Where have we been, what have we been doing, and what else has been happening?
Well, let's see now. Amongst other things, I've...
Been There: Montacute House, Somerset
Although I confess that we originally ended up at Montacute for an entirely different reason (to visit the toy museum... which fascinated both The Girl and The Boy endlessly and resulted in my feeling incredibly nostalgic, given that many items involved toys/television shows from my own ever-growing-distant childhood!), we found ourselves completely enthralled by the place.
Montacute House, it has to be said, has something for everyone in my immediate family...
It also has large open walkways (where small boys can race their not-so-small mothers and sisters). Beyond those small yew trees neatly coiffed, and the ornate stone steps leading downwards, is a sunken garden that includes...
A fountain bearing fish pond which is full of Koi Carp. Some were huge, some middling sized, and an awful lot were tiny, but they were swimming merrily around... until my son jumped off the ledge he'd been standing on to get a good look - just as I was trying to take a photograph of the milling fish (whose only thought up until the resounding thud The Boy's feet made was undoubtedly "food?!"). The fish vanished into the depths of the pond, making a huge splash as they did so - and The Boy, poor lamb, who had been looking in the direction his sister had wandered off in, panicked.
He thought I'd dropped my camera into the pond!
As soon as he'd calmed down, having had to practically stroke my beloved camera in his relief that he didn't need to insist on people dredging the pond to retrieve it (as if!), he disappeared off to run through the humungous hedges that bordered the property... and asked if I'd take his photograph standing in one of the walkways there. Just behind him is the path that leads down to the ice house. But he was absolutely fascinated by the hedge openings, and the fact that archways had been cut into them to allow people to access the ice house and the multitude of fields that stretch as far as the eye can see beyond them.
For The Girl, there were portraits on permanent loan from The National Portrait Gallery in London. Obviously, there are no photographs of her looking, enraptured, at these, but we spent a good two hours or so just looking at them. All of monarchs and their important courtiers, they cover a period from William the Conqueror right up to the end of Elizabeth I's reign, so... 1600 years worth of history, pretty much. Whilst The Girl drooled over the techniques, and the colours the artists were able to achieve with such a limited number of colours (her party trick is looking at a painting she's never seen before and being able to tell you the medium it was painted in, what it was painted on, and how the artist achieved the end result), The Boy and I wandered happily from room to room chatting about history and the various Kings (and one Queen) who were depicted in the portraits. Also, to my glee, I finally saw what I like to refer to as The Tudor Propaganda Portrait (of Richard III where Henry VII had it repainted to depict his predecessor as having had a "crooked" back and a withered arm) in person. My era of "expertise" in archaeology finishes with the end of the Plantagenet reign, you see - which was essentially Richard III's reign and the Battle of Bosworth (Field). So to actually see it? In person? Accidentally? (Because we didn't even known that -a- Montacute House existed until we arrived in the village itself, and -b- no idea that the portraits were there!)
Was brilliant.
I can wholly, hand-on-heart recommend Montacute to anyone. There really is something for everyone there, and we will, most definitely, be returning to explore it further.
Done That: realised how quickly children actually grow...
The Girl officially left school a couple of weeks ago - and suddenly I had to face the fact that she's no longer a tiny little dot of a girl but someone who is, really, only two years away from being able to vote, drink alcohol, marry someone without my permission...
I don't think words can adequately express precisely how proud of my girl I actually am. She has endured some of the worst types of bullying throughout her school "career", been incredibly ill (she had a heart attack two and a half years ago during a PE lesson), realised that she cannot always trust the people she thought she should be able to (so-called friends she'd known since Reception Class)... but she has come through it with grace, self-respect and the ability to actually laugh at herself. Like any mother and daughter, we've had our spats, continue to do so and undoubtedly always will. But she knows how much her brother and I love her, and how very proud of her we are. She has triumphed when so many others would have curled into a little ball and given up.
Having said that, though, I look at this beautiful, smart, sassy teenage girl with an opinion on everything and the compassion to look at others - and wonder where the shy, wouldn't say "boo" to a goose, hid behind me at every given opportunity little girl she used to be actually vanished off to. I'm glad she did, though.
The Girl has always been something of a communal child with Godparents heavily invested in keeping her safe and knowing what she's up to. I like that they have that sort of relationship (even if one of them has repelled her permanently because of his behaviour of late) and know that if she can't turn to me, she can to two of her Godmothers and one of her Godfathers. But, essentially, The Girl and I... well, we grew up together. We conquered our little bit of the world together. When I finally went to university? She was there with me, in the university nursery. I was very young (too young, probably) when she was born, and she had some horrendous difficulties to overcome just in order to survive in her first year of life - but we did it together. And now that she's very almost an adult? And I have to set her off on the path of life which she has to walk by herself? I can do so knowing that she can survive. And that she knows I am always going to be one step behind her... just in case she needs me!
No comments:
Post a Comment