A day out in Dorset

Last weekend was taken up with work and rain, and so we didn't get out to see any new sights.  Today, although there is new work to be done, we decided to have a proper day out, and so we drove west on the motorway, across the New Forest, through Wimborne Minster and out the other side to Kingston Lacy.  We were given National Trust membership as a present late last year, and now that the houses are all open for the Spring, we're aiming to visit as many as we can.  I'm not a forelock-tugging fan of the aristocracy, and I am not ready to swoon at the thought of the wonderful wealthy people who inhabited each of the stately homes of England, but I am deeply interested in history, art and architecture, and the grand houses owned by the National Trust are treasuries of information and artifacts, often presenting a concatenation of eras in a single site.  And anyway, the whole point of the NT endeavour is that these houses have been given to the nation, often by the descendants of once-wealthy families, now stricken by taxes and high running costs.  We may have to pay something to see them - but they're our houses now, too.

The south side of the house, with one of the ancient obelisks brought back from Egypt by William John Bankes early in the nineteenth century.  Over to the left, out of sight, is a huge sarcophagus which must weigh several tonnes.  It seems rather out of place resting below a grove of mature English trees in a peaceful country garden.

A recreation of a dessert course from the Edwardian era.  Very pink indeed.

One of the beautiful tented bedrooms used by the Bankes children.  I half-expected a Punch and Judy show to begin through one of the windows.

William Pitt the Younger, one of my partner's great heroes.  I try to imagine David Cameron ennobled in marble, with a toga draped around his Old-Etonian shoulders - but my imagination fails me.

Onto far more wholesome thoughts: happily snoring piggies in the grounds of the house.  There seems to be some connection between these slumbering lovelies and the 'Kingston Lacy pork hotpot' in the cafe, but we had chicken sandwiches, so could admire them without too much guilt.

A few flowers from the gardens.  Though they're everywhere, now that spring is almost springing its way into early summer, I'm a sucker for flowers and take lots of pictures every time I go to a park or woodland.  It seems so recently that we were wondering when the spring would finally arrive, and once again I am surprised to see its end in sight.  The outrageous fresh green of new leaves is mellowing into maturity; the apple and cherry blossoms are rapidly falling; and seductive lilacs are perfuming the evening air.  Now that I've reached 35, I can almost feel time speeding up on me.  We wait for spring, and find summer's glory around us; we enjoy a summer's day and see the leaves beginning to curl and darken into red and brown.  Even the dandelion clocks give me a slight sense of melancholy; it's only halfway through May, and already they're ready to spread their seeds and begin again next year.

But I should finish by saying that in actual fact, it's a pleasant melancholy, a flavour rather than a main dish.  In reality there is a lot going on: my main job, freelance work, new hobby (knitting - first project almost completed), web design course, blog-writing, multiple books on the go, social plans, wedding plans...  There's a lot to do before the new dandelions show their yellow heads next year, and I'm looking forward to it.