...Because of castles, poets, Normans, and a Monk

Day 16:Had a lovely, but tiring day trip!  Spent most of the day out in the country, and the English countryside totally lives up to all the hype.  Rolling hills? Check. Trees? Check. Grazing sheep? Check. Blues skies? Check.  Light breeze? Check.  And the occasional ruin? Check.
First stop, Kent, to see Bodiam Castle.  Not really sure why we visited other than the fact that it is so pretty.  It's one of the few castles around that actually has a moat.  The drawbridge is gone, but there are still plenty of ducks.

The girls out front

(Becca, Nan, me, Lauren, Claire, Jani, Jenna, Natialie, Meegan)

Inside the Courtyard

Up top! A tad windy!

(Meegan, me, Lauren, Nan, Jani, Claire, Bethany)

The view from the top.

Following was a quick trip to Sussex to see Bateman's, Rudyard Kipling's (he's a wartime poet) family home.  We first toured the inside of the house with about 50 other geriatrics...seriously it was like senior citizen discount day or something(see picture below). The remainder of our time was spent in the gardens.  I really liked them, they were lovely.  Oh and we got to see his Rolls Royce too.

Back of the house

(Molly, Grace, Mackenzie, Morgan, Olivia, Devri, me, Becca, Nan, Jani, Lauren, Jenna, Natalie, Andrea)

Rose Garden

Hedgerows

(Nan, me, Becca, Jenna, Natalie)

(me, Anne-pronounced like Annie, Brianna)

The garden out front

(Brianna, Jenna, Natalie, and Myself) 

Belle-esque bookself inside

(I will have one in my house-with the sliding ladder)

A picture taken at random.  Told you everyone was old.

Up next Battle Abbey and the field where the Battle of Hastings was fought.  A small part of the group did a quick walking tour of the battle field ( I know what you're thinking, battle field....tour....what's there to see?  Honestly, grass.  However had we done the full audio tour we'd've heard a reenactment.  As it was we just read the signs and had the Seely's tell us about it.)  And then we spent just a few minutes seeing the ruins (after all they all start looking the same). 

What the invading Normans would have seen. 

(minus the helicopter...) 

Funny how they won even when they had the disadvantage of marching up the hill.

More Battle Abbey ruins

And another

We rounded out the day's travel with a stop at Monk house, the summer home of Virginia Wolfe.  Her house was cute, and the yard bigger than expected but I wasn't that into it and was done after about 15-20 minutes.  Perhaps if I read her stuff it would have been cool to "pay homage" to her but we haven't studied her yet.   The only thing I took away was that she loaded her coat with rocks one day and drowned herself in the town's river.  Cheery isn't it?

The front...looks like a normal house.

Arrived home and got 5 pounds to buy dinner with…we bought magnum bars. 

Xoxo!