Monday 5/3

All right, let's kill day 10.

The best part of the day was waking up at midnight to the fire alarm going off because somebody burnt their toast...NOT. After that, though, it was good. We watched the news while eating breakfast, where we learned about the car bomb in NYC and all the latest election news.

To change it up a little, our first stop of the day was at Weston's Cider Mill, where we took a tour of all the stages of making cider (and when I say that, I mean in the alcoholic, Irish sense, not the Halloween kind), including tastings afterward. That was definitely the closest I've ever been to being tipsy--and I wasn't even close.

There was also an exotic pet section, where they had a bunch of random animals, including the lame drayhorse Nobby. He's huge!

See?

After another pub lunch (with AMAZING dessert), we headed to Hellen's House, which was built almost 1,000 years ago. While waiting for the tour to start, we got a chance to talk to the owner, who explained how it passed into his family's hands. They actually sleep in the old beds that you're shown in the tour, which were used way way back when.

Monks used to live in the area and walk down the road to the church twice a day, which is why it's called the Monks' Walk now. There are tons of other good stories, but not all pleasant. For instance, one daughter a couple of centuries ago was left with only a sister after her two brothers died. She, Harriet, fell in love with a worker and ran away with him for two years. They're not sure whether he left her or he died, but either way she had to come back because she didn't know how to live on her own. Her mother was so angry that she locked her in her room for the rest of her life--30 years. She had a cord in her room that rang a bell to call a servant if she needed food or something. Understandably, she went a little crazy, and used a diamond to write all over the window panes. Because of a bomb that was dropped on the house during World War II, only one small piece is left, but what it says basically says that if she could have gone back and done it again, she wouldn't have. How awful.

There are all sorts of great artifacts, famous paintings, and memories of famous visitors in there, but I can't remember it all. You'll just have to visit!

Here's the stable house, which attached to the house in the past 50 years.
I totally called this before the tour!! This is part of the original defensive wall of the house--I saw the crenellations on the top and wondered. Heh, good thing I took that castle class!
The original front door, which is still the front to this day.

And the "front" as designed by one post lady in the 1600s. It was meant to mimic fancy houses of the time, including the garden and fake gate seen above. Nobody uses it.
And randomly, an amazingly awesome swing! I want one, please!!

And then it was home for the end of snooker, which meant that I found out the next morning that the guy I was rooting for in snooker lost to some arrogant Australian with bad hair...boo. Better luck next year dude. And then sleep.

Getting there...