Home thoughts
Oct. 29th, 2017 06:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustWe set off on our travels on Thursday morning; we returned home on Friday night. We were away just over a week, but it does feel as if we've had - well, maybe not a holiday, but certainly a break. And now we are home.
Yesterday afternoon we went to a lecture by Martin Roberts, organised by the City of Durham Trust on The amiable Dr Spence: Sermons and Gardens in mid-18th century Durham. Fortunately, this turned out to be about gardens to the exclusion of sermons, and the speaker appeared quite disconcerted that anyone had ever expected him to talk about sermons. My interest in the history of garden design is pretty superficial, but I enjoyed the round up of the various gardens around Durham which were, or might have been, influenced by Spence. The big surprise was that there had been a famous garden (of the sort that foreign travellers would extend their itinerary to include) at Cocken Hall, just across the river from Finchale. I hadn't even known about Cocken Hall, although I might have deduced its existence from the farm name Cocken Lodge...
Today J swooped by and carried us off to a pub Sunday lunch (The Victoria, Witton-le-Wear, classic pub Sunday roast, good solid value but not exciting, surprisingly good coffee) and then to show us her new house. It's the first time we've visited - she's barely moved in - and we had the full tour, followed by an intense session usingdurham_rambler's smartphone to order her internet connection.
I'd call that a productive weekend.
Yesterday afternoon we went to a lecture by Martin Roberts, organised by the City of Durham Trust on The amiable Dr Spence: Sermons and Gardens in mid-18th century Durham. Fortunately, this turned out to be about gardens to the exclusion of sermons, and the speaker appeared quite disconcerted that anyone had ever expected him to talk about sermons. My interest in the history of garden design is pretty superficial, but I enjoyed the round up of the various gardens around Durham which were, or might have been, influenced by Spence. The big surprise was that there had been a famous garden (of the sort that foreign travellers would extend their itinerary to include) at Cocken Hall, just across the river from Finchale. I hadn't even known about Cocken Hall, although I might have deduced its existence from the farm name Cocken Lodge...
Today J swooped by and carried us off to a pub Sunday lunch (The Victoria, Witton-le-Wear, classic pub Sunday roast, good solid value but not exciting, surprisingly good coffee) and then to show us her new house. It's the first time we've visited - she's barely moved in - and we had the full tour, followed by an intense session using
durham_rambler's smartphone to order her internet connection.I'd call that a productive weekend.
