English vacation (Day 4): Knole and Ightham Mote

First of all, we want to tell Maren Happy Birthday! We love you tons!

This morning we were pretty tired from all our adventures, so we took the morning off and just lounged around the house until the afternoon. For breakfast we tried hot cross buns, which tasted like overly nutmegged raisin bread. I didn't mind them, but Hyrum wasn't a fan.


For lunch, Daisha made us her special mini pizzas on pita bread, and they were so good! They're my favorite meal out here so far. So good! I should have taken a picture because they're really cute too. Maybe she'll make them again.

We finally got our act together and took off to see some stately homes, rather than castles. We first went to Knole, which is an enormous home built in the 1400s. If you've seen "The Other Boleyn Girl", part of it was filmed at Knole.


We saw the Knole settee, which apparently is very famous and in US books (that I haven't read).


The kids wanted to hang from a tree branch, and even Tabitha got brave enough to do it until she was lifted up. Then it didn't seem so fun anymore.


Knole has a 1,000 acre deer park around it with deer wandering everywhere. The deer look very different here, and most have spots as an adult. Talea managed to feed one an apple.


Next, we went on to Ightham (pronounced "item") Mote, which looks like a castle with a mote, but it was a home also. The grounds there were amazing! They had a landscaped vegetable garden, flower garden, orchard, etc.


This is the building in the back. I like it better than the home!


Talea found a stink bug and of course made it crawl up her sleeve. Nasty!


Kiersa just looks too cute here.


In the courtyard of the home is a large dog house. We were just a few minutes too late to tour the house, but we snuck in the exit (or "way out" as they say here) to take pictures in the dog house.

The volunteers kept telling us over and over it was closed and we needed to leave, but we rebelled and took the pictures, then hurried on.

I loved the way they landscaped their lawns with two different lengths of mowing to designate paths and lawn, versus slopes and unused areas.


On our way to these places, and after, we drove through lots of little villages and skinny little country lanes.


We passed by an apple picking orchard, which we'll go to later if it's open for picking, but we opted not to go up the "Magpie Bottom".


When we got home, we saw that the people with the house that reeked of poo when we passed it going to and from the train had a plumber over to fix it...and the name of the plumbing company was "Hot Flush".


For dinner, we had Daisha's typical Sunday lunch of roast chicken, Daisha's version of Edward's special potatoes, and veg (we had petite pois...petite peas for us Americans). We also drank Ribena, which is black current juice. They only have black current stuff instead of grape juice. Even grape skittles are black current skittles out here. I have to say, Ribena is excellent!!! Why in the world is this stuff not in America!? Oh, and they don't have frozen concentrates for juices. The concentrates are on the shelf, and they're called "squash".