Stourhead Weekend and Random Fun-ness of This Week

This past weekend was spent relaxing at Stourhead (did you honestly think I was going to do work all weekend?) We stayed in the stables on the grounds and had the whole place to ourselves!

This square building is the granary aka the girls' sleeping quarters.

For all you Pride and Prejudice fans I got to check out Apollo’s Temple where Darcy professes his ardent love to Lizzy on that rainy day and they almost kiss! There was actually rain that day, but unfortunately no Mr Darcy to be found. The building is called Apollo’s Temple and is one of many such building located around the perimeter of this gorgeous lake in the Stourhead garden.

Apollo's Temple

The Pantheon

The Palladian Bridge

An island on the lake with a burning bush. This little island was ruled by a swan who chased around the one duck who refused to get off it.

On Saturday, we also visited Stonehenge which was an interesting yet brutal experience. Brutal because it was so freezing and windy outside that I got an ‘ice cream’ headache. Interesting because it was funny to listen to the audio guide tell me that they pretty much know nothing about anything regarding Stonehenge, and then proceed to go on and on about all the ‘nothing’ they knew.

I'll just let you guess what this is.

Saturday night we had a talent night which turned out to be a ‘this-is-not–my-talent’ night that saw me lip-syncing to Avril Lavinge, cheerleading, and doing improv.

Ms. Chin-head singin' it.

On Sunday we went to an Easter service in Mere where I accidentally threw the hymn book at the feet of the lady at the end of the pew. Umm, oops. Luckily it hit Beth’s foot first instead of crashing loudly to the floor, so it wasn’t too embarrassing. That night Laura and Gabby, our chefs extraordinaire, made Easter dinner with potatoes, ham and even a home-made apple pie for dessert!!!!

It snowed Sunday morning and it looked glorious. Doesn't look all that glorious here though, but just trust me on it.

On Monday morning, we had an Easter egg hunt in the courtyard and Marion and Andrew, our super chaperones, made us brunch- mmmm!! Then we hit the road and headed home. We hit up Bath on the way, although we definitely didn’t check out the bath part of Bath because it was expensive so we got the heck out of there and cruised on over to the Jane Austen Centre where we learned that she HATED Bath and wrote nothing while she was there. We also checked out the Royal Crescent.

Poor Jane, I don't know it Laura meant to pose like that, although the look on her face seems a bit evil. One quarter of the crescent.

So that was our Easter weekend getaway. We had some more fun on Wednesday when we went to see Measure for Measure in Oxford. It was amazing!! However, we had to walk for about half an hour or take the bus to the theatre but because we are cheap we decided to walk. Then the rain came- and it poured. Then the hail came- and it hurt.

Here we are. Drowned rats. Except Laura. But she pretended to be mad anyways. Oh, my bad. Her arm was wet. Poor her.

It was Ree’s 22nd birthday on Thursday, so we decided to give her a surprise party which resulted in a lot of lying, as these things usually do, but it was a success!

Ree looking beautiful with her birthday trifle courtesy of Laura.

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon at Broughton Castle. We had a tour by the actually owner and resident of the Lady Saye and Sele. She told us it is actually just a house, but apparently back in the day all you had to do to get your house called a castle was have some little something I don't remember. Regardless, the place was gorgeous!!!

The house.

I. want. this. bedroom.

And a fun fact: tons of movies have been filmed here, including Shakespeare in Love. After the tour of the house, we had some fun outside as we had the whole place to ourselves. There was some random jumping, cheerleading, and leap frogging.

Random jumping.

Cheerleading.

Leap-frogging.

We also had the most amazing tea at the vicarage in Great Tew hosted by the vicar's wife Margaret Conway. So many cakes and sandwiches- I've never had tea like that in my life!

So those were the adventures of my third-to-last week in England! But it doesn’t end there- tonight was bowling and we went all out 80’s style! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures for you yet. Tomorrow I will, or maybe the next day. . . or the next,or. . . who knows!