It was a very sunny day when we woke up to get ready, but really when we got outside it had a rather uncomfortable chill. We wrapped ourselves up in our cardigans after dropping William off at school, and climbed out of the car at Wimpole, which is a hall, walled garden, and a playground and farm. We met up with Katie there, and bought a packed lunch including the treat we only get at our friends’ houses – smoothies and juice!”
Once we had made our way up to the house, I was already exclaiming, “Is this the one with the clocks? The clocks, Mummy, the clocks?” because of my strange obsession with clocks which started when I saw a rather ornate and large grandfather clock. Each clock that I see I shout, “Look! It’s so tiny and intricate!” or “- How big and vast it is! Look at its pendulum!” I don’t know how it happened, but right now, I’ve pretty much settled it that I’m going to be a clock architect when I’m older.
So when I saw the grandfather clock in the first room for the second time, my mind was exploding with the thoughts of how I remembered it, but it was entirely different. Each clock was fiddled with a beautiful pattern I barely thought I’d seen before; golden and brown, or black and green, with amazing wooden embroidery, and large or small pendulums. I even had a secret interesting lecture about the inside and outside of clocks with the ladies who were winding carefully to the correct time. They showed me into the Staff part where only Staff are allowed where there’s a huge clock! It was fun. It had a gigantic pendulum and it was beautiful.
When we left the hall, we walked straight down for lunch – it was twelve and anyhow we had had our breakfast at about half seven…late for normal people, but early for Vinnie-Kinnie-Beddy-Bies! So with our lunch, we set off to the farm and saw loads of pigs and cows and oh, the smell! It was a mixture of hay and manure and pig, with a hint of dung and grubby straw. You get used to it after a while, but when you come face-to-face with a rack of pigs twice the size of you it fumes up your nostrils like mad..I even saw a middling-aged pig licking up his own number one, and a different fatter one eating up someone else’s number two!
We played in the old pigsty, and made pathways and cleared holes. Once the holes in the side of the metal roof were finished, we stuffed straw down them like shoots, and those shoots were practically our hoovers! Now that the floor was cleared up, it was time to decorate the outside. We created a little pathway on either side of the doors out of logs, and were planning on making wooden beds inside when we were distracted by the haybales nearby…
When we left to go home, we were all exhausted! We picked William up from school and came home. Right now, I’m writing this while staring at the time on the oven for our vegetable bake – 17:08..17:07..17:06..
