In Society at the Big House
Aug. 7th, 2020 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustWritten at tea time on Thursday 6th August, with a mug of Earl Grey (thank you, durham_rambler) in the Library at Auchinleck House: posted at the same hour the following day on Bute, when connectivity even allows the insertion of a picture or two.
Short version: it has been a splendid few days, in magnificent surroundings and excellent company - rather more company than I have been accustomed to of late, and I may be suffering from a touch of burn-out. But just a touch, and if we escape with no worse after-effects than that, it will have been well worth it.
Longer version - D. andvalydiarosada reached Durham in time for an easy and comfortable Sunday dinner together: we agreed that we were henceforth a single household for the duration, and since we have often combined forces in the past, this provided a gentle introduction to the larger numbers ahead. They set off on Monday morning to lunch en route and reach Auchinleck in time to take possession at four, and durham_rambler and I delayed to pack supplies for the week, and to lunch on whatever would not benefit from the journey or await our return. The drive was uneventful; main highlight a stop at Annandale service station, where we had to give way to a long procession of geese crossing the road ahead of us.
Arrival at Auchinleck House is a little daunting. If you have been a good child and brought the instructions provided by the Landmark Trust, you are guided along a series of farm tracks which turn into the eighteenth century carriage drive, and deliver you to the elegant bridge from which you see the fine facade of the house. If, like every member of the party except the host, you fail to do so, you find yourself at the adjacent farm shop and café contemplating a sign which says "Wedding Guests Only". Next to this is the track up to the rear entrance, where you park. The Landmark Trust tell you to enter through the basement, which isn't encouraging, until you realise that what they call the ground floor is the first floor, with the main rooms of the house: kitchen, dining room, master bedroom suite and a cosy little sitting room. Up another flight of stairs are more bedrooms - we had plenty of choice, since the party nowhere near fills the house, and took the one with no steps between it and its bathroom - and the library, with its striking red walls, its imposing bookcase and its many soft chairs.
Tuesday was the day before The Birthday, and we spent our time considering whether we had enough supplies to provide a buffet lunch for all the expected guests (two more couples to be added to the resident party), and scoping out the local shops to see what they could add. The farm shop was an odd mixture of local beef and random, not at all local, delicacies (Snowdonia cheeses, Italian biscuits); Tesco in the nearby town was a smallish Tesco. It rained most of the day, and I read my book (and the previous day's paper).
Yesterday also rained, but it was party time, so it didn't matter. There was, of course, plenty for everyone to eat (we are still eating it, a day later) and more than plenty to drink. D. has been celebrating his significant birthdays in this way for some time, so those present have known each other for years, even if we don't allsee each other in between times (as C. said, nursing his knitted seal, the alarming thing is not that it is ten years since we last did this, but that it is thirty years since we first did it).
Today has been sunny. This morningdurham_rambler and I finally took the 'Gorge Walk' which others have been recommending, a pleasant circuit on decent tracks which were not too muddy even after all that rain. We had a preliminary diversion, in which he tried to lead me down a steep and slippery path beside the river without even knowing whether it was a dead end, because it "looked interesting" and I had a tantrum and demanded the Gorge Walk I had been promised (the other path, it turn out, is a dead end, though there is a grotto to be seen at the far end of it). We failed to spot the ruins of the old house, but I liked this disused and crumbling bridge:
The five of us remaining had lunch at the farm shop / café, thendurham_rambler and I went off to investigate the Barony A Frame which we keep driving past on the road to Auchinleck. No surprise that it is what it looks like, the winding gear of a now defunct coalmine, arranged into an agreeable memorial park. When we were driven away by an influx of very noisy lawnmowers, we drove to Ayr, to the seaside, and chose our ice creams from Scoopalicious (he is traditionalist, and had chocolate and vanilla, I had bounty and - I've already forgotten whose - crunch, McCallum's or some such name, vanilla streaked with the red sauce known in the north-east as 'monkey blood' and surprisingly good) and got so sticky we had to go down onto the beach and try to wash our hands in the sea. Then we drove home by minor roads, via Mauchline, which worked very well.
So here we are on our last evening, and soon we will dine for the last time in the dining room (which has windows on three sides of the house) and sort ourselves out for packing up and moving on, J. either home or not quite yet, as the fancy takes her, the other four of us to Bute and a cottage which will be nothing like as palatial as our current home, but should at least have wi-fi.
durham_rambler) in the Library at Auchinleck House: posted at the same hour the following day on Bute, when connectivity even allows the insertion of a picture or two.Short version: it has been a splendid few days, in magnificent surroundings and excellent company - rather more company than I have been accustomed to of late, and I may be suffering from a touch of burn-out. But just a touch, and if we escape with no worse after-effects than that, it will have been well worth it.
Longer version - D. and
valydiarosada reached Durham in time for an easy and comfortable Sunday dinner together: we agreed that we were henceforth a single household for the duration, and since we have often combined forces in the past, this provided a gentle introduction to the larger numbers ahead. They set off on Monday morning to lunch en route and reach Auchinleck in time to take possession at four, and durham_rambler and I delayed to pack supplies for the week, and to lunch on whatever would not benefit from the journey or await our return. The drive was uneventful; main highlight a stop at Annandale service station, where we had to give way to a long procession of geese crossing the road ahead of us.Arrival at Auchinleck House is a little daunting. If you have been a good child and brought the instructions provided by the Landmark Trust, you are guided along a series of farm tracks which turn into the eighteenth century carriage drive, and deliver you to the elegant bridge from which you see the fine facade of the house. If, like every member of the party except the host, you fail to do so, you find yourself at the adjacent farm shop and café contemplating a sign which says "Wedding Guests Only". Next to this is the track up to the rear entrance, where you park. The Landmark Trust tell you to enter through the basement, which isn't encouraging, until you realise that what they call the ground floor is the first floor, with the main rooms of the house: kitchen, dining room, master bedroom suite and a cosy little sitting room. Up another flight of stairs are more bedrooms - we had plenty of choice, since the party nowhere near fills the house, and took the one with no steps between it and its bathroom - and the library, with its striking red walls, its imposing bookcase and its many soft chairs.
Tuesday was the day before The Birthday, and we spent our time considering whether we had enough supplies to provide a buffet lunch for all the expected guests (two more couples to be added to the resident party), and scoping out the local shops to see what they could add. The farm shop was an odd mixture of local beef and random, not at all local, delicacies (Snowdonia cheeses, Italian biscuits); Tesco in the nearby town was a smallish Tesco. It rained most of the day, and I read my book (and the previous day's paper).
Yesterday also rained, but it was party time, so it didn't matter. There was, of course, plenty for everyone to eat (we are still eating it, a day later) and more than plenty to drink. D. has been celebrating his significant birthdays in this way for some time, so those present have known each other for years, even if we don't allsee each other in between times (as C. said, nursing his knitted seal, the alarming thing is not that it is ten years since we last did this, but that it is thirty years since we first did it).
Today has been sunny. This morning
durham_rambler and I finally took the 'Gorge Walk' which others have been recommending, a pleasant circuit on decent tracks which were not too muddy even after all that rain. We had a preliminary diversion, in which he tried to lead me down a steep and slippery path beside the river without even knowing whether it was a dead end, because it "looked interesting" and I had a tantrum and demanded the Gorge Walk I had been promised (the other path, it turn out, is a dead end, though there is a grotto to be seen at the far end of it). We failed to spot the ruins of the old house, but I liked this disused and crumbling bridge:The five of us remaining had lunch at the farm shop / café, then
durham_rambler and I went off to investigate the Barony A Frame which we keep driving past on the road to Auchinleck. No surprise that it is what it looks like, the winding gear of a now defunct coalmine, arranged into an agreeable memorial park. When we were driven away by an influx of very noisy lawnmowers, we drove to Ayr, to the seaside, and chose our ice creams from Scoopalicious (he is traditionalist, and had chocolate and vanilla, I had bounty and - I've already forgotten whose - crunch, McCallum's or some such name, vanilla streaked with the red sauce known in the north-east as 'monkey blood' and surprisingly good) and got so sticky we had to go down onto the beach and try to wash our hands in the sea. Then we drove home by minor roads, via Mauchline, which worked very well.So here we are on our last evening, and soon we will dine for the last time in the dining room (which has windows on three sides of the house) and sort ourselves out for packing up and moving on, J. either home or not quite yet, as the fancy takes her, the other four of us to Bute and a cottage which will be nothing like as palatial as our current home, but should at least have wi-fi.
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Date: 2020-08-07 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-09 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-07 08:25 pm (UTC)What kind of a red sauce is it? I do not think I have encountered this.
I am glad you had what sounds like a vacation. I hope the burnout fades quickly and nothing else follows.
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Date: 2020-08-09 04:46 pm (UTC)Thanks for the wishes. We shall see.
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Date: 2020-08-08 05:05 am (UTC)Nine
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Date: 2020-08-10 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-08 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-09 04:47 pm (UTC)