Unexpected adventure

Despite feeling very tired this morning I decided to make the most of the sunshine and dragged myself outside to my car. If you don’t get to Tetbury by 10am on a Saturday morning then there’s a risk the nice parking which is very central will be full up.

I had a nosey around the charity shops and bought myself a new top which looks kind of velvety. Perfect for the season I thought!

I bought some nice food for the week ahead and some steak from Jesse Smith’s, the butchers (desperately craving red meat right now which is a bit worrying).got some turmeric bread from Hobbs House and then retreated to my car to look up how busy the roads were near Westonbirt Arboretum. Thankfully I checked Twitter and found out it was closed due to lack of suitable parking. The rain means that their fields are not good enough for the mass of cars- a real shame as the Autumn colours must be a very big income generator. They can now only let in enough people who they have hard-standing parking for, then they close! I may try tomorrow early on if the weather is ok.


I used my phone to find other nearby tourist places that had decent reviews. Lacock Abbey (I think it’s Wiltshire) is where I ended up half an hour later. I’ve seen lots and lots of blippers featuring the place in the past.

Blip is of the main hall which had a lovely roaring open fire in it. I like the darkness and light in this shot and I thought it looked a bit Vermeery ? I had a few other shots I wanted to blip so may add them as extras later in the week.

Lacock village was pretty, quiet, sunny, surprisingly warm and a bit tourisy (people selling biscuits and other such things in baskets left outside their doors).

The local church seemed to have a busy community vibe. The village pottery was quite sweet and the building itself was quirky.

The botanical garden was small but pretty and there were people honing their photographic skills in the greenhouse.

The Abbey itself had a small but interesting history of the photograph exhibition (I’ll not explain why Lacock is of interest to photographers here or I’ll be here all day!)

The ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’ art exhibition was magical (upstairs gallery). My kind of thing and not too surreal- more mysterious , haunting and Blythe Doll than Dali.

The entrance fee was a bit steep in my opinion (£11 plus £4 parking) and as I’m not in a hurry to join the National Trust (£72!) I guess I likely won’t go back for a while.

The views from the Bakehouse were very good I thought

In the main hall, where the blip was taken, I found that the teasles placed strategically (to stop you sitting in the window sills and on chairs ) were a bit odd/ off putting. I guess if they didn’t have something in place then I likely wouldn’t have got this blip shot. . .

A very zen, relaxing walk in the grounds was enjoyed before it suddenly stated to go dark at 2:30pm! Eeek!

Evening will be slow and involve bath, Strictly and Steak but not in that order!