Best of Britain

We lucked out big time and spent the ten day Easter holidays in England where incredibly the sun shone every single day and temperatures reached an April record of 28 degrees.

It was an idyllic time. We stayed with a very good, old friend and her family in the beautiful village of Bosham, near Chichester. After enjoying an al fresco lunch including delicious West Sussex strawberries (the best I have ever tried) we walked around the estuary and past The Holy Trinity church which dates back to the tenth century. Canute the Great’s daughter apparently drowned nearby and is supposedly buried in the church. Legend also has it that Bosham was where Canute commanded the waves to “go back” to show his courtiers the limits of a King's powers.

We then spent three days ‘glamping’ at Canfields, an organic featherdown farm near Horsham www.featherdown.co.uk . I held a chicken, the girls were able to bottle-feed lambs, search for eggs in the chicken coup, attempt to catch and hold baby quails, watch newborn calves feed from their mothers and help cook breakfast, lunch and supper on an open fire. On the Thursday night the farm owners lit a bread oven where we cooked joints of organic beef from the farm, corn on the cob and piping hot jacket potatoes. The tents were lit with candles and lanterns and had proper beds with duvets.  The fridge was a large chest which you kept cool with frozen hot water bottles.

The service was impeccable. For instance, when the honesty shop ran out of bread, the owner personally baked us a loaf, delivered it to our tent and didn’t charge us. The only downside was that this particular farm is located quite close to Gatwick and at times the planes are a bit irritating.

We spent the Royal wedding day at my parents’ house where all eyes were glued to the screen for the arrival of the guests and their outfits (extravagant hats off to Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice!) The bride looked stunning as did Pippa (Her Royal Hotness as I understand she is now called) and the service was very emotional particularly with the aerial shots from the rafters of Westminster Abbey. It was a great day to be in England.

It was certainly a best of Britain week because Dad and I also managed to fit in a steam train ride to Stratford-Upon-Avon on 23 April through www.steamdreams.co.uk. It was quite an experience to spend a day with train enthusiasts – many had stopwatches to record the ‘actual’ time between stations and the maximum speed reached (74 miles per hour!)   It was St. George’s Day and Shakespeare’s birthday so Stratford was heaving so after exploring the main sites I was glad to sit down to enjoy a refreshing glass of Pimms. The others, meanwhile, spent a day at www.paultonspark.co.uk, a theme park near Southampton which has just opened a section called ‘Peppa Pig World’. The Peppa Pig element was unanimously given the thumbs down - badly organised, long queues etc. But the rest of the park was a blast.

And we are now back in Mallorca where the plants are bursting with colour after all that rain they had while we were away!

Charlie