The Big House

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I am not sure that we can attribute any day numbers to the blog at the moment, would it be the day number for the day we originally left the country or should we have day numbers for this particular trip? I shall ponder that thought.

Our Friday night brought a visit with our friends Julian and Alison in West Winterslow, they own an old public house, long since converted to a lovely home, I could not be exact but their house is hundreds of years old, Andy used to motorcycle with Julian, and these guys were a planned visit in our schedule, before they went off on their own holidays.

We arrived and after hugs and kisses just sat down and started the conversation as if we had never been away.

Alison had cooked a lovely meal and it was great fun to catch up on what had been happening in their lives, I think we only managed to chat until about 10.30 when the tiredness to the better of us and we were soon after tucked up in bed and slept the whole night.

We had breakfast with Julian and Alison the next morning, Alison had been up early to feed the Horses she owns, as usual we had had a fantastic time, but the tour had to roll on and we had some more visiting to do, so after more hugs and kisses left their beautiful country pad on route to our next stop.

We drove to the market town of Romsey (Hampshire) to see if Len and Sarah (Dupont) were in, Andy lodged with them when he first moved to Southampton, in 1986, they were really kind to Andy and he loved staying with them.

As Len and Sarah’s children had left home the room that Andy rented was their daughters old room, she was away as she was a professional ballet dancer with the Royal Ballet.

Pauncefoot House, is really old a grade II listed building and is dated back to the 17^th Century, we have a huge place in our hearts for Len and Sarah, and Pauncefoot House as when we got married at Romsey Abbey in 1990 we were deliberating where we would most like to spend our wedding night and Andy said there would only be one place in his mind and that would be Pauncefoot House.

I think Len and Sarah were delighted, I know we were and when we got back from our wedding celebrations, the room had been beautifully prepared and the bed was covered in Rose Petals with a bottle of Champagne for company, it was the most perfect place to start off our married life.

They live in Pauncefoot House, on Lord and Lady Romsey’s, Broadlands Estate. The current lord Romsey, now lord Brabourne’s, father was Lord Louis Mountbatten, (1st Viceroy of India) who was sadly killed by the IRA in 1979.

When we arrive at the house, the first thing that hits you is the beautiful garden and the glorious house overlooking the estate and the market town of Romsey. When we knock the door, we are greeted by Sarah’s Husband Len as Sarah is in the kitchen chopping up bars of chocolate into fine pieces, I ask her what she is making, Sarah replied “chocolate brownies”, “ooooh!” needless to say that once they finished cooking we had a piece with a nice cup of tea, much to Len’s dismay as they are both on a diet and today is one of their low calorie days. “Sorry Len, those brownies were gorgeous as they came out of the oven, hot, tasty and gooey chocolate.”

Now if you read back on our blog to the start, and look at the Blog Title,(The longest farewell tour since the Rolling Stones) Dated 07/11/2008, there is a paragraph in this blog, that shows how important Pauncefoot house was in our lives, just before we left the UK on our Australian adventure.

From our Blog 07/11/2008

We went to bed last night at 11.00 still busy until the last minute, despite all of our planning. What seemed like 5 minutes later Andy was calling me to wake up as it was 4.00am (you have to be kidding me??). So Andy dutifully made me a cup of tea while I eased myself into the morning..... but I could not take my time with that as the taxi was due at 5.00. So a few last minute changes in our packing we were ready, the taxi arrived and bang on time we pulled out of the driveway at Pauncefoot House at 5.00 leaving the rest of the household in peace (we hoped that we did not make too much noise).

Len and Sarah looked really well, their B&B business is going well and the house and Garden as we have said is looking just beautiful, if you ever want to stay in an amazing Country B&B then look Len and Sarah up at www.Pauncefoothouse.co.uk

This trip is really shaping up to be a big eating fest! If everyone feeds us like this we will be doing just fine, except that all my hard work in exercising by walking up Mount Ainslie and around Lake Burley Griffin will be challenged.

Finally our Sunday morning brings a long awaited trip to Marks and Spencer, one of my favourite shops and I really do miss it, I know I can shop online but it’s just not the same as being able to touch and feel.

Once we had entered through the doors it was like walking into a shopping wonderland, we split up so that we could both concentrate on our own needs, eventually meeting up at one of the tills, I won’t talk about the bill, but ouch!

Later that day we headed back up to Basingstoke to spend some more time with Jon and Loraine as we only had a brief stop on the way through last week, our evening meal was at a lovely Chinese restaurant in Basingstoke, one that is indeed frequented by Jon and Loraine and when we went in we were all made to feel very welcome.

Monday, a public holiday here in England and a well deserved treat of a proper English Breakfast, a short shopping trip into Basingstoke, of which Jon hated until we stopped for a coffee.

One thing that I have noticed about being back in England is that MacDonald’s doesn’t have McCafe, that is a little disappointing as they really do good coffee (and Chai latte) in Australia and I have come to realise that you don’t get the same range of coffee over here, no one seems to do a skinny flat white and it confuses the barista.

A walk around the village that afternoon, helped walk off the good breakfast that we ate and of course that night, a welcome drink at the Fox, followed by another scrummy roast dinner.

Tuesday morning it was business as usual and another house visit took place, followed by some other chores like the bank etc. and back to my Mum and Dad’s for another overnight stop. It feels like we were using their place as a hotel, but then that’s probably what we did when we were children anyway. I guess there is an element of using everyone’s house as a hotel on this trip, for which we are truly grateful.

That evening we met some friends at a pub in town for a drink before dinner, we used to motorcycle with Chris and Willemien, (Willy) and as with everyone as soon as we walked in apart from hugs and kisses it was as if the conversation just continued where we left off.

We went to a steak house for our dinner that evening, Andy ordered Ribs, but when they turned up there were too rather large portions of ribs, they looked a bit like ribs from The Flintstones, I was surely expecting Barney and Fred to appear at any moment. Needless to say there was no way that Andy was going to eat them all but that was not helped by the portion of nachos that we started with.

Heading back to Wetherspoons for a cup of coffee before going our separate ways, Andy ordered the coffee and the lady behind the bar asked for £3.40, Andy queried this as it seemed rather cheap for four cups of coffee, but she assured him that was correct and stated that they were not some fancy boutique coffee shop.

We spent a great evening catching up with Chris and Willy but it all went too quickly, as usual and it was time to go.

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Photos

Pauncefoot House,Romsey
What a great place to start our married life from back in 1990,then to start our new Australian life back in 2008,how amazing is that

Len & Sarah
Even before Kangaroojack,was even conceived, Len and Sarah played a massive part in our life.

At the steps
Lenny and Sarah at the steps of Pauncefoot House,

Comments

[taracloud]

So picturesque!
What a grand holiday--charming houses, good friends and wonderful food! Great photos even though clearly, you've got some typical British weather. Happy travels!