More trip

 

I slept almost all of Saturday trying to recover from my traumatic travel day. When I finally got up, I bathed, dressed and decided that I needed to get down to the village to buy some food and find some dinner. When I walked out of my cottage, I met an Englishman who was there to look at the manor house and surrounding area. His great-grandfather came from the area and when not able to find work, had walked to London. He gave me a ride down to the pub (about ¾ mile away) where I ate dinner (by myself). It was a very nice pub, they let out rooms and are well known for their food and local ales. One customer had an Irish wolfhound dog that was really, really big. Almost all the customers had dogs-inside the pub. The ladies who were running the pub kept a close eye on me, it made me feel a little bit like being in a fishbowl. I ordered a beef pie, which fed me for 3 days! When I was done, I walked back up the lane to my place. I saw some bunnies, some cows and lots of flowers blooming in the hedgerows. It was so pretty. I stopped at the tiny Victorian church that is part of the estate, and found it open. On Sunday morning I spent some time there, taking pictures and sketching. That's pretty much all I did on Sunday, I was still too chicken to drive anywhere.

Skeleton keys!

Owlpen church, more on this in the next blog entry.

Pastel drawing of church and road with stacked stone wall.

Some flowers I picked from the hedgerow, on my kitchen table.

My little sitting room.

View of the manor from my kitchen window.

More of my room, those beams were cut and put in this building before Christopher Columbus discovered America.

Narrow lane leading from the village to the manor house.

The outside of my cottage, this building houses  a restaurant downstairs and the estate office on the opposite side, my apartment is under that peaked roof upstairs.

The view just yards from my place.

Gate leading to the Owlpen church.

Owlpen Manor is surrounded by 50 acres of meadow and woods.