Leeds Castle - Saturday 29^th September

The marketing billed this as the most beautiful castle in the world. Indeed the aerial shots of the castle were stunning to say the least. This visit had been on our to do list for some months and it was with much anticipation we set out on the morning of Robyn's XXth birthday. (Note: I have self edited this to pass the censors)

The castle was to prove a disappointment and the visit had its share of lowlights.

We headed to the Wykeham Martin tea room to give the kids lunch and have a coffee. I tried a white wine made on the property and would highly recommend it. Ben has taken to pushing the stroller along. I allowed him to do it on a grassy slope and he soon fell over with the stroller landing on top of him. This left a small gash on his check that luckily didn't need a Band-Aid. It didn't look to flash though and I felt bad about allowing this to happen. I then had Rachel minding duties whilst Robyn gave Ben a bottle. Rachel ran off into the nearby hedge maze. I didn't try too hard to stop her and soon we were both lost inside. It took sometime to find our way out and as Robyn didn't know where we were I wasn't too popular. I think I left my halo behind in the maze.

Rachel was a bit ratty so we decided to split up. Robyn and Ben did the castle and Rachel and I did the gardens. These provided some nice views of he castle. There were many swans in the moat and most of my time was spent finding grass for Rachel to feed to the swans.

The outside of the castle was picture perfect, in spite of some of my shots. It was the interior that was a waste of time. It resembled a house rather than a castle. The rooms were filled with period items that somehow didn't seem to fit and just gave the impression of a random collection of stuff to fill up the rooms for the tourists.

Rachel and Robyn had a quick walk through the aviary.

We then enjoyed a cool beer in the stables area. This was when Rachel fell between the bench and table and landed heavily on the hard ground. Unfortunately the only injury was to her ice-cream. She eventually got over this. Ben also started to play up and our beers warmed substantially before we could finish them.

Having had two fairly serious incidents we figured it was time to go - and to drive REALLY carefully down to Hastings. Hindsight shows that the 3^rd incident was to happen to me at Battle (read on!).

 Hastings, Pevensey and Battle - Sunday 30th July

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