Bank Holiday Day Out

August 26th

My sister had come down from London on Sunday night, so we decided to have a day out on Monday, to take advantage of what is probably the last of the summer weather. I had decided on Leith Hill Place, a house which has been owned by the Wedgwood family as well as by the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. (Those not familiar with his music or with crazy English spelling may not know that the English name 'Ralph' is not supposed to be pronounced 'Ral-f'; the letter 'l' is supposed to be silent, so it should be pronounced 'Ray-f'. But I digress!)

There would appear to have been a house on the site at least since Tudor times, though the earliest documented mention of it was in 1625. It was modernised in the Palladian style between 1725 and 1748, and has not changed much since then. This view of it is from the National Trust's website, so it is a better photo than anything I was able to take.



Actually, I suspect that some of the trees around house might have been photoshopped out of the way! Anyway, you can see from this that the house, though an elegant shape, looks rather grey and unattractive. It has been most recently used as a boarding house for a school, and is much in need of care and attention, both inside and outside.

The house is particularly interesting because of the people who lived in it. I hadn't realised that there was any association between the Wedgwood family and the Darwins, but apparently Josiah Wedgwood (founder of the famous Wedgwood pottery) was very friendly with Erasmus Darwin, father of Charles. Josiah's daughter Susannah married Robert Darwin, son of Erasmus. One of their children was Charles Darwin.

It was Josiah's grandson, also Josiah but known as Joe, who bought Leith Hill Place in 1847. Joe was married to Caroline Darwin, sister of Charles Darwin. Joe's sister Emma married Charles Darwin, so the families were close and frequently visited. Apparently Charles Darwin recruited Joe's children to help him with his earthworm experiments, which he conducted partly at Leith Hill Place.

One of Joe's daughters, Margaret, married a local vicar, Arthur Vaughan Williams, in 1868. When Arthur died suddenly in 1875, leaving Margaret with three young children, she moved back to Leith Hill Place to live with her parents. It was here that the young Vaughan Williams started to learn music, taught originally by his aunt.



He learned the piano first, then the violin, and later, the organ. He grew up in the house, and though he never lived there again after he left to go to Cambridge, he maintained his links with the area; in 1905, he conducted the first concert of the newly founded Leith Hill Music Festival at Dorking which he was to conduct until 1953. The music festival continues today.

The composer eventually inherited the house himself, but gave it to the National Trust in 1944. It has been rented to various people since then.

The house isn't really like any other National Trust property we've visited. There are no pictures or fine furniture, but there are at least 3 pianos, and the house is full of music, especially in the main room devoted to Vaughan Williams, which is the one with the central porch leading out onto the terrace, which you can see in the National Trust's photo of the house above. My photo of the room itself is poor, but this is the view from the terrace outside.



The visitors seemed to like it, most of us sat on the terrace for a time during our visit just to appreciate the view.

After wandering most of the ground floor rooms, and admiring an old bake oven where the Trust is thinking of baking bread or even pizzas, we wandered into the kitchen to sample tea and scones. We took ours out into the courtyard garden, where we sat in the sun. There's an old existing dairy - currently used to store chairs - in the courtyard, as well as an old brew house, left-overs from earlier times.

The main evidence of the Wedgwood connection to the house was the fireplaces.


This is the one I liked best. It is in what was originally a huge upstairs room which has been split up into a corridor and three small rooms, obviously to meet the requirements of some later tenant, possibly the school. So the National Trust will have a good deal of work to do, restoring the house to some of its former glory. It appears that this restoration will start in November when the house closes for the winter. I daresay it may not be open again for a while, so it will be interesting to visit again in a few years to see the changes the Trust has made.

As well as interesting fireplaces, there was a panelled room upstairs with panelling that might be Tudor, and a hidden cupboard behind a concealed door in the panelling, which might be a priest's hole.

The Trust also runs 'tours' of the attics. These are controlled by timed ticket, for only about 20 people at a time. The attics themselves are not all that interesting, but each room has a recorded commentary, giving details of the composer's life. I found this interesting because I knew nothing about his life at all.

We decided, after seeing the house, that a woodland walk would be in order, and that we should climb up to Leith Hill Tower. The tower was built in 1765 by Richard Hull, who owned Leith Hill Place at the time. Leith Hill itself is the highest point in south east England, at 965 feet. He wanted to make it 1000 feet, hence the tower.



He was so fond of it, he is said to have insisted on being buried under it when he died, and certainly the National Trust say they discovered human bones when it was refurbished.

The side we tackled it from is long, steep and stony, but at least it was shaded by trees all the way up.



We were extremely thirsty when we arrived, but fortunately there is a farm shop in the base of the tower, so we were able to get drinks, and later, something to eat. The shop was doing a roaring trade, there were a lot of people up there and most of them needed something after the long climb.

The views are indeed terrific, you can see for miles, down towards the channel in the south



and as far as London in the north. There's a telescope on top of the tower, but there was haze in the distance and you need a clear day to see as far as the channel.

When we had rested a bit, we decided to take a different way down, to the Windy Gap car park. This route is short but felt almost vertical, as it is mostly stairs. We met several hardy souls on the way up, but I don't think I'd be tempted to go up that way! From there, we had quite a long walk to the car park for Leith Hill Place, but it was along country roads and relatively flat, so it was an easy walk.

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London to Manchester and back - again!

August 10th - 23rd

By August 10th, we were back up in Manchester again and work on the house continued. Although most of the major work was done, there were still plenty of smaller jobs to do. All sorts of little jobs had to be attended to - repairs to wardrobe hinges, for instance, repairs to shelves, replacement of lampshades and so on. Most of the bedrooms were painted, and ceilings were repaired and painted too.

Most of what I did related to cleaning, of which there was plenty. All the repair work and sanding produced an awful lot of dust, and I seemed to be constantly dusting and vacuuming. I would clean a room really thoroughly and close the door, thinking 'That's finished', only to find that 10 minutes later, some man opened had the door again and gone in to sand something or even, in one case, trim a quarter of an inch off the bottom of the door, and everything would be covered in a thick layer of dust again and cleaning wasn't finished at all.

There didn't seem to be a mop in the house, so I went to the local pound shop to see what I could buy. I wanted a sponge mop - I don't really like those string mops - but the shop only had one sponge mop. It was called a Supernatural mop! I bought it immediately, hoping for ghostly cleaning help, though unfortunately, this did not materialise. However, even without any extra help, I managed to clean the kitchen floor - many times, in fact, as dirt was trampled all around the house.



This is the kitchen, finally ready at last. We had to stay an extra day to get a new oven fitted, and then a second extra day when we realised that the oven door hinges had to be adjusted so the oven door didn't catch on the drawer next to it.

The living room looked really nice, with a new wooden floor to replace the carpet that the students had burned a hole in with the iron.



The new black coffee table is a flat-pack one I built while other people were painting and sanding things. I also cleaned the black leather sofas five or six times with special leather cleaner which also treats the leather, so the two sofas now look very nice. Now we just need to be able to find some tenants who will take good care of it all.

All this work took 2 weeks, so we were not finally able to set off for home until August 22nd. I had been looking forward to going home again for some time, particularly since the weather at home in Surrey was warm, while Manchester was much colder and very rainy. At home, the hydrangeas were in beautiful bloom all up the lane.



Since I posted a photo of the hydrangeas in the lane last year, this is a slightly different one - it's just at the approach to our gate.

One of the best things about being home was breakfast on the terrace again.



Friday, our first full day home, was a beautiful sunny day, and we took full advantage of it, with breakfast, lunch and a pre-dinner drink on the terrace - it's just as well to do it while you can, Saturday was a day of torrential rain, though Sunday was a good deal better.

We spotted this windmill not far from home, at a small village called Outwood, while we were driving about through some back roads to avoid a traffic jam on the A25.




It seems to be in private ownership and isn't in a very good state of repair. But it doesn't look as if it would take too much work to turn it back into a working mill again.

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Manchester to London and back

August 1 - 9
As July changed into August, work continued on the house in Manchester. In the torrential rain, it became obvious that there were severe leaking problems in the lean-to at the side of the house. The passage at the side of the kitchen had been roofed over with a plastic roof a long time ago so the area could be turned into the place for doing the laundry. There was a washing machine out there, and washing could be hung there to dry.

Unfortunately, nobody had thought to tell us it was leaking very badly, though when it rained we could see and hear it for ourselves. This was rather bad news for the washing machine, which doesn't appreciate getting rained on, and the leaks were so bad it was clear the roof had to be replaced. My son ordered some new plastic roofing, and we all hoped for a dry weekend.

Fortunately, Saturday was dry, and the old roof was soon removed. There was no time to replace any of the old framework, so that just had to be repaired where necessary, and freed from curtains of old spider webs.





Replacing it with the new roof took a bit longer, and the work stretched over into Sunday. The plastic sheeting had to be cut to size and fitted carefully, which meant a lot of standing on ladders.



Eventually, the new roof was finished early on Sunday afternoon, about half an hour before more torrential rain started.



It was neatly sealed round all the edges, so it is watertight once again, and the area makes a useful annex to the kitchen. Having the washing machine outside means there is room in the kitchen for a dish washer, which is always useful for students.

While all this roofing was going on, I did some babysitting. My grandson has grown into the Gruffalo costume he was given some months ago, so he asked to wear it.


After a short while of menacing me with the terrible teeth and terrible claws, he became too hot inside it, so we had to remove it and play a different game. He can manage sentences of a sort now, as long as they're short - 'Come upstairs, Mami! Play trains!' Verbs still have no tenses - 'I swimming' can mean 'I am swimming', as well as 'I've been swimming' and prepositions are missing; he says ’Play me' instead of 'Play with me', but he's not 28 months old yet. And he speaks quite a bit of French, frequently knowing both the French and the English words.

Paul spent a lot of the rest of Sunday clearing up, though we still have more work to do in the house. But, after some further clearing up on Monday morning, we set off to drive back home for a few days. We had a number of social events, including our other daughter-in-law's birthday, and dinners and lunches with friends.

The weather in Surrey was a good deal better, and it was a nice change to be cleaning my own dirt, instead of somebody else's! The main colourful flowers in the garden have now finished, but I was very struck by these, which are nearly as tall as I am.


The big Indian Bean Tree is also in bloom




It shades somebody else's terrace - there is very little shade on any of our terrace. I had intended to have breakfast on the terrace while the weather remained warm, but somehow can't be bothered to get dressed first and don't like to sit about in public on my terrace in my nightie!

After a very brief few days of respite, we were off up to Manchester again and more slaving away.

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In Manchester

July - August

Our time in Manchester has been spent scrubbing again, and painting and renovating. Years ago, when our son was a student, we bought a house in Manchester for him to live in while studying. Dental training is rather long and our son had already spent 3 years at university in London getting a degree in Biology before moving to Manchester to study Dentistry. Houses were ridiculously cheap in Manchester at the time - I see they are heading back that way again! He kept the house, and it is still let to students.

This year, it hasn't so far been let, probably because the last lot of students were living in such a disgusting state when it was shown to prospective new tenants in the spring; students look for next year's house very early so as to have it all sorted before their exams, so existing tenants can ruin your chances of finding a new tenant. The house was so dirty and smelly that, after the current tenants moved out at the end of June, my son said he found it quite shocking. They didn't seem to have noticed there was a vacuum cleaner or a dishwasher, and solved the problem of dirty washing up by just removing it all when they left - there was not one plate, cup, fork or saucepan left in the place, and the oven and microwave were so damaged they will have to be thrown away. Even after the first cleaning company had been in, the amount of scrubbing still needed just outfaced me on the first day, and we had to engage a second cleaning company to come in and scrub all the woodwork so it could be re-painted. Skirting boards and door panels were all outlined in thick sticky black dust, and the kitchen walls had to be scrubbed with Cif cleaner and wire wool to remove the layers of grease. Then everything had to be re-painted once it was clean. Once again, I found myself scrubbing the grout between the tiles in somebody else's bathroom! This time, I used bleach which was reasonably successful, but the most successful thing was re-grouting; the bathroom now looks as if it has been re-tiled, especially since Paul has replaced the cracked tiles of the bath surround, and my son has replaced all the mouldy caulking.

The students burned a hole in the filthy sitting room carpet with an iron, so the carpet has now been replaced with a wood floor, which we hope will be easier to clean. All my summer trousers are now marked with stains from muddy water (it's hard to scrub filth without splashing yourself) and covered in paint. Mind you, I haven't put in the amount of work that Paul has, as I haven't been there every day. Some days, I have been at the dentists!

On our first Friday in Manchester, I went to my son's surgery have my 17 year old veneers removed as they were by then quite stained and needed to be replaced. I broke bits off my front teeth in a car accident in 1996, so I've had veneers on them ever since. The veneers had to be drilled off, then a colour match had to be chosen similar to my other teeth, and I had to have temporary plastic caps while the lab was making me new veneers. The drilling off took ages - apparently, my previous dentist 17 years ago had made a very good job of sticking them on. My son found the colour matching with my existing teeth quite difficult so we ended up driving all the way to the lab after he had finished for the day so they could advise on a good match. The technician there spent ages studying and photographing my existing teeth, before eventually deciding on the colour my son had tentatively picked in the first place!

I found the plastic front teeth very difficult to cope with, because you can't bite anything, not even a piece of bread. I had to get used to cutting up all my food, such as my morning toast, into small pieces. At first I found it difficult to remember and partly dislodged the plastic teeth by biting things the following day, and I quite often hit them with my fork, further dislodging them, so I was quite delighted the following Friday to go back to the surgery to have them removed. Imagine our dismay to find the colour of the new veneers wasn't right! After trying every existing colour of glue to adjust the shade, my son concluded that the only possibility was to take more photographs and return the veneers to the lab so they could try again. So I was back to spending a second week with plastic front teeth!

For the second week I was a bit better with the plastic teeth, having had them for long enough to remember not to bite, though there were still some difficulties. On the day we went to Ikea to buy my grandson a new bed to replace his cot, we made the mistake of having ice creams. It's extremely difficult to bite an ice cream cone with your back teeth, so ice cream and strawberry sauce stains joined the muddy water and paint stains on my summer trousers.

It was a great relief to see that the amended veneers matched my existing teeth at the end of the second week I had to spend with the plastic front teeth. My son was able to fit the new veneers and I now have proper front teeth and can bite again. So I don't have to cut my toast into tiny bits tomorrow or rip up my croissant into small pieces, and no more trying to bite an ice cream cone with my back teeth!

Our daughter-in-law and grandson were in France visiting her family for part of our time in Manchester, but after they returned, we also had a day out at the Trafford Centre. We had to go there to buy some coffee pods for their coffee machine, but while there, we discovered some summer holiday attractions. My grandson quite enjoyed the beach, where lots of very sandy children were building a a major castle development. What he really wanted to do was have a go on the aqua boats, though it wasn't entirely successful.



The boat having been made for bigger children, the little soul had a bit of difficulty working out how to steer it - his arms were too far away from the wheel for him to reach it easily. He had a ride on the carousel too, thought with hindsight I think he might have enjoyed riding in the one with the teacups instead. And he was completely fascinated with the huge singing bears, which I quite forgot to photograph.

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Center Parcs

July 12 - 18

I'm behind again, just not quite so far. This is a consequence of slaving away in somebody else's house cleaning (again!) and painting and mending - of which, more later.

We have been working so hard recently we have almost forgotten our short holiday in Norfolk and Suffolk, though we are eternally grateful that it was sunny and warm, and not the current torrents of heavy rain.

Our queue to get into Center Parcs was not too long, because we approached it from the north, having lunched a few miles to the north of the entrance. Most people seem to approach the entrance from the south, where the queue stretched for miles.

Once we had found our charming little chalet in the woods




we set off to find our friends' chalet, which was unfortunately a 15 minute walk away. We weren't able to stay and chat with them for long because of needing to go shopping for more food and then be back in our own chalet to receive my son and grandson when they arrived.

Our grandson was delighted with the new house and the sandy soil outside where he could play.


It was absolutely lovely to be able to have all our meals, including breakfast, outside - the weather was really beautiful.

My grandson was also delighted to have his own room, and chose which would be his very own bed. I noticed, when I got up next morning, that he was asleep in the big king sized bed in his parents' room, and my son was next door sleeping in my grandson's tiny bed! I'm not quite sure how that happened.

Next morning, the three old girls - me, my sister and my friend from Belfast - went off to spend the morning in the spa, where we spent a delightful lazy morning sampling every different sort of steam room, the jacuzzi, the water beds and the gardens. The men took my grandson to the pool, sorry, 'Tropical Swimming Paradise' where he had a wonderful time and completely exhausted himself. Once he had had his nap, we went off to spread chaos in my friend's chalet, where he played with all her grandson's toys and fell on the telephone like an old friend - our chalet is not so luxurious and has no telephone. Soon, it was time for my son to go and collect my daughter-in-law from the nearby station - she had been asked at the last minute to help in organising the Bastille Day celebrations at the French School where she teaches, so that interrupted her weekend.

Sunday passed in an orgy of swimming and walking, followed by a joint barbecue with our friends and then next morning it was time to leave. My grandson was sorry to have to say goodbye to all the wildlife. My sister had bought bird food for him to spread about and our patio was always full of ducks and moorhens and squirrels. The birds all brought their babies.


One squirrel was so bold it came into the house and had to be shooed out again - but I didn't manage any photos of that, I was too busy dancing about persuading it to leave to photograph it.

We spent the morning doing more swimming - or, in the case of my grandson, jumping around in the water pretending to be a kangaroo. My son hoped to exhaust him so much he would sleep in the car for much of the way home.

Once we were home on Monday night, there was the laundry orgy, before another very hot journey on Tuesday up to London to spend another day at the flat being prepared for letting. I am sorry to say my scrubbing of the dirty grout between the bathroom tiles was not a success, but other little jobs were more successful.

On Wednesday I was working again - another extremely hot trip, this time to Steveange, which is quite a journey from Oxted. And on Thursday, we were off to Manchester again! It never stops.

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