Winchester Great Hall

The Winchester Great hall is the only surviving parts of the oldest, original Castle in Winchester. Something that alot of people don't realise is that Winchester was the capital of England for centuries, thus the concentration of public mediaeval buildings here.

One of the treasures in the Great Hall is the round table - which is fabled to be Arthurs actual round table. Its more likely to be King Edward 1s , as they have dated the oak it is made from to around the 1200s

Irregardless of who it belongs to, its a magnificent piece of furniture. It used to have twelve outer legs and an middle support, but obviously now its mounted on the wall, it doesn't!!  For those who want to know just how big it is... its 5.5 m in diameter and weighs 1200 kg.. far out huh?

Its been recorded as hanging in the hall since 1370. The painted top was done in the early reign of King Henry the eighth ( notice the tudor rose.. he was such a pompous prat wasn't he?)  

Stonehenge

I am just so excited that we have a home base less than 30 mins away from here.  I've just bought English Heritage passes for the year, which will allow us into a bunch of fantastic places all year...makes for some very inexpensive day trips out..

It was bitterly cold today, but my main outcome was to visit the new interpretive centre and check out the visitor centre which has caused such a whoo har.

The old visitors centre was dismal, especially for somewhere as worldly famous as Stonehenge.  I was very impressed with the exhibition and film they have there. The timeline they have is perfect for kinaesthetic and visual learners and they have a bunch of hands on touchy feely things.. The design team need a big thumbs up for accessing learning modes. 

From the photos you can see that its a very atmospheric day, chilly and thankfully not many tourists still.

i'll look forward to being able to sit on a mound and soak in the atmosphere and draw these stones in summertime.  till then!!

Lillys Arm out of a cast

Poor Miss Lilly has had a bit of rough spin with her broken wrist. The bones in the wrist were pointing the wrong way all together,so there were fears that she needed to get surgery to right it.

When we went in to get it checked a few weeks ago, the doctor was still of the opinion that she needed this to be done, but was letting it set for a few more weeks to see if it would right itself. 

Although they didn't take an xray, the doctor who looked at it was confident that it had set properly and all she now needed was flexibility and strengthening exercises to bring the muscle tone back.

The  major bummer about all of this was that the plaster technician at the Andover Hospital no longer works there, and we had to drive to Winchester to get this done and sorted.  Probably just as well we had nothing planned. 

The great outcome of it all is that we don't need to go back for another three months.