Carolyn had a meeting in Warminster on Saturday so I took the opportunity to drive her down so that we could spend as much time together as possible and also visit my mum. My mum lives in Nunney. a beautiful English village with an amazing French-style castle dating from 1373. Sadly, Nunney Castle was destroyed in 1645 by Oliver Cromwell's army. It is bizarre but you can clearly see huge carp (30 pounds plus) swimming around the old castle moat.
After lunch I set off for the Peak District which is where I'm working all next week. I started my drive beneath a beautiful blue sky which quickly turned to rain, then sleet and finally heavy snow. The small country lanes approaching the Three Horsehoes pub/hotel were treacherous with deep snow drifts on top of thick ice. Whilst checking in I learnt that the road behind me had just been closed and that many drivers were stuck in their cars. Apparently the forecast for tomorrow is more of the same and I'm told there is a good chance I will be snowed in. Still, there are worse places to be stuck than a beautiful old English pub! Check out my youtube page for videos of the snow.
About six years ago I picked up some paintings of Trafalgar Square, London Bridge and the London Eye by Alce Harfield. At the time I had no idea that I would end up living in London and especially not in such close proximity to those areas. To be honest, I had no idea what I would do with them as I didn't even have a house. A few week ago we finally got the money together to get them framed at Bijan Art on Tower Bridge Road and I really love the final result - funny how things work out in the end.
As we drove back from Portsmouth we literally hit a wall of Snow. As usual, London ground to a halt the instant the first flake landed. Carolyn managed to take some great photos despite me unhelpfully pelting her with snowballs.
We started our trip to the Isle of Wight with a visit to the seaside home of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert - Osborne House. After an excellent guided tour and short walk through the grounds of this magnificent house we moved on to the amazing natural beauty of the Needles. Before catching the ferry back to Portsmouth there was just enough time to visit Ryde and its brilliant old Pier. You can even drive your car to the end of it!
It's been a rough few days at work (don't ask). I didn't really feel like going away for the weekend but we had already paid and the ferry/hotel were non-refundable. Besides, going away did help take my mind of things a little bit. On Saturday we headed down to Portsmouth to visit the Historic Dockyard. First up, we took the harbour cruise which provided fantastic views of the most powerful warship in the world, the £1 billion HMS Daring (bottom left photo) as well as the mothballed aircraft carrier HMS Invincible (bottom right photo). Following this we checked out the amazing Mary Rose - King Henry VIII's pride and joy. But the main event (for me anyway) was HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar. One of my ancestors, Captain George Blagdon Westcott served on board Victory during the Second Battle of Ushant. We finished the day by catching the ferry to the Isle of Wight.
