Saltmarshe Hall visit

Since my last blog post I have been on holiday and returned to a garden which looked more like a field.  The grass had grown amazingly and the grasscutter would only chug through it very slowly. As for the vegetables they are temporarily lost in a sea of sow thistle, chickweed and goosegrass. But when I look carefully I think they are growing well.

Molly has been in kennels for the first time and did not like it.  It took her three days to wag her tail properly and accept that she was safely home with her friend Poppy the cat.

Last week I took a group of students and friends to Saltmarshe Hall for a visit. The new owners, the Whyte family, have been there around a year now and were very welcoming.

We were able to look around the formal rooms, dining room, drawing room and library, all accessed off the magnificent hallway with its cantilevered staircase. We then were able to explore part of the former servants' wing and the cellars and the beautiful gardens.

If I am honest I think that the most popular part of the visit was when we looked at the servants' bedrooms, left as they had been probably 60 years ago with the original wallpaper and bedsteads. Maybe it was because most of us felt that our ancestors would have been servants rather than part of the much richer family who lived 'upstairs'.  Shades of Gosford Park perhaps?

Tonight I have tried to deal with two wasps' nests, one in the roof of  the part of the house where I am sitting now typing and one a only few feet away from  the house and near our picnic table. I have sprayed them with a foam bought from our local diy store and await the morning to see whether it has worked.

This bedstead is in the former servants' wing at Saltmarshe Hall

This view shows one of the several cellars on which the hall is built.