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Published: June 27th 2011
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Marilyn and Jim were off to an 80th birthday party this afternoon so we set out for Hampton Court Palace on our own. The satellite navigation in the car was relied on today to get us there!! Bernie has a new strategy to help me stay awake in the car - have me use the mi-fi and the iPad to review the destination that we are heading for!! The technology that allows us to drive through London logged onto the internet is amazing.
Even though it was late Saturday morning by the time we arrived, we managed to get a park without any trouble. When we reached the Palace entrance one of the re-enactments was about to commence so we joined in as Margaret Arundell (nee Howard) welcomed us to court to join the Royal household of the new Queen, Catherine Howard. We were whisked through the Great Hall to the Great Watching Chamber where we witnessed the new Queen flirting with Francis Dereham, but we were sworn to secrecy ... if we wanted to gain good positions in the new court!!
After this diversion we returned to Base Court to collect our audio guides so that we could
make our own way around the rest of the palace. We visited Henry VIII's kitchens first and then his apartments. As we finished that section of the palace we actually caught a glimpse of the great man himself as he headed for the Master Carpenter's Court for a 1.00pm re-enactment.
After beef and ale pies in the Privy Kitchen Café we visited Mary II's apartments, William III's apartments and Young Henry VIII's story. With the afternoon getting away from us we ventured out into the gardens before it was too late. We walked along the side of the Privy Garden and then around past the Banqueting House, the Pond Gardens and the Lower Orangery Garden.
Next we headed to the Great Fountain Garden before racing through The Wilderness to The Maze. We couldn't visit Hampton Court Palace without attempting its famous maze. We mucked around for a while 'lost' in the maze, but then made sure we kept the wall of the maze on our right hand side so that we could find our way to the centre of the maze ... and the way out. On our way back to the car we strolled through the rose
garden, but unfortunately, the roses were past their best. We never seem to be in the right place at the right time for roses!!
On the drive back to Pinner, I started checking out some places of interest that we could visit on our drive over to the south of Wales. Being fans of Midsomer Murders, I have discovered that we would not need to go far out of our way to drive through Wallingford, aka Causton.
A bit more blogging this evening to try to get a bit closer to being up-to-date while we have free and reliable internet access (thanks, Jim). Even though the mi-fi is working really well and doesn't seem to be using up our data allowance too quickly we have heard that coverage in the south of Wales is notoriously unreliable!! Apparently there are a few big mountains in the way??!
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