A Bug's Life

Kind of slothing out of going dancing tonight, though I claim to enjoy it. Dancing will be there next week, and I have a list of 20 things to do to start on - a mixture of chores and fun things (sewing projects, beading projects, listening to new CDs etc).

I went to Wimpole Hall today with my Mum and StepDad, we went round the house mostly, not the farm and the lambs people tend to associate with it. Things I learned: an owner of Wimpole Hall (Lord Harley) is the same chap as owned large chunks of London including Wimpole Street and Harley Street. He had 50,000 books and built an extension for them. When he died the books were sold, but given to what were the beginnings of the British Library. Beautiful view stretching for miles down an avenue of limes, used to be elm but they lost them in the 1970s to disease. A lot of different owners, each adding extensions or tearing bits out, or refacing the house. The Victorian furniture went in the 1936 sale, but the new owner went about refurnishing in Georgian style, and a living room more like my grandmother's I have never seen, down to the 1976 Country Life magazine in the rack. Some 600-year old stained glass in the chapel, still vivid. Painting of a young lad bearing a small platter or letter or something looking just like he's texting on a smartphone, the way it's held.

Two more days of holiday left.