We sleep until 8:15. That’s exceptional, taking the time difference into account. Tim, however, was awake at 5:15 and is reading a book for three hours.
We wanted to leave at 9, but that’s ambitious taking the needed river dip, breakfast and packing of the car into account. We leave at 9:30 instead.
Our first stop of the day is a picture perfect Cotswald village famous for Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice and Downton Abbey sceneries. The National Trust owns nearly the entire village, its preservation explains our feeling of being trapped in time.
There is also a scarecrow trail throughout the city. The kids like the stuffed creatures so much that Zeno tears off the head of a mouse in his enthusiasm. Olga puts it back on, and after a short speech about care, hands on your back, and don’t touch anything ever again, we continue our walk to the abbey.
Lacock Abbey is a beautiful property with a long history dating back to the 13th century. Its origins may have been as a nunnery/abbey, but it became converted into a Tudor family home in the 16th century, and remained so until 1944, when the Talbot family gave the estate to the National Trust.
Some regard Lacock Abbey as the birthplace of modern photography, given that it was here that William Henry Fox Talbot pioneered the idea of using photographic negatives to produce multiple prints on paper.
The visit of the abbey starts with a museum about William Henry Fox Talbot and the history of photography, including prints with hard to distinguish portraits. The top floor houses an exhibition of photos by the photographer Martin Parr who did a series in the village just before died last year.
A large part of the abbey is a funny mixture of abbey and living space as the grand hall and the southern wing were converted into a manor. It is here that the first negative photograph was taken. The kids get a backpack with a camera obscura and see the abbey upside down.
Around the back is the entrance to the cloister. This brings back memories of the Harry Potter movies, we recognize Snape’s class room and Hogwarts’ corrdiors from the first couple of movies.
Back in the village, we follow the scarecrow / stuffed animal trail through the village and see the house of Harry’s parents, Slughorn’s hide away and some street scenes.
As it’s luch time already, we visit a nearby Lidl (our favourite supermarket because of the great fruit and vegetables and vegetarian selection including humus). Tim does an extra navigation check as his offline nav app can be overly optimistic. Sadly this is the case, what should be a 3 our drive looks like a 5 hour drive due to massive traffic jams on the highway.
We skip all the other sites we had planned for the day, get some extra provisions, and jump back in the car. It’s busy on the road, 36 degrees outside, and a long afternoon of driving, traffic jams, backroads, tractors, roundabouts with 800 M of traffic jam because the British don’t dare to enter it, and patient kids entertaining themselves while Tim directs us to Wales.
At 17.30 we finally arrive at our holiday park for a week of relaxing at the seaside with the option to visit brilliant castles and go on beautiful mountain hikes. But for today, dinner and running around in the holiday park is enough.
We have a playground next to our caravan which is excellent for the kids to enjoy themselves. Cleo tells proud she introduced herself to another child, telling her name, Zeno’s name, her age, country and language. We teach her how to ask for the name and language of other kids, and support her braveness to talk in English on a foreign playground.
The kids take their first shower after a week of swimming in the sea, rivers and pools. We watch the first half of Belgium-Spain and call it a day.
Fijn dat Cleo leert vanuit verschillende perspectieven te denken: links rijden, Engels zinnetjes, met voetballen zijn we woensdag voor Nederland, donderdag voor Belgie en zaterdag voor Engeland.
Maar voor Zeno is de wereld daarom wat verwarrend. Goed dat een pizza houvast geeft.