Last Day in England

Our last full day in lovely England.  The time has just flown by!

Today, we drove to two National Trust properties, both of which were absolutely spectacular for different reasons.  The first was Hidcote, in the north Cotswolds -- an Arts & Crafts garden composed of a series of "rooms" each with its own personality, and bursting at the seams with plant life and colour.  Totally inspiring and utterly lovely.  The second property was Chastleton House in Oxfordshire -- a 400 year old Jacobean country house that the National Trust describes as "Owned by the same increasingly impoverished family until 1991, the house remained essentially unchanged for nearly 400 years as the interiors and contents gradually succumbed to the ravages of time."  It is the most astonishing place!  You feel like you have stepped back through the centuries as you walk through the house -- everything has been preserved, but not "prettied up" -- you see it, cobwebs and all!

On a separate note, I kept forgetting to tell you about a very funny snippet of conversation we overheard in the lounge of our Cornwall hotel several days ago -- a languid young man in his late teens was explaining to his parents why he didn't want to go to America to pursue his career:  "Oh, New York is just like England, except they pronounce all the words wrong ..."  Ha!  Ha!

Also, I had a dream the other night ... I can't remember anything about it except for the end, which had me wake up chuckling.  In the dream, I told someone that I would "Google it", and they replied, "You're pronouncing that wrong -- its "Go Ogle!"