Open Writing

Still seeking pastures new, in 2000 Les and I took a holiday in Warwickshire in April, and enjoyed a day looking round Warwick Castle, and a picnic beside the river Avon.

In early May we flew to Portugal and had two weeks in the Algarve region, based at the Hotel Atlantis Villamoura. Enjoying several trips arranged by Saga, we went to south-western Portugal to the rocky coast around the port of Lagos and Cape St.Vincent.

The hotel was near a splendid beach and a fishing boat haven, where they landed their catch right on the beach and sold it nearby.

One day we went on a long coach trip to Seville and wandered round the grand plaza and into the cathedral and the Alcazar, a former Moorish palace and fort, with its beautiful gardens, similar to the Alhambra in Granada. The former minaret of the mosque is now the bell tower (or giralda) of the cathedral.

Back home again, in early June we went on a visit to Eltham Palace and the fine former home of the Courtauld family, with its elegant art deco settings. The Courtaulds first came to London in the 1680s, and were practising goldsmiths for three generations, until entering the weaving trade.

In the 1930’s the Courtaulds purchased the grounds of Eltham Palace with the medieval great hall, which they restored and incorporated into their house as a huge music room.

In July we celebrated our 55th wedding anniversary and went to stay at a Warner’s hotel on an old estate called Littlecote in the Cotswolds, near the village of Hungerford. It was a modern-built complex but still retaining the Old House, with its banqueting hall and chapel and low-ceilinged four-poster bedrooms. In the grounds was a near-perfect example of a mosaic floor at the site of a Roman villa.

In the autumn we holidayed in Nidderdale, East Yorkshire and stayed in the magnificent Nidd Hall in the rolling countryside of the Yorkshire Dales.

Before we came home south again from Yorkshire we looked over Harewood House and Skipton Castle.