An idiots guide to an Idiot: Castles etc

An idiots guide to an Idiot: Castles etc:  To extend our hols alittle Tara suggested finding an English Heritage place we haven't been to and finding somewhere to stop over night...

An idiots guide to an Idiot: Castles etc

An idiots guide to an Idiot: Castles etc:  To extend our hols alittle Tara suggested finding an English Heritage place we haven't been to and finding somewhere to stop over night...

Castles etc

 To extend our hols alittle Tara suggested finding an English Heritage place we haven't been to and finding somewhere to stop over night. We chose Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire.

Fascinating place, built in 1120 it was later owned by John of Gaunt (reading a very interesting book about him and the Beaufort family, lots of intrigue! A family who were at the seat of power in England for years) and was a favourite of Elizabeth I when Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester owned it. It was slighted (made undefendable & uninhabitable)  by the Parliamentarians in 1650.

There's still lots to see though some of the areas were closed off as it would be difficult to socially distance, we still spent a good couple of hours there, helped of course with a nice coffee and cake!

We stayed in Royal Leamington Spa though didn't look round the town , Stayed at a hotel that allowed dogs though only the rooms were open so we booked a pub for dinner. The Royal Pug! Nice enough, they were able to do gluten free pizzas so Tara had abit more of a choice which is always a bonus  and the beer was good! What wasn't so good was the social distancing here. It seemed to be very much a student aged pub. The beer garden/smoking area was rammed, though we were seated away from others it was difficult to keep any sort of distance from people when finding the toilet for instance. But we had a great weekend & will do it again.

    

Ella has been wanting a gettogether for ages and yesterday was the day! Weather was very nice so we could keep some kind of distancing, though to be honest I'm not sure what we should or shouldn't be doing now! Julian organised some darts which was good and  a grand time was had be all. Gary & Ellie had just set out on a Scottish road trip as weren't there and Tim already had a golf commitment so was there later on. Plenty of food of course including a really good fake fish pie that Alec & Laura bought over. Laura is vegan ( no not the pointy eared lot, there're Vulcan!) It used banana blossom instead of fish, sounds strange but tasted great, anyway it was a terrific day, its always a joy to meet up with our family! Next meet up will be the big 80 celebrations for Ella at the mini stately home type place near Towcester. Hope to hell there's no big flare up of Covid to bugger it up!