Grand Tour #15

The houses, families, gardens, accommodations and dining experiences are starting to get all jumbled together. Thank goodness Daughter 1 is here to keep me straight! We still haven’t received the call from the Earl of Pembroke’s security staff – so, I guess Daughter 1 will not be a Countess after all. We awoke to beautiful blue skies and no rain. In fact, we have not seen rain all day!! We have been assured by many locals there will not be rain until Saturday – so we are keeping our fingers crossed. We started the day at McDonalds posting the blog. We took our sweet time getting back to the car to leave town, and well, shopped along the way! We visited goodwill shops – they are very fashionable here and every charity has a shop. Daughter 1 found a couple more books –we are officially bringing home a library for her! Once to the car, we headed out for more Jane Austen touring. Not the movies, just places in Jane Austen’s life. We had lunch at The Wheatsheaf Inn, a coaching inn where Jane walked to get her mail. We even ate in the old part of the Inn, just as Jane might have done. Then we went to The Vyne, a marvelous National Trust house. The Vyne is where Jane would have gone to parties and dances. The house dates back to Henry VIII, but was altered considerably in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. A part of the Tudor house still exists – oddly enough, when the house was remodeled, most of it was torn down. Only the remaining portion was refurbished to live to in. We couldn’t get the guides to stop talking to us! Everyone had something to say in each room. Our favorite room was the Saloon, where Jane Austen would have danced at the parties she attended. The coolest thing – I asked the guide about the grand piano in the room - it dates back to 1847. He then said, you are welcome to play the piano if you know how, but you have to sign the guest book. We thought he was kidding, but he was not! Daughter 1 hopped over the rope, sat down and played the theme song from Titanic. While she was signing the book, she found sheet music to a minuet by Bach that she knew. So she sat down and played it too. What a wonderful experience for Daughter 1. I have to admit, I was pretty proud of her! Outside, the gardens were pretty, the park was huge and we were not the last ones out this time. We were driven out by a large golf cart because the entrance was so far from the house! We then visited Steventon – which today had her father’s old church and the site where her house used to stand. The church is really but and they still have church services, and Jane was christened here. Her father was also rector at one other parish church in the area and the Austen’s had many friends and family around the churches. So we went to the tiny little villages, found the churches and then found the houses – and yes, we didn’t have addresses, just village names. But really we didn’t need them this time! The villages were sooo little. We are 3 miles south of Winchester tonight, in a little village called Twyford. We are staying in a barn converted into bedrooms. For dinner we were told, “left out of the drive, go to the end of the lane and turn left, go across the foot path and into town, just a 5 minute walk.” In reality, 15 minutes to the pub and the foot path was an overgrown trail beside a horse corral. Daughter 1 told me I must close this evening’s entry with the following: After returning to the B&B from dinner, I discovered I did not have the key to the B&B. We had to walk back toward town and Daughter 1 found it along the way. Turns out, when I took my camera out of my pocket to take beautiful sunset pictures (the first on the trip), the key flew out of my pocket! Thank goodness it was not all the way back at the pub! I just realized this is so long tonight – sorry! Good night to all!