Cliveden, Buckinghamshire

Some photos I stole from Google. I forgot to take a camera/own a camera. Epic fail on my part!!

I remember visiting Cliveden for the first time when I was 15. I went with my best pal at the time and her father. She was, and still is, a last minute ninny and had to finish her GCSE art project. She had done the final piece, I think, but you had to have all the back-up research stuff, which, of course, she hadn't done. So we went to Cliveden to photograph trees- this is my friend who got me into my love of tree- and church-hugging. A great pasttime by the way!!

So we climbed hills and photographed trees and had chicken pie and scrambled over fallen trees trunks and slipped on slimy wet rocks. It was a great day.

The last time I visited it was to see a Shakespeare play in the outdoors, Much Ado About Nothing I think it was. I went with my friend's family again but not with her randomly. It was a really great night, sitting out in the last remaining sun of the summer holidays, having a sandwich or sausage roll and a bottle of beer.

Today I went again. It was glorious sunshine yesterday when we planned to go, but typical English weather as per usual it was a dull grey and drizzly. I had a cuppa tea at her house and chatted with her mam whilst catching up on gossip, new clothing purchases and drooling over the hunks in the Chippendales programme (they went to go and see them :>). We then went to Cliveden. We sat and chatted for ages at the "Canning tree" (named after the Prime Minister, who committed suicide in his bathtub I believe- WRONG= I just Wikipedia'd it- it was his enemy Castlereagh who did that... damn, giving out false factoids...). I gave some boring historical factoids and she some botanical info. It was all very anoraky and great! It rained a little and we frolicked in the fountains and larked around the trees and random buildings placed throughout the garden. I was a lovely day just chatting about boyfriend issues (her side naturally), friends, life, etc. It was like the old days but we felt more grown up now doing this without parentals.

I bought my nan a birthday card and sent her a flower from the garden. I hope she understands and doesn't think I am just being random.

That is my day in summary with a little harking back to some good old memories of my school years. I did nothing on my essay despite my good intentions, but I am absolving myself since I haven't blogged this month yet and I am making up for lost time.

Tomorrow I am getting up at 8:30am and getting straight on the essay. No shirking tomorrow. I will have done all my primary research and will be typing up all my notes from my secondary reading. I will make progress tomorrow!!

As for now, more posts to follow...

for more info on Cliveden House and Grounds: la voila!