Architect Sir Charles Barry is perhaps best known for designing the Houses of Parliament and Highclere Castle (of Downton Abbey fame) but his work can also spectacularly be seen in Surrey. Sir Charles Barry’s third son, Edward Middleton Barry, designed the handsome building Cobham Park, also in Surrey.
Regular readers will know that my blog has been shortlisted for two awards in the National UK Blog Awards 2015: in the Young Person Recognition category and the Arts and Culture category.
Books make the most thoughtful presents. Here are some of my favourites I’ve read this year, either before I started this blog, or books I couldn’t squeeze into the running ‘Book of the Month’ feature.
Good news: my blog has been shortlisted in the UK Blog Awards 2015 Young Person Recognition category and Arts and Culture category! This year’s theme is: Be Bold. I think it’s rather fitting that this blog post is on a very bold and pioneering town in Surrey…
I don’t know why gingerbread is typically confined to December, as I happily make it all year round. Here is my fool-proof gingerbread recipe.
The horse played a crucial part in World War One and horrifyingly over 10 million horses died through exhaustion, disease, bullets, and many sadly fell and sunk into the mud of the front line.
Continue reading The Lightbox ‘The Horse at War: 1914 – 1918’
I went to Claremont Landscape Garden in Esher eager to catch the golden-copper colour trees and to learn a bit more about the history of the gardens.
I went to Haslemere ahead of the Christmas Market (which is on this Sunday 7th December) to see Surrey’s most southerly town.
Short stories are my absolute favourite form of literature (and writing – joint with poetry!). Utterly cluttered are the marginalia of every short story I consume/inhale. The gentle and explosive rhythm of the narrative; the way the plot unravels in the story; the twist potential; the preoccupation with time and the ability to give the impression of time expanding as the story is contracting; the heavy, heady significance of every carefully chosen word; the fact that you can be absorbed in several stories within an hour of reading…
Ooooof – lasagne. Lazy because it’s melt in the mouth tender meat and full of vegetables, slow cooked in a dreamy rich tomato sauce and then tucked up under blankets of pasta. Toasted cheese is the top eiderdown.