LittleBlueRhinos Holiday Page 1998
This year we went to stay in a small cottage near Ranby in Nottinghamshire, about 10 miles (16 Km.) from the borders of both Derbyshire and Yorkshire. Here are views of the cottage, the view across the paddock and the woodpile and lawn. Click on any picture to view a larger version.
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Phil drove up on the saturday from London in a Rover
400 that had 0 (zero) miles on the speedometer, through driving rain for
much of the time, and after much tribulation over finding shops, managed
to arrive safely and with all shopping done - almost. Catherine had been
doing some research staying with Mr. Meacham in Witham-on-the-Hill and
going to Lincoln to the County Archives on the thursday and friday, so
I was keeping her company.
On the sunday, some friends of ours, Carolyn and Simon, came over for lunch
and they all had lamb and lots of wine and beer. Here you can see Phil
and Carolyn and Simon.
This is before lunch, so they are still standing up, hohoho.
Ranby is about 25miles (40 Km.) from Lincoln
and we went and did a lot of shopping and had a good
look around. Amongst other things, we managed to get some nice new elements
for our oven, which we had not been able to get in London. The Cathedral
in Lincoln is beautiful and held the record for being the tallest building
in the world for some hundreds of years until the twin spires collapsed
in 1723? Now more work is being done on it, which accounts for the scaffolding
you can see, however the fine quality of the stonework is visible here.
There is a very steep hill -called Steep Hill- going from the Castle and
Cathedral down to the lower town, on it are two very old houses, one called
The "Jew's House" and the other The "Norman House".
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It was pretty dark and gloomy sometimes when we were away, so our pictures of Sherwood Forest did not come out so well -as you can see they are in monochrome- but in the first picture is the "Major Oak", a very old Oak tree which is now so large and heavy that it has to be supported by a large number of pylons and steel wire stays. The second picture is Catherine hiding in an oak tree from the goblins.
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Bisham Abbey was recommended to
us by Carolyn and Simon and we spent a very pleasant time there. It is
a house which was built on the remains of a Cistercian Abbey in the 16th?
Century and still has some of the original abbey rooms, including the refectory,
where there is a small exhibition outlining the rigours of life for a mediæval
monk.
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Also there are some Gargoyles in the roofless hall,
I suspect that these are not very old, but they are quite good ones. The
best three are shown below.
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It was, as I have said, gloomy for a lot of the time,
but there was also vast quantities of rain falling at all times of day
and night, this did not spoil our holiday, but made it more interesting.
One day we had decided to have a picnic in one of the woods and had got
various good things to eat with fingers, and were looking forward to a
pleasant loaf in the sun; it was not to be, for as soon as we stopped somewhere
to set up, down would come the rain and we would pack up again. This happened
several times and in the end we decided to go back to the cottage. As we
arrived the sun was shining so we set up tables and chairs and started
to get the food, of course the rain started and we beat a hasty retreat
and had an indoor picnic of several lots of chicken kebabs and some fruit
whilst the rain poured down and the lightning flashed overhead. The effect
in the end of all this rain was that we saw many Mushrooms growing up very
quickly wild in the grass and forest. In the first photograph, I was trying
to sneak up to take a picture of the pixies that live under mushrooms,
but I could not get close enough before they all ran away; the second picture
shows part of a "Fairy Ring"
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Altogether, we had a very nice time, I had Honey Loops
almost every day and there were lots of Nature Trails and plenty of looking
for Pixies -we never saw any at all- but it was a very good rest for all
of us.
I am now looking forward to Xmas and New Year with lots of presents and
too much food.
All the Best to All of you
LittleBlueRhino
LittleBlueRhino@littlebluerhino.demon.co.uk
