Today’s my birthday! 44, a nicely symmetrical number, I say. I woke up early, that’s handy because Mom calls me at six thirty, forgetting the time difference. Arne makes my breakfast, I get to pick the music and there’s thoughtful gifts at the breakfast table, a delightful start to the day.
We have three options for today and we decide to tackle them in sequence of opening hours. First up, opening at ten am, is Old Sarum. It’s another Iron Age hill fort, but this one was subsequently also used by the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings and the Normals. Busy place! The earth works from the Iron Age here are bivallate (I just learned this word myself from a wiki site, it means a double circuit) ramparts, enclosing an area of 300 by 400 meters. Inside there is another defensive mound with the remains of a Normal castle, it honestly looks like a big cherry on top of a cake. The weather is great today, sunny with a slight wind, we might even get to 30°C. I took one of Arne’s shirts from home especially for sunny weather: the high collar and long sleeves protect my skin from the sun (even if I fold up the sleeves a few times) but it’s still light enough to keep me from overheating.
We follow the informational plaques around the site and take our time enjoying the views over the surrounding landscape and the city of Salisbury nearby. A nearby airfield is being used to drop parachuters, one group after the other. They dot the sky over the fort while the plane comes around, flying low towards the grassy runway. I think we see that plane go up four or five times while we were there, must be a big group.
It’s about noon when we finish our tour, next up is Wilton House. I already checked and they have a café, so that’s the first thing we visit when we arrive on the grounds. I have a homemade lemonade and a Caesar salad, 17£ and not a big portion, but tasty. A staff member comes up to us after we’ve finished eating to ask our feedback: apparently we’re the first customers to try this new item on their menu.
Well fortified, we tackle the visit of Wilton House first. It’s the private home of the Earl of Pembroke, which is opened to the public each summer. Aside from the beautiful architecture and fancy furniture (Chippendale, anyone?), it’s famous for its art collection. We see a whole room of Van Dyck’s, a Rembrandt, a Holstein, a few Breughels the Younger, and many other beautiful works from less well known artists. The trompe-l’oeil on the ceiling is gorgeous, the amount of china (local stuff, as well as actual antique ceramics from China) unreal, .. I wonder how much it costs to ensure all this and what kind of fire safety systems they had to install.
This too is a famous filming location, for example scenes of The Crown and Bridgerton were filmed in the rooms or on the grounds. It’s discreetly mentioned on the web site and the guides in each room do have more info, but there’s no flaunting the fact with big posters or prints like we saw at Highclere. One of the guides sneers politely, like Brits can, that Bridgerton is not very accurate historically, but they do get some people who don’t care about Van Dyck and only want to see the filming locations.
We exit the house to discover the grounds. There’s families having a picnic, kids playing football on the lawn, people wading in the stream, it’s a great atmosphere. We too are tempted by the shallow water and a few of us wade in. It’s pretty rocky, but the cold water feels great swirling around my hot and tired feet. We dry our feet, put on an extra layer of sunscreen and then amble on. The landscaping is pretty simple, but it feels bucolic, with all the kids scampering about.
We finish our day out with a quick look around the classic car collection and then dessert around four: a chocolate milkshake for me, various ice creams and cakes around the table. We make a shopping list and delegate a foraging team. I drive home with the teens and a senior over quiet country roads. I’m happy that one of the teens is assisting with navigating, so I can focus on the left, left left! job. At the cottage, I can relax, write my journal entry, take a shower, while the others tackle a game of Seven Wonders with the Armada extension, which literally takes hours and, oddly enough for a strategy game, requires a lot of negotiating, cursing and shouting. Arne is making mac & cheese (my favourite) as I write this around eight pm, I suspect there might be bubbles in the fridge, so I’ll wrap up here and enjoy my birthday dinner!
Febe writes 