Cliveden

We spent a night away to celebrate our wedding anniversary yesterday and found ourselves in an interesting hotel. The rooms and corridors were decorated with large, framed, limited edition photographic prints by food photographer Patrice de Villiers.  The photographs were taken for her book “Love Music Love Food”, a series of portraits of well-known popular musicians accompanied by recipes for their favourite foods.  The book was produced in aid of the charity Teenage Cancer Trust.

These wonderful prints were not the only unusual decorations:  the hotel reception area was decorated with genuine gold and platinum vinyl discs from major rock bands.  It turned out the one of the joint owners of the hotel is Andy Taylor, singer, songwriter and record producer (ex-Duran Duran).

When we left the hotel this morning, we headed for Cliveden, which we first visited last May.  The weather this time was much kinder – high, blustery winds, but sunny intervals and no significant rain.  We had time to wander round the water garden (we didn’t get there on our last visit) which features the pagoda in my blip and several fountains in the middle of the various ponds.  It is a very large and impressive estate, ranging from formal flower gardens to large woods to a lovely river frontage.  I returned to the boat house to see how work was progressing on the restoration of the Liddesdale canoe which I blipped last time.  The restoration is now almost complete (see extra), and the canoe will be tested in the water in the next week or two.  The formal launch, with trips for the public, will now be in the Spring.