May…may be

The month of May in England…may be sunny, or wet.  It may be easy to get around, or not. There may be a clothes dryer where you’re staying, or it may just be a machine that tumbles your wet laundry around and around for a few hours until you give up and drape the well-stewed garments over the piping hot towel rack in the bathroom.

But there’s no doubt about how lovely the farm you’re staying at will be.Farm

Nor how, if the building is at all old, you’ll spend hours staring up at ceiling Roof

and marveling at the massive beams:

Beam

At the end of it, you’ll need a while on the river in a punt, talking to the ducks as you head for a pint at the pub behind the trees:

Vicky arms

 

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7 Comments

  1. Chris on May 12, 2015 at 2:29 am

    Ah but you love it, really…! I had wonderful, sunny (and blustery) weather in Sussex last week, so even getting blown backwards along the beach in Hastings was – interesting;-) Enjoy your time here – mini-heat-wave today!

    Chris

  2. Nina Houghton on May 12, 2015 at 5:04 am

    I miss it! I love the smell of Spring in England!

  3. Merrily Taylor on May 12, 2015 at 6:33 am

    Oh, I am so, so jealous!!!!!! The only comfort I have is that Alice and I will be there in September!

  4. Patti Lounsbury on May 12, 2015 at 7:58 am

    Ah, but it brings back wonderful memories of Scotland in a long ago November. Strolling along the Firth of Clyde on a drizzly day, crunching the ice that was forming along the edges and later meeting up with everyone at the pub for a rollicking sing-along. Some of the days were even warm enough to wander the hills watching the ‘hippie coos’ (Ayrshire cattle) ambling along.

  5. Linda Hay on May 12, 2015 at 7:34 pm

    Thanks for the reminder about laundry challenges. I’m heading over in Sept. I use Ex Officio quick dry underwear, and shirts, slacks etc. of a similar nature, all well tested before leaving home by being washed in sinks and dried over the towel bar. I also try to stay at youth hostels (for the quality of their laundry facilities and the drying rooms common in the ones popular with ramblers who come in from hiking all day in the rain with soggy boots, sodden backpacks, and rain jackets dripping both insides and out..

    A week volunteering on the North York Moors with the National Trust, which involved both rain and falling into bogs for 6 days in July taught me some of that. It is also wise to travel with polar fleece for the entire body in the UK whatever the month because it dries so fast. I even have a few pieces of “formal polar fleece” for civilized situations. About three years ago, walking in Ireland at this time of year, I encountered snow and hail and an 80 degree day on my first and last days on the Wicklow Way.

    Have a great time!

  6. Margaret Pinard on May 13, 2015 at 9:49 am

    I’m glad someone else was joining me in my blustery, dreich trek over the water! I was visiting the Outer Hebrides for the first time, and prepared for the Flood. But the few times when the sun came out and bathed everything in light… priceless, wouldn’t you say? 😉

  7. Kristin on May 14, 2015 at 4:01 am

    I’d forgotten the challenges of laundry in the U.K. Polar fleece does make a difference…and the “brolly” and shoes that are still comfortable when sodden. Somehow, that is not what I remember, even though my pictures show lots of bundled and somewhat soggy figures smiling through the mist. And doesn’t tea taste better for being sipped in one of those “drying out” afternoons?

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