and we had some great family fun. Here are some of the things that we got up to:

• We visited Waddesdon Manor and really enjoyed wandering around the grounds in the autumn sunshine, playing on the adventure playground (the kids!) and having tea in the courtyard restaurant.
• We followed our time-honoured tradition of visiting Waterperry Gardens and doing the pumpkin hunt. The kids are really far too old for this now, but we've done it for years and they don't seem to want to let the tradition drop just yet -- plus it's a great excuse for a yummy treat in the tearoom!
• We went to see The Pantaloons' latest play -- Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde -- at the Cornerstone Theatre in Didcot. It was rather different from previous plays that we have seen by this company -- much less comic, which isn't surprising given the subject matter -- but still very good.
• Some of us went to see the latest Marvel creation -- Dr Strange. We really enjoyed the film. It wasn't quite all action -- there was a passing reference to some 'deeper' issues (for example, how do you cope if you lose the ability to do the one thing that gives your life meaning), which made it a bit more interesting, plus the cinematography was enthralling (views of Nepal and Hong Hong) and the special effects impressive. Tilda Swinton was also great!
• We popped into Oxford and wandered around Christ Church Meadow, which was very beautiful. We followed this with a browse through the books and a coffee at Blackwell's.
• We made our Christmas pudding and mincemeat. This is another time-honoured tradition -- a job that we have done during October with the kids since they were tiny. Now they are old enough that they can do the making themselves without any assistance from us! We use recipes that have been in the family for several generations and it's a great way to kick off the festive season.
• The kids carved a pumpkin -- we always have a lighted pumpkin on the dining table at Halloween.

It's been quite a busy half term. Now it's time to go back to school and relax!

Life without kids

Every summer, our kids spend a few days staying with their grandparents. They always have a great time and, although we miss them hugely, it's a good opportunity for us to be a couple and do lots of nice things by ourselves.

Here's what we got up to last week:

• We popped down to the riverside Nag's Head pub in Abingdon and sat in the lovely evening sunshine enjoying a glass of wine and a pizza.
• We visited our local Thai restaurant, the Zabb Thai, and had a delicious (as always) dinner. We love this restaurant: the food's great, the owner is so friendly, and the restaurant is small and intimate.
• We went to the cinema to see the latest Woody Allen film, Cafe Society.

All of this was great, but probably the best thing of all was what we did together with the kids when we picked them up. We we went to see Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe. We really enjoyed the play -- it was imaginative and well acted and the setting was stunning.

And, of course, it was wonderful to see the kids again!

Summer holiday in Italy

We recently came back from our summer holiday in Italy.

We stayed in a beautiful spot in the hills about 45 minutes' drive from Naples -- Villa Le Favole. This was a privately owned villa with three apartments for guests and a handful of B&B rooms. The setting was wonderful -- in the middle of nowhere with a lovely Italianate garden and peaceful swimming pool. Highly recommended.

We did a lot of sightseeing -- Pompeii, Herculaneum, Naples, Vesuvius, the Amalfi coast towns of Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi and Ravello, to name some of the places. We enjoyed it all, and left with a particularly soft spot for Ravello, with it's winding streets, lovely old church and gardens that were open to visitors.

My husband and I have visited this area of the world before, but about twenty years ago. Our kids were keen to see Pompeii and Vesuvius, which is why we revisited -- and we're very glad we did.

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.

Back to life, back to reality

My family and I had a lovely Christmas break -- almost two weeks with no work and lots of time just to enjoy ourselves. But that seems plenty and, in some ways, almost too much. There's a danger with having a block of time off work -- that you find you don't want to go back. If you're in non-holiday mode, accustomed to the rhythm of work, then you don't really think about what you're doing, you just carry on as usual. But if you fall out of the habit, then it's hard to get back in to it. And the more you think about returning to it, the less appealing it becomes.

So, perversely, I feel rather relieved to be returning to work (even though I'm not looking forward to it much at all). After all, I know that it'll be much more enjoyable when I'm actually doing it!

There's something strangely surreal about holiday time. And there's something to be said for the routine and banality of  everyday working life.

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!

Abingdon open air pool

With this lovely weather and with it being school holidays, the kids and I having been partaking in al fresco activities as much as we can.

We are very lucky to live close to the Abingdon open air pool, which we recently visited. This is a lovely swimming pool on the banks of the Thames, which is open during the summer months. It boasts a large L-shaped pool, a baby pool, free sun loungers, and an ice cream and drinks concession -- all set in grassy grounds, surrounded by trees.

We were fortunate enough to visit during a very quiet session -- there were only five other families and us. This is pretty unusual -- usually, as soon as the sun comes out, the pool is mobbed, even more so during the holidays. I overheard the lifeguards chatting and they reckoned that the low numbers that day were due to the prolonged sunny weather. They thought that people were bored of so much sun and had 'done' the open air pool. Lucky us!

The open air pool is a great Abingdon asset. It has a long and interesting history too, which you can find out about here.

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!

Baggage

As I noted in my blog post of a couple of weeks ago, we had a lovely weekend away in Suffolk over the May half term.

One thing that struck me when packing for the weekend was the amount of baggage that we managed to accumulate. We were only going for three nights, but we collected a suitcase, a hefty tote bag, a bag of food (we were self catering), a day rucksack for each of the four of us, a pile of coats and shoes (suitable for all possible permutations of the English weather), games and books, water bottles for all of us for the journey...

We had intended taking our smaller car for this trip, but in the end we had to take the car with the bigger boot due to sheer volume. I thought that as kids approached teenager-hood you were meant to have less stuff to pack, but in fact we seem to have the same amount -- just a different type of stuff!

Lovely Easter weekend away

We had a great Easter weekend away last week in Suffolk, where we rented a barn conversion for three nights. The barn, called Middleton Granary, was really stunning—beautifully appointed, very clean and furnished to an extremely high standard. The owners even left us a homemade coffee and walnut cake, which we particularly enjoyed with our afternoon tea! You can check out photos of the barn on the owners’ website.

Suffolk is a very beautiful part of the UK—largely rural and very unspoilt in parts—and we thoroughly enjoyed the peace, quiet and resident wildlife. We also managed to fit in visits to several local attractions. Things that we particularly enjoyed were: Thelnetham Windmill—a windmill dating from 1891 which has been restored, is now working again, and can sometimes be visited. We were given a guided tour by a couple of very knowledgeable local volunteers. Ickworth—a beautiful Italianate mansion run by the National Trust. We particularly enjoyed the extensive 'below stairs' exhibition which really gave you an insight into the workings of a grand stately home. We also enjoyed eating our lunch in the sunshine on the terrace overlooking the croquet lawn. And, one especially for the kids, Bressingham Steam and Gardens—where you can ride on narrow gauge steam engines, play on the adventure playground, ride on a carousel, and enjoy 17 acres of beautifully planted gardens.

At the same time as all of this, I was running a free promotion for my latest novel, "Travels on a Greyhound Bus", and so keeping an eagle eye on its chart position and sales figures. Happily, it did really well—visit the post on my News page for details!

Holiday forgetfulness

While writing my recent blog post on holidaying in Nice, I was struck by the transitory nature of experience and the inadequacy of our memories.

It's a common experience to find that, as soon as you're back from holiday, it seems like you've never been away. It's as if all that lovely relaxation, sightseeing, soaking up the sun, or whatever else you've done has just evaporated into thin air. Almost as if it never happened.

Yet I find that I have an additional problem -- actually remembering what I've done while away on holiday. Of course, as soon as you come into work, people ask you how it was, what you did, etc. And I find that I'm struggling to answer these questions because I can't actually remember.

This year I decided to prepare for this eventuality. On holiday, at the end of each day, I wrote down what we had done and the places that we'd visited. This certainly helped, the very act of writing my experiences down somehow better etching them in my mind. Yet, when I came to write my blog post about Nice, I still found myself diving for my copy of the Rough Guide to check that I'd got the details right.

Maybe I'm just getting too old to remember properly. Or maybe my mind is already too full with all the work, family, etc., etc. stuff that I have to carry around with me and remember every day...

Holidaying in Nice

We recently came back from holiday and, between loading seemingly endless piles of dirty laundry into the washing machine (despite the fact that we did quite a bit of washing on holiday--how does that always happen??), I found time to think for a few minutes about the place that we visited.

We stayed in an apartment overlooking Nice with a beautiful, clean pool that the kids loved. Nice wouldn't necessarily have been my top choice of holiday destination (it was just one of the destinations available to us using our Tesco Clubcard vouchers--see my earlier blog post), but in fact we had a great time and it's somewhere I'd thoroughly recommend.

For a start, the weather was comfortable in August--sunny and around 30 degrees. In the past we've had problems with extreme heat (almost 40 degrees one year in Malta, for example) which the kids didn't enjoy and which has been too much, even for us. But in Nice it was warm enough to really enjoy swimming in the (cold!) pool, but not so hot as to make sightseeing a chore rather than a pleasure.

We quickly settled into a pattern that suited everyone--mornings by the pool followed by afternoons visiting some kind of attraction. And there was a lot to see in and close to Nice. Again, a real bonus, as the kids tend not to enjoy long, hot car journeys when we're on holiday.

There's quite a bit of modern art to see in the area and, although we're not usually gallery buffs, we visited a number of exhibitions and all really enjoyed them. The kids were very interested in the abstract art and were so inspired, in fact, that they started creating their own modern art with paper and felt tips when we got back to our apartment. One art museum that I particularly enjoyed was the Musee Picasso in Antibes, where the building was probably even more stunning than the art--lovely light and airy rooms, and beautiful views over the sea.

Ancient walled towns tumbling down the hillside are common in this area, and two particularly beautiful ones that we visited were Eze and Vence. We also saw a fair few Romanesque churches boasting stunning paintings and altarpieces.

And a couple of the buildings that we visited really stick in my mind. First, the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild in Cap Ferrat--a mansion built at the beginning of the twentieth century for Baroness Beatrice de Rothschild. The gardens are particularly beautiful, inspired by different kinds of gardens from across the globe and culminating, in front of the house, in a lake and musical fountains (the water 'dances' in time to various classical pieces). The second was the Villa Grecque at Beaulieu-sur-Mer--a faithful reconstruction of a 2nd century BC Greek noble house, which was the brainchild of archaeologist Theodore Reinach.

All in all, a busy but very enjoyable holiday!

In search of that elusive summer holiday...

We are in the midst of our annual Big Project--finding and booking a summer holiday for the family. But this seems to be proving even more difficult than usual, perhaps because we usually book before Christmas, but for a variety of reasons have had to do it later than usual this year.

It all started off rather well. We found we had sufficient Tesco Clubcard points to cover the cost of return flights for all four of us to some relatively close destinations. Hooray! However, when we looked closer we found that the flights that we could actually take with our points were fairly limited and, what's more, were selling fast.

We settled on Milan as our destination of first choice--enough flights at decent times to a good location (we planned on renting an apartment on one of the Italian lakes). But when we started to look at apartments, we ran into all sorts of problems--high prices, booked up, non-flexible changeover days which didn't fit with our flights, etc., etc.

So, back to the drawing board. Plan B was Nice--good weather, millionaires to laugh at, beautiful scenery and things to see and do near at hand. What could be better? The apartments still proved a bit of a problem, though--more flexible changeover days, but still expensive when what we wanted was enough space for four people, plus pool, plus washing machine...

But, finally, it looks like we're sorted. The lovely Pierre is willing to rent us an apartment for 10 days with swimming pool (and even tennis court!) at a price that we can afford. At last, we can breathe a sigh of relief.

But I never quite understand why booking a holiday is so difficult.

Punk history versus Horrible Histories

My family and I had an interesting day out in London during the half term holiday. We did something for the adults and something for the kids.

The something for the adults was a visit to the Hayward Gallery at the Southbank Centre to see a small punk exhibition called 'Someday all the adults will die!' I'd heard about the exhibition on Radio 4 and it sounded intriguing. And intriguing it certainly was. The display included fanzines, clothing and record covers from the punk years. These exhibits gave a real feeling for the era and it was particularly interesting to see the hand-drawn and photocopied posters and magazines which were characteristic of the movement -- at a time before professional printing was cheap and available to the mass market.

I was a little concerned when we entered the exhibition space and were greeted by the deafening wail of punk music that this perhaps wasn't the ideal place for kids (mine were the only ones there). But actually my two were totally unphased and browsed the exhibition with interest. My oldest asked lots of questions and declared at the end that she really liked punk style! Let's hope she doesn't take up the safety-pin-through-the-nose look in her teenage years!

The something for the kids was a complete contrast -- a Horrible Histories play at the Garrick Theatre -- but equally entertaining. The 'Barmy Britain' show aimed to provide a short history of Britain 'with the nasty bits left in'. True to the Horrible Histories formula, there were plenty of gruesome happenings and plenty of gallows and toilet humour. The acting was excellent -- just two actors on stage for an hour, supported by an ingenious range of props. We laughed a lot -- even the adults!

We completed our day out in London with dinner at Cafe Rouge. Everyone was happy and everyone had enjoyed themselves. A successful day all round!

Bath: hen party capital of the world?

Back in the summer, my husband and I had a night away in Bath. Just the two of us. It's something we did a couple of years ago and really enjoyed so decided to repeat.

We stayed in the same hotel again and did the same things -- spent the morning at the Thermae Spa, had a late lunch, wondered around Bath, checked into our hotel, then came out again a bit later for dinner at our favourite Mexican restaurant. Perfect -- so why change the formula?

However, something had changed about Bath since we last visited -- suddenly it had become the hen party capital of the world. Or so it seemed  Everywhere we went we were beset by groups of giggling young women, one of whom was invariably sporting L plates, or a tiny plastic tiara, or, in one case, a pair of head boppers with a tiny L plate fixed to the end of each stalk. Why on earth do people do that? Aren't they aware of how silly they look?!

These hen parties were omnipresent -- in the spa, wandering the streets, in the restaurant that we'd booked for dinner... Just about managing to make ourselves heard over the din that these young women were creating, we asked our waitress why they had so many parties in. She responded that Bath had recently become a very popular destination for hen nights and that the restaurant always had a couple booked in for dinner on a Saturday night.

We really enjoyed our night away in Bath and had a lot of fun laughing at the L plates and head boppers, but in some ways it was quite a relief to return to the tranquility of my parents-in-law's house to pick up the kids. I'd recommend Bath for many things -- beautiful architecture, nice shops, good restaurants, interesting museums -- but not for the hen parties.

Calke Abbey: the "un-stately" stately home

On the way to our recent family holiday in the Yorkshire Dales, we broke our journey by visiting the National Trust property Calke Abbey.

This is rather an unusual place. Dubbed the "un-stately" stately home, it has been very little restored since being taken over by the National Trust in 1985. Unlike most of the Trust's properties, peeling paintwork, untidy, cluttered rooms, and overgrown courtyards are the order of the day here.

The idea is to present the property in the state in which it was left to the Trust, at a a time when families were struggling under the burden of maintaining these enormous houses and, due to lack of funds, were often forced to close up rooms (and sometimes whole wings) of their homes and let nature take it course. The effect is refreshing -- rather than passing through splendid room after splendid room, the visitor comes to understand the worries and problems faced by the owners of Calke and so gains a more intimate insight into their lives. It is also  interesting that, at Calke at least, preservation does not necessarily equate with restoration.

And finally, on a more modern note, when entering the Calke estate, you are handed a CD to play in your car on the drive up to the house. The running commentary explains a little about the history of the house as well as pointing out key landmarks as you pass by them. Once parked, you return your CD to visitor reception. All rather ingenious and not something I've encountered before.

Just in case you're wondering, I would heartily recommend a visit to Calke.