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We were on the road again this morning heading for Stirling in Scotland ... eventually. First we had to sit it out for a while in a major traffic jam on the M6 between Bolton and Preston. After we cleared that, we motored on to Kendall where we stopped at Sizergh Castle and Garden (a National Trust property) as planned - just an hour later than planned!!
We were too late to secure places for the guided tours of the house so we had to fill in some time until 1.00pm when general entry to the house commenced. Since it was lunchtime, we decided to eat and then headed into the grounds to start exploring the gardens.
We walked around to the back of the house and wandered around the lake, the wildflower bank, the rock garden, herbaceous border and kitchen garden before heading into the castle when the time ticked over to 1.00pm. The Sizergh Estate has been the family home of the Strickland's for over 750 years and is still lived in by the family today.
We're not sure quite how that works? I guess the property is signed over to the National Trust and then
they lease back their living quarters?? This arrangement means that the property is very personally decorated with family portraits dating back hundreds of years displayed alongside family photographs right up to the present day. One of the early Stricklands, I can't remember exactly which one (maybe Thomas?), campaigned tirelessly to bring about the end of slavery.
After going through the house we ventured back out into the gardens to the terrace wall and the Dutch garden before leaving via the Great Barn and returning to the car park.
In the car park we reprogrammed the SatNav for the B&B in Stirling. The rest of our journey on the M6/M74 and M73 was very smooth. When we turned off onto the A80 we encountered several miles of roadworks which slowed us down a bit, but was nowhere near as bad as the traffic jam on the M6 this morning!! We had estimated arriving in Stirling by 5.30pm and actually arrived at 5.40pm - not bad.
We signed in at the B&B and our host, Brian, recommended a restaurant called the 'Birds and Bees' for dinner. He booked a table for us and gave us a chit for a
10% discount. Hmmn, maybe we are just too fussy, but we thought that the restaurant was very average! It seemed like they were a bit short staffed?? We sat at a table opposite the bar which was absolutely full of dirty glasses and we waited a-g-e-s for our drinks to arrive. There was a guy in suit running around in circles achieving very little and our waitress seemed decidedly frazzled. Our food arrived reasonably quickly, but it was sooooo boring. Bernie's jambalaya was bland and I'm pretty sure the red wine jus on my lamb cutlets was out of a packet!!
After our uninspiring dinner we walked back to the B&B and then went out in the car to check out whether Stirling Castle is floodlit at night. It is, so we took night photos of yet another European landmark!!
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