Leeds Castle trip

(photos: the lake by the castle; laura and i by the portcullis of the barbican; the awesome carved beams on the ceiling of one room; i don't know if you can tell, but there are golfers out there. you can golf at leeds castle; one of the rooms used by the "Conference delegates"; a fantastic library; me in front of the castle; the entire castle is surrounded by water; swans in front of the castle; me plowing; the garden ; pretty flower; birds will bite! notice the bird flying away swiftly. it had just tried to murder laura when she walked over; turf maze; vineyard)















So yes. Finally, Laura and I ventured out to Leeds Castle, as recommended by Sarah Rice and the book i read about labyrinths and hedge mazes, entitled something very original such as "Labyrinths and Hedge Mazes." I suggest you read it. We took the National Express bus in, and it took Laura about 15 minutes to get her ticket, despite the man's profuse apologies. I think she broke his machine or something odd, there were lots of problems. Eventually, we both had our tickets and we got on the bus in time. Apparently there was no need to worry about having a seat on the bus, since about 3 other people took the 2 hour journey with us. That's pretty bad for the environment...nice and wasteful..but let's not worry about that.

Our bus driver was pretty snazzy. He wore a nice sweater and some fancy sunglasses. Not your average bus driver. He did have some trouble with the intercom when he announced each or our two destinations. The bus dropped us off right at the castle, and as we walked up to get our tickets we passed a slew of peacocks, including a lovely white one, just ambling about. As we waited to get our tickets, saw a little kid walk up to the old man taking tickets at the gate who promptly looked down and yelled " 'Ello, young person!!" It was so British and fantastic; i was amused. The little kid looked a little confused and walked back to its parents shortly thereafter. When we handed him our tickets he explained a few things about the castle and such, and was generally informative and nice.

We began our way down the winding path that led through "the duckery," which, as you may have surmised, was a lake area that housed many many ducks, swans, geese, and other waterfowl. Mainly ducks though, seeing as it is a duckery. We continued along the tree-lined walkway until we saw the lovely castle to our right. We walked up through the barbican area and noticed that they were setting up a funfair across the lake for the guy fawkes day fesitivities that were to occur the following night. After talking about how fun a fun fair would be, we went into the actual castle, and led ourselves around all the rooms.

The castle is particularly picturesque becuase it still has its moat, so it is surrounded by water; every window you look out has a water view. i would happily live there. Many of the rooms were quite nice, expecially the library which contained a great number of old british books, and a very fun sofa. The rooms had such elaborate woodwork and decoration, that i cannot possibly imagine how an artist could sit there and carve this same pattern over and over all throughout the room. Good for them. I have patience for this sort of thing, but i think that would probably test it...

There were 24 bedrooms , 23 of which were still used by "conference delegates." Who these delegates were, and what they conferred about, i do not know. All i know is that i want to be one now. Whenever we read information about a room it stated things like : this is where the conference delegates confer, this is where the delegates have tea, this is where the delgates relax and read old books, this is where the delegates play croquet, this is where the delegates make papier mache geese, this is where the delegates speak to one another only in rhyme, this is where the delegates do everything fun and interesting that you can't do in a castle because you are not a conference delegate.

I was slightly jealous.

I was a bit surprised when i looked out of one of the rooms for delegates and saw golfers swinging clubs about on the castle grounds. Apparently you can play golf here. So that's pretty fantastic.

After leaving the castle, we walked through the gardens where they had earlier harvested assorted gourds to decorate random areas of the castle and grounds. We passed by the dog collar museum, saying we would come back if there was time... laura did not seem very excited about this; i thought it was a fantastic idea.

We saw the aviary where random birds are housed, including some sort of loud parrot who wanted to eat Laura. He was hiding in the back corner the whole time while we read the sign outside his cage that stated "warning bids bite! " or something scary to that effect. We chuckled at its intensity. I moved onto the next cage , and the moment Laura stepped up to the cage of the previous bird, a loud flapping resonated and all of the sudden the bird dive bombed. It swooped in squawking loudly and slammed itself into the fence where it perched for a moment airing its anger. The moment i stopped laughing and came over to take a photo of it, it flew away in a huff. There was also another bird who had a sign near him that stated how he thought he was human and did not like other birds. The two birds situated near him apparently knew this, so they just squawked irritatingly at him and us for about 15 minutes. The human bird kept looking at them annoyedly : "really, now. stop that noise. i am trying to read".... he seemed to say.

After the aviary we moved onto the path that took us to the hedge maze. Huzzah! hedge maze! We saw the turf maze, which was a labyrinth. I tried to explain a turf maze to Laura but she did not seem to understand the point, or enjoy it. Which is understandable. It is not reall a maze, you see, for there is only one path to take and it is visible from the start. Labyrinths are more to do with introspection and reflection, rather than finding your way physically. Luckily, we followed that with the real hedge maze, after taking a quick look at the falcons and owls they housed. On our way into the hedge maze we saw two semi-elderly British men who looked at us, and said " You'll be in there for hours. positively hours." So we laughed and moved on. Apparently it takes most people 20 minutres. Apparently we are not most people.

Unfortunately we did not keep track of our time, but i was so excited to be in a hedge maze that i did not really want to find the center. Therefore, when Laura would point out that we had been down a path before, i would say " i know!' and run ahead anyway. Small children finished it before we did. The lady at the center offered us help, but we refused, for we were troopers. We do not give up. I saw our British friends looking at the maze from the hill above the maze and asked if they were cheating. They responded in a very amusing sing-songy voice with " Nooo. We've already finished".."We're clever" "We're boys." It was very funny. Shortly thereafter we managed to find the center of the maze. We stood triumphantly at the top of the hill in the center as the sun set and the crickets chirped. Just kidding. We weren't that terrible. The grotto at the center was so fantastic. It reminded me of the movie The Labyrinth, which you should all watch if you haven't already. After walking through the watery caverns of the grotto, we emerged outside the maze and made our way back to the entrance.

After a stop at the shop, we met with our snazzy bus driver and started the drive home. I promptly fell asleep, as i do on most public transport. I ate dinner when i got back, and Laura went to her friends play. We ended the day by going to pub where two of her friends joined us.

Moral of the story: whenever i get a house, i am creating a hedge maze.