Trereife House

On Easter Monday Davina and I went to visit Trereife House (of Country House Rescue fame). It was the last day of their four-day Easter Fair. Having seen the house and heard some of its history on the TV program, we thought it was a good chance to see it for ourselves. We had a lovely day.

This is the original front of the house , which is now at the back

This is what they about themselves:

Trereife House (pronounced Treave), a beautiful centuries old family owned Estate, steeped in history, is being lovingly restored by the 7th generation family and is now open to the public.

The house and grounds offer an unforgettable setting for almost any occasion, warmly hosted by the Le Grice family, Tim, Liz, Georgie and Pete and their faithful hound Duke.

The predominantly Queen Anne Manor House, which in parts dates back to the reign of Elizabeth 1, and the formal gardens, are set in rolling grounds, in the stunning countryside just outside Penzance,  South West Cornwall.

More info at:

http://www.trereifepark.co.uk/house/

During the TV program Tim Le Grice comes over as a bit bonkers, he is a bit eccentric, but not bonkers. He is a man who has been trying everything to keep his family home, but mostly his ideas have not worked. But, after Ruth Watson’s input things have begun to change for the better.

Davina in one of the renovated en-suites

We were fortunate enough to join in a tour of the house which Tim was giving, so we met Tim, Liz, and Duke (briefly). Tim gave a fascinating tour. He is steeped in his family history and it was a really interesting time.

The fair was good; we had a bottle of Raspberry cider and a Meze Plate (Falafel Salad) for lunch, which we enjoyed whilst sitting on a lawn in front of the house. The weather was beautiful, so it felt almost perfect.

Thanks to the Le Grice family we had a really good day.

Smiling Monkey

You may have noticed that I have been playing around with my blog, I have changed the design and added some pages.


But the biggest change is that I now have a picture of a Smiling Monkey:

It was designed specifically for me by SilverNikNats, I love it. It means I don't have to use a copyrighted picture that other people use. He's all mine.


Thanks very much SilverNikNats. 


I am sure there will be other changes to my blog. I am thinking about adding a book review page, but that means I have to do more reading!




By the way, thanks to those who were visiting Zoos to try and get me a picture of a monkey smiling, you can stop now.

Tracking Travis

You may remember that towards the end of last November I blogged about Travis, a new born calf, who was delivered by caesarian.


There were concerns about the health of Travis and his mother because of the difficult birth and the fact  that she fell over during the procedure and was prone to infection.


This is Travis about 30 seconds after he was born:

Well, four and half months on I am happy to tell you that Travis and his mum are doing very well.


Here he is:

And just to show you how much he has grown, here he is with his mum:

Ahhh

Isn't he fantastic!

Garden Hopping!

What is ‘Garden Hopping’?

This is a definition from the Urban Dictionary:

1. Garden hopping

Usually a nocturnal pursuit, garden hopping is where a small group start in one garden and try to get across as many adjacent gardens as possible via any means available.

Me and my mates went garden hopping last night from my garden, we managed to go through 12 gardens, much further than we did last time.

This is a quote from  ‘Garden Hopping: Memoir of an Adoption’ by Jonathan Rendall:

Garden hopping was when you leapt through a line of people's gardens in the dead of night. Only a few boys did it. The air rushed through you. You were like a phantom. You could have been anyone.

And this is video from YouTube, with a demonstration:

Why am I telling you all this? Well it is because we have been ‘Hopped'. There has, apparently, been a spate of Garden hopping in Truro.

On Saturday morning I got up to find destruction in our garden (a bit of an exaggeration), some panels from the top of our garden fence had been broken and were lying in the garden in bits:

My prized Sambucus Nigra was almost destroyed:

I've done some repairs on it since, and wait to see if will recover.

If the 'Hopper' had done his homework he would have discovered that the wooden fence had been in place for many years and was full of rot.

I do hope the perpetrator did not break his leg (well, not in too many places).

He wasn't  much like a phantom more like a fairy elephant, a neighbour saw him moving away at about 4.00am, but couldn't tell whether he was limping or not.