The tale of searching for the hare

The Tale of Peter Rabbit was a much loved story for me growing up.  I don’t actually remember being read it for story time, but I do remember a set of China plates that sat in a high cupboard at our house in North Carolina that had the story written out and illustrated on the plate, bowl and mug.  I was allowed a couple of times a year to eat off the dishes, because they were ‘very expensive and you have to be a big girl to use them’.  I remember thinking it was so exciting to get to use these dishes – which could be part of the reason I insist on Adam & I eating off our china all the time.  As I’ve told other stories of my childhood to my parents over the last couple of years, I’ve realized that my perceived reality and actual reality from 15-20 years ago are sometimes a bit different, but this is how I remember it; at least until Mother comes back and tells me that the dishes were stoneware not china and the story was really Cinderella not Peter Rabbit or something.

Anyway, we recently went to Beatrix Potter’s studio and country home.  She bought the home with the proceeds from her first book The Tale of Peter Rabbit.  I didn’t really know the history of it, but she had written the story and couldn’t find a publisher so she decided to illustrate and publish it herself.  I have to think that was a rather big deal in 1901.  It sold so well that it was later picked up by a publishing company along with several of her other concepts that were later turned into books such as The Tale of Tom Kitten and The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse.

This year is Peter’s 110^th birthday, so the National Trust (who now own the house and the studio) have displayed all the original illustrations used for the first printing of Peter Rabbit.  The original illustrations were black pen drawings with no watercolor additions (the colors were added by the publishing company during the subsequent printings).  You could even see little bits of whiteout where a line was out of place.  It was truly fascinating to see the storyboards in their original form.

We couldn’t take any photos inside, but here are a couple from here (ps-we won't be buying this book...):

After looking through Beatrix Potter’s house, we also walked through the gardens while we looked for Peter.

I think this might have been his great, great, great grandson.

Temptation

What do you do when Dad leaves the end of the Chinese Takeaway plate within a nose reach? 

Stare at it.  Sniff it.  Whine at it.

(at least until Mom leaves the room to put up the camera & doesn't take the plate away)

{whoops}

Rain, rain go away

Y’all, it is raining.  I mean, we knew that the UK got slightly more annual precipitation than Dallas does, but seriously.  It. Won’t. Stop.

In March, the UK Met Office (National Weather Service equivalent) declared the UK in a drought.  We thought it was a joke, it had been raining about 2-3 times a week as long as we’d lived here.  Our neighbors assured us that there really was less rain than normal and told us ways we could conserve water in our yard, even suggesting that I should use my left over cooking water to water plants.  (Daisy & Ginger thought this was a great idea too – pour the pasta flavored water outside for us to lick up!)

Then something got in the way of the drought.  Rain. And lots of it.  Flooding type rains.  Rainfall throughout the UK last month averaged 5.72 inches, twice what is typically measured each June.  Not since record-keeping began in 1910 has the UK experienced so much rain, according to the Met Office. The previous record was 5.36 inches from 2007.

The other thing that they measure (which just really makes me laugh) is the hours of sunshine in a month.  We’ve just been through the second dullest June on record with only 119.2 hours of sunshine. June 1987 continues to hold the record for the least amount of sunshine with 115.4 hours.

This combination of clouds and rain held the average temperatures to 54.1 degrees, also making this June the coolest since 1991.  It’s July 7th & I’m wearing a sweatshirt.  Our neighbors turned on their heat for part of June.  I refused – on principle, not because I wasn’t cold.  Believe me; I had the whole, layers & blankets thing going most of the month.

With the rain, things keep growing.

We have this massive hedge around the front & side of our house.  When we moved in, it was quite unruly, but slowly Adam & I have worked to tame it.  About three weeks ago, we dedicated an entire weekend to trimming the hedge.  In addition to being long & tall, it’s also wide, so Adam had to climb on the back wall of the property to reach some parts.

And now we need to do it all over again. 

Pinned by the Peacock

We visited Newark Park this weekend. Newark Park was originally a modest four level Tudor hunting lodge built between 1544 and 1556. The house was then called "New Work" and was partly constructed with building materials from the recently disassembled Kingswood Abbey, about five miles away. Disassembled because, well, you remember Henry VIII’s little spat with the Catholic Church? He had them all dissolved.

In 1600, the lodge was sold to the Low family who in 1672 significantly extended the building by the addition of a second four-story building to the west of the original lodge, which was joined to the original by a passage stairway creating an H-shaped footprint. The Lows owned Newark Park until 1722 when it was sold for £6,010 (equivalent to £846,000 / $1.3M or today) to the Harding family who after making some minor alterations sold it to James Clutterbuck. The Clutterbucks engaged the architect James Wyatt to remodel it into a four-square house in 1790. Their improvements included the creation of a formal deer-park to the south of the house and landscaping of the rest of the grounds.

The Clutterbucks left Newark in 1860 and let it out. Apparently they didn’t check references very well as the tenants decided to change a ‘few’ things in the house. You know, little things like adding servants' quarters on the north side, installing a hot-air heating system and running hot water to the second floor. When the Clutterbucks got tired of dealing with renters, they donated the property to the National Trust. When the Trust took ownership they did not open Newark Park to the public but instead let it out to tenants who ran it as a nursing home. By 1970 the house was in a state of disrepair and the gardens over-grown. The National Trust discussed taking the roof off the property and letting it fall into rubble.

When Texan architect Robert (Bob) Parsons heard about this, he approached the National Trust who agreed to let him move into the house while renovating both the house and the grounds. Our guide said that Bob Parsons had come to the UK as a service member during WWII and loved the country so much that when the war was over, he moved back over to live. He moved into the house in 1972 and lived there / worked on the house until his death in 2000. The house was then opened back to the public in 2002.

Okay, so history lesson over.

We drove up to Newark Park this afternoon & after the Tom Tom’s attempts to see how narrow a road our car can fit down (we may have nudged the ivy on the side once or twice), we arrived to find the wildlife lounging on the outer lawn. 

After driving around the sheep, we parked in the lot outside the property. Adam got out of the car and start putting on his jacket. I started to get out of the car, but was greeted by this: 

Eventually he walked away & I could get out of the car to walk up to the house. 

The house is not the most impressive manor house we’ve been to, but the views have to be some of the best.  

We took a guided tour of the gardens and took in all the impressive views. 

We also came across some sheep lounging by the lake. Luckily they have a ring life preserver within reach if the gathering gets out of hand and any of them fall in the water. 

The other wild life of the park is pretty cute too. 

Finally we headed back towards the car where we came back to the foul fowl again...

After a brief staring contest, I prevailed.

Yeah, that’s smugness.