England is a long, long, LONG way from home and home is a pretty cool place to be when you've got little ones, and big little ones and brand new little ones. You get the picture.
This said, I am the only one responsible for the experience I have over here and I'll be damned if I'm going to waste it. With two kids in tow I've scoured the English countryside and been to some places of astonishing beauty. Places so quintessentially British you half expect Colin Firth to emerge from a lake...core wouldn't that be splendid?
People fortunate enough to visit Africa often remark that they had a sense of returning home and well, I've often had that feeling about Britain. A sense of unexplained familiarity.
Hot on the heels of my success with Wrest Park, this week I journeyed 50 minutes down country to Ashridge Estate. Like everything in England, Ashridge is dripping with history. Perhaps most notably it was owned by Henry VIII who bequeathed Ashridge to the infant Princess Elizabeth, who lived there for eight years with her half sister and brother and was eventually arrested there by Mary in 1554. These days the house and the grounds are managed separately. The Ashridge House is a business school while the country estate is managed by the National Trust.
Alas I didn't have much of a chance to snap pictures. Feeding small and squidgy, chasing around after the chunky monkey and playing with Dawn (my doula's) gorgeous dogs - takes up an alarming amount of time. I did however manage to snap the below, perhaps one of my favourites to date.
I look at this picture and I see the Hundred Acre Woods:
“When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.”
Winnie the Pooh - A.A Milne
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