Staycation Day 1 - Cyclamen in situe

We went to Petworth House today! It's a National Trust place, and we haven't always had the best luck with them, but it was actually very well run with friendly staff and good food.

There was lots of "service" history in the house as could be expected, including an old restored kitchen with incredible jelly moulds and copper everywhere! There's a massive gallery as well filled with huge artworks including a bunch of Turner paintings - unfortunately a lot of the paintings are very faded, I don't think the old owners did a very good job looking after them!

There were some amazing bedrooms in the place, including one room with a bed with a massive wooden golden crown on top - probably once used as a bed for a foreign sovereign. There was so much to see, we ended up spending a good three hours going round the place. Pretty exhausting! We did the "mad Englishmen" bit to recover, eating ice cream outside in a roaring cold gale. Nothing like it!

On the way out I saw these cyclamen (thanks for the spelling Grace!), just when I thought I wouldn't find any flowers as we didn't do the grounds and it was mostly bushes and trees anyway. We also saw some staff members testing out a new attraction that they're adding next year - I'll give you a clue: it involves horses...

After this we went on to Grandad's and had a delightful tea! So very English of us, once again.