Hey everybody, I hope that you are enjoying the last days of summer in the northern hemisphere / winter in the southern. We are good but It is scary out there - please share your coping / resistance strategies. 🙏
We flew back to London from the Isle of Man on August 14th. We had 4 weeks of pet sits in southern England booked starting in Kent. ✈️
Never experienced an empty train car in London and got a surprise when we picked up our rental car - manual transmission! 😱
The house consists of the medieval great hall of a former royal residence, to which an Art Deco extension was added in the 1930s. The hammerbeam roof of the great hall is the third-largest of its type in England.
The home was decorated internally in the Art Deco style. The entrance hall was created by Swedish designer Rolf Engströmer; light floods in from a glazed dome, highlighting blackbean veneer and figurative marquetry. ☀️
Other rooms in the house, including the dining room, drawing room and Virginia Courtauld's circular bedroom and adjoining bathroom, were the work of the Italian designer Piero Malacrida de Saint-August, while Seely and Paget designed many of the bedrooms. ⚜️
My photo of his cage didn't show the ladder in the back for him to roam the house. Could you imagine?! 🙀
The ceiling in the medieval hall was indeed impressive. The couple had an addition made during repairs (their beloved lemur in plaster). 💜
We drove the rest of the way to Canterbury in Kent and looked forward to exploring the peninsula along the North Sea / English Channel. 🗺️
We were excited to meet Monty, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, who we were watching for the next 9 days. He looked a lot like this emoji. 🐶
We spent a rainy morning in Faversham. ☔️
And a much nicer day in Whitstable. 😎
The church down the road from us held a tea and cakes session on Sunday afternoons. Since it was on a bike/walk path, they did a good business (despite my empty photo). 🍰
We took Monty with us to see the White Cliffs of Dover. 🚙
We also took a trip over to Margate and made a stop a the Turner Contemporary which had only one JMW Turner painting. 🤔
And some gorgeous and creative student artwork from local schools. 👩🎨
Some of the colorful Margate architecture. 📸
There was a very pretty golden sand beach ... I could imagine the crowds on a sunny summer day. 🏖️
We went back to Dover (sans Monty) to tour the Dover Castle. 🏰
We stopped for lunch at the very old White Horse Inn (started in 1365, 1574, 1635 ... who knows?). 🍻
The walls and ceilings were covered with names of people and teams who swam the English Channel from Dover to Calais (some both ways!). My favorite was Lynn 'the fin' Hawkins. 🏊🏻♀️
Another beautiful day in Whitstable. ✨
We said goodbye to Monty and started the drive west to Somerset for a three week pet sit. We missed him right away! 🐾
It was a beautiful drive through the English countryside (even with a manual transmission and the gears on the left side). 🚙
