This year we bit the bullet and joined the National Trust for the first time. We thought whilst we have no livestock that needs us to be here all the time or lots of our attention on a daily basis it was an ideal time to explore some of the wonderful old buildings and park lands of both our new adoptive country and over the border in England.
Our membership pack arrived really quickly and with it a free gift ...
... a mini pair of binoculars which Lovely Hubby was rather smitten with.
Picture from the National Trust website.
Our first visit was to Aberconwy House which is just up the road in Conwy. We went their while LH's lovely sister Alison was visiting combining it with a walk around the castle as blogged about here.
Picture from National Trust website.
And then on the last Bank Holiday weekend we went to Basildon Park in Berkshire, somewhere we lived a fifteen minute drive from before we moved and drove past on a regular basis but had never ventured inside.
There was lots to see and photograph.
The grounds were beautiful just springing to life in the warm May sunshine.
Too warm it would appear for the mixed herd of cows, we spent a few minutes seeing how many we could name .... we discovered we're not very good on cow breeds yet ;-)
Inside the house was lovely, very well maintained and lots of the room had photograph boards of when they were used for filming the Downton Abbey Christmas Special, when the house doubled as 'Grantham House'. We've never watched this (I know... shock, horror) but lots of folk were enthralled by seeing the rooms they had watched on television.
It was a really lovely day, and so one month in from getting our membership we have viewed two properties.
Google Images picture.
Our nearest National Trust place is actually Bodnant Gardens which I think will be getting quite a few visits over the next few months as their gardens change throughout the year. That they happen to have a lovely little coffee shop that serves cream teas will no doubt inspire LH to visit regularly as he seems determined to carry out his plan of 'Cream Tea-ing' his way around the National Trust properties of England and Wales.
Sue xx
