Yesterday I Have Mostly Been:

Visiting Bodnant Garden. This is a wondrous place and as good a reason as you might find to justify the National Trust policy of taking over a great garden even if the adjoining great house does not come with it. I believe this policy may have been instituted with Bodnant as its first example. The Groupie and I walked extensively and enjoyed a picnic lunch at the Far End of the garden. 

Eating - anchovies on toast. A particular favourite.

Drinking - Chianti.

Feeling - good about life.   

Big Fat Pig Gets Bigger And Fatter But Only After Feeling Younger

BFP is late-middle-aged. At least. However he and the Groupie have been indulging in the activity best suited to making you feel young again - visiting National Trust properties. On Monday it was Trerice and yesterday Lanhydrock. Both are excellent, Trerice a smallish Elizabethan manor house, Lanhydrock a grand Victorian estate which manages to feel liveable. In case you have missed the point, one feels younger when visiting such sites because of the general decrepitude of the other visitors. Works for me.

Trerice

 

 

  

Lanhydrock

As for getting bigger and fatter, well last night we went to Padstow's oldest pub, The Golden Lion. Beer was top draw - Doom Bar. The food was excellent and gargantuan. See below my plate of gammon, egg, pineapple (a seared wedge not some tinned crap), mushrooms, tomatoes, and onion rings (best ever - and when it comes to onion rings I'm a professional) - you can't even see the chips which came in a side dish. Highly recommended.

Today we are going to do some walking on the Camel Trail before resuming the weight-gain programme at Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant tonight.  

Are Brilliant ... Mark XXVII

I've been awol from the blog for a few weeks. Sorry about that. Things happen - but I will tell you more once I am authorised to do so. That sounds a little portentous. Nothing to worry about but even the Big Fat Pig has to observe the rules from time to time.

I've been awol from the 'Are Brilliant' thread for even longer, so here we go. Older readers may detect some duplication (or even triplication) but, hell, I'm not a machine.

So here goes. The precious bike. I was out for a few hill-climbs yesterday. Enjoyed it. And along with the golf, this is the only exercise I am getting because my sore Achilles heel is into its fourth month of discomfort. There is no better explanation than that I am getting old (already there?) and that I have subjected this body to more battering than is good for it. That said, there is not a day goes by that I don't miss playing rugby. The ruck remains the father of the maul. 

Talking of battering, the Groupie and I had really disappointing fish and chips from the hitherto reliable Mere Green Takeaway. You must know how it is - you are really looking forward to something, you have a raging hunger, and then the food is all flabby. The disappointment is heightened because of the intensity of the anticipation. Well found the antidote only a few days later, which brings me to the second brilliant item - haddock and chips in the conservatory (one eighty degree sea views) at The Trecastell Hotel in Bull Bay. Washed down with a couple of pints of pale ale. Fish and chips redeemed.

Waitin' Around to Die, by the tragic figure of Townes Van Zandt. Search his stuff out.

Amlwch. I have a fondness for landscapes where the industrial melds with the natural. Amlwch is an old working port but if you head westwards from the port carpark you are soon met by cliffs and clear seas and, best of all, even on a beautiful Spring day, you are largely on your own. What you do after you have walked is to go to the Trecastell Hotel for fish and chips (op. cit.).

The National Trust. I put up with some of its woke inanities because of the cracking job it does in preserving places of interest. We called in at Bodnant Garden on our way home from Ynys Mon. Been there countless times before but there's always something new to observe. I do love a well-stocked garden. I'm attaching pictures of the fallen redwood and the helpful expanatory notice. In case you can't read the script (isn't age a pain) - it stood over 50m tall and was brought down in the Winter storms. 

 

Finally - the concluding episode of the awesome Derry Girls that aired last week. Even by the standards of this great show, the hour-long finale was funny, serious and, most importantly, moving. In amongst the dross of reality television, it is reassuring that such genuinely important work is still being done on television.

Advent 19

I am sure it is a phase that all children go through but Daughter Number 2 was particularly keen on questions beginning 'What's your favourite ......?' She would usually and mischievously end an interrogation with 'Who's your favourite daughter?'

Well, today in answer to 'What's your favourite National Trust property?', I present Cragside in Northumberland. Built by William Armstrong (later Baron Armstrong of Cragside - the first industrialist to be ennobled) it is a phantasmagorical piece of architecture set amidst vast gardens and forests artfully sculpted. The grounds incorporate the mechanisms of the country's first ever domestic hydro-electric supply. And for children of a certain age and disposition (as DN2 once was) there is a very fine adventure playground. What's your favourite playground?

Holidays 16.7 - The Middle Class At Leisure

National Trust membership is de rigueur for the ageing middle class, or so it would seem. OG and Groupie have, of course, been members ever since they were young fogeys, which was, naturally, shortly after they were amongst Thatcher's chosen few - the original yuppies.

I have already championed the rhododendron garden at Plas Newydd and the remarkable mural in the dinning room at that property. But we have been getting full value from our membership this week so today the story of two more gardens and one quite arresting property.

The laburnum arch at Bodnant

First of all a garden which comes without a house - well not quite accurate because there is a house at Bodnant but it is not in National Trust care. It is only the gardens that have been bequeathed to the nation. They are enough. I'm no expert so won't essay a description except to say that there is a photegenic laburnum arch; there is a photegenic series of water features; there are photegenic formal gardens; there are photogenic massive trees; there are - well, you get the picture.

A river runs through it

Bodnant is testament to man's penchant for accommodating and improving mother nature. As a postsctript: if using satnav, ensure that yours is not set to avoid all tunnels. It transpired that our was so disposed - why would this be - are Koreans ubiquitously tunnel-phobic?

Treardurr Bay...  Nice.

Before I return to National Trust properties, a word for Trearddur Bay where we walked pleasingly yesterday and got sun-burnt. A stunning coastal resort. I think we have to admit that the south of the island has even better vistas than the north where sits the OG country estate. Oh well.

Today it was the turn of Penrhyn Castle. This huge folly is gloriously bonkers. Don't let the name fool you. This was not built for miltary purposese. It is a mock Norman fortress established at the behest of Richard Pennant (1739-1808). It always puts me in mind of the fictional Xanadu, lair of Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane. It is impossible to imagine anything quite so grandiose being attempted by a potentate of modern British industry. Just at the moment (and credit to the National Trust for this) there is an 'installation' on show which draws parrallels between Penrhyn and the architectural adventures of Las Vegas. It does not avoid the awkward truth that some of the Pennant fortune that paid for the building (most of which came from the local slate industry) had the taint of the slave trade upon it. No matter, go and have a look and be awed by what can be achieved. It does have gardens which, if you want to be hyper-critical, are looking faintly tatty but this place is all about the bricks and mortar.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure dome decree

Big Fat Pig Sur Ses Grandes Vacances En Cornwall

My soulmate and I are in Cornwall for a week. We have rented a beautiful cottage a few miles from Bude and it has a nice kitchen (though not of course as magnificent as the edifice the builders are currently constructing back at the ranch) and a hot tub - how debauched! Big Fat Pig is mid campaign in the battle to undo all the good work of recent exercise having managed only one desultory run yesterday evening. BFP is not only gorbing (my thanks to my late father-in-law for that descriptive and spell-checker challenging word) but he is also back on the booze having rescinded the self-denying ordinance at the wedding of Katie and Rhodri Parfitt last Friday.

The wedding - a damned fine time was had by all. The next generation came very well out of this nuptial celebration. They were cheerful and accommodating to their elders and refrained from laughing when we took to the dance floor. There were even three competent, sincere and beautifully judged speeches from groom, best man and father of the bride - the last of these being my little and estimable brother. A rather moving and touching day. Excellent grub also - troughed up by the BFP.

And so to Cornwall. We holidayed here quite often when the girls were young but have not been here for more than a decade. It is two hours too far away to be weekendable but it is magnificent when you have the time. Better out of season as well.

Top tudor gaff

National Trust properties have occupied our last two days. Both Cotehele and Lanhydrock were under siege from people older even than BFP. If the Church of England was latterly the Tory party at prayer, then the National Trust is the current middle-classes at their leisure. An honesty box in the book shop perhaps best sums it up. Both properties were well worth our time and Lanhydrock is particularly arresting.

The National Trust - what to make of this very successful organisation? It is not immune to political orthodoxy and wrong-headedness - hunting and wind turbines both show it at its worst. However its core work of preserving how we have lived and the landscape we inhabit, is discharged with a charm and efficiency which is enviable - and of course they can still have an honesty box in the second hand bookshop.