Summerhouse at Sunset

The day started out with a drizzly feel. I got up and stumbled to the loo, and then back into bed, where I started to look at blips and got obsessed by googling different things about coffee beans (it was fourstorey's blip that got me going)! At one point I thought I heard a sort of watery sound coming from the bathroom and wondered if it could be raining in there. I couldn't be bothered to get up and look (it's Sunday, after all!) and so I continued coffee-beaning until suddenly the lights went out. Even then I thought it was a typical Stroud power cut. The wifi went down, and we got up to investigate. The other houses in the street had their lights on, which worried us...

Even so, the bathroom was the last place I thought of looking for trouble. But trouble there was, because I'd left the bath running for half an hour or more! So, a big mop up ensued, upstairs and down, where the water was running down the walls of the little utility room. We fired up an extra heater and worked out which circuits we could safely switch back on, then after a decent interval we left and went to Gloucester.

Once the boring shopping was done, we headed across country via the small town of Wotton-under-Edge to the edge of the Cotswold escarpment and our destination, Newark Park. This is a National Trust property, which was on the point of being abandoned until it was saved in 1970 by big-hearted Bob/Robert, a Texan millionaire who'd been here during WWII as a serviceman, and come back to take on the complete restoration of the property. He lived here with his partner, Michael, until his death in 2000. Michael now lives in Bath. We'd been here before and were struck by the story of love and redemption, plus the atmosphere, which is not about ropes and Keep Out signs, but about comfortable antique furnishings with a certain amount of flamboyance.

Today we couldn't really admire the interior, because there was a bustling Christmas event in progress. so we joined the tour of the basement and gardens, which turned out to be most informative. This little summer house down by the lake struck me with its Gothic windows and reflections of the pond in its panes. It's part of the Pleasure Gardens, which every grand family had to have in about 1800. The poor servants would have had to struggle up and down a near-vertical slope from the house, bearing aloft trays and cake stands, silver teapots and sandwich platters!

Now the summer house is empty, but its restoration came about because of the generosity of a local fellow, whose mother used to walk in the grounds of the estate. He had it made good in her honour after she died. I think I'd like to run a writing workshop in there. I might need some tables and chairs, though.

I never get tired of Newark Park. Its unique story is so powerful. I was delighted to hear that the Tudor kitchen and rather grim 'well-room' were used in the filming of Tess of the D'Urbervilles for TV, several years ago. Thomas Hardy and I are old friends.

Last time we visited I blipped the windows of the church of St Nicholas of Myra, who is, actually, Father Christmas! Robert is buried in the churchyard. I was tickled to notice that we were visiting the day after St Nicholas' day! (When we lived in Dublin, my mother was a teacher and lecturer for the St Nicholas Montessori society) I wonder if the saint was watching us as we strolled in the afternoon sunshine.