A man I met from Melbourne

Helena discovered a National Trust property not far from where we are staying called Lanhydrock House, situated a couple of miles from Bodmin. The weather was not so good and we wanted a day where we could explore the wider area, and we chose well. The house was extremely well appointed and set in a huge beautiful estate in rolling landscape. I hadn't expected to enjoy the tour round the house which offered views of more than fifty rooms, but I did find it fascinating despite the large numbers of other visitors, which made it feel quite crowded in places.

The house was badly damaged by a big fire in Victorian times and then extensively rebuilt, so what we saw was more modern than the original building and its contents. But the Long Gallery survived undamaged and when I saw it I fell in love with the light and its proportions. While I was standing in the portal to that room, where an open staircase dropped down into one end of the room, I had to wait for the throng of people to clear to get a reasonable picture.

At that point I engaged this gentleman in conversation and it turned out that P. was travelling for three months around Europe with his wife, and in a couple of days they were going to meet up with their son in Yorkshire. It turns out that the son is a good cricketer and has been spending a few months playing cricket and also learning the craft of making cricket bats from willow. He will be buying a stock of the wood to take back to Australia. We had a good natter to while away the time and let the crowds move on. As we talked I noticed the light falling on his face cast from the large window in the piano room by the staircase and I asked if I could take his picture. He kindly agreed and I took three shots quickly before we shook hands and moved on our ways.

I will be adding some other pictures of Lanhydrock House to a Flickr gallery when we get home. When we left the estate we went into Bodmin town and as we hoped we found the old steam railway preservation track. Within a short time an old GWR pannier engine arrived pulling a four carriage train into the station much to my great delight. I love the smell of the smoke and the other smells of an old steam engine. I will add some pictures of that too in a few days time.