☆ Castles in the Sky ♬

Because we haven't been on a traditional Family vacation this year, we decided to visit various locations in England, well, sticking mainly to the East of England. The weather is always better, okay? England is full of decent history, full of fairy tale scenery and -- as long as the weather permits, beautiful blue sky and greenery.

We went to visit Tatershall Castle, July 9th to be exact. I have been here once, but this was close enough to twenty years ago (gross, am I showing my age yet?) It's rather depressing that my first thought is: How many people died here? Thus giving you that spooky aura of walking over graves, being followed by spirits and BLAH. But the day was too nice to even have negative thoughts! Here is a photo:

 

Many people expect castles to look how they do in Disney movies, big and luxurious. Looks tiny from the outside in my photo, but it is HUGE inside with plenty of rooms inside that makes you wonder what happened in that room, and what it was used for. The first room I discovered was actually a toilet, which was just a hole in some brick-seating, I suspect the toilet seat had been removed and filled with cement to stop people actually using it!

 

We climbed the bazillion thousand hundred million steps to the top, well 150 steps to be roughly accurate, no I didn't count. The view from above was stunning! It shows how flat Lincoln is too, no tall concrete jungles, the only things piercing the skylines were Churches. This is one of the few things I miss while in Japan, is lush greenery of open fields with a skyline that rolls on forever with nothing blocking your view.

 

Then we walked all the way back down to the bottom again! I took a photo but to fit as much in I had to squat down and it still doesn't capture everything hoped for. Once we reached the bottom, we did venture into the cellar, which was just a rather large open space probably used as food storage - but also a prison during the Civil War. Creepy! It was eerily cold and not really a very happy place to be in. After escaping prison we went and had a picnic under some trees looking out across at the castle. It was so scenic and I really-really enjoyed it. Afterwards we headed to the coast, since Skegness is just a hop skip and jump away.

 

Yay! Blog extras: Mm, ancient graffiti, some graffiti was from the 1800's which was pretty impressive, especially the typeface they used! Even their graffiti was artistic back then, proudly signed and dated:

 'H.Babington M.R Phillips 1849'. 

I'm easily drawn and attracted by such things, it's almost mesmerising but then something always spoils it.. of course graffiti from 2000's, mainly consisting of a badly scrawled penis, and 'fuck off' by the lesser intelligent of society.

♪ 100th Birthday! ♪

Oh Goodness, I haven't blogged in a few months now, but I did not vanish! I always read my followers blogs! Don't worry~  ヾ(*´・3・`*)ノ Actually this blog is a bit delayed itself, and a lot has happened between now and uhmm, when I last blogged. My life is rather hectic suddenly, with one thing or another but I will probably explain in another blog post! (o・ｖ・人)♪

 

On July 10th, my Great Grandma celebrated her 100th Birthday! We visited her on her actual Birthday, and had a party the following Sunday where we had Family from all over the UK and Europe (well, Italy) came to visit her! It's rare to celebrate such an occasion, and she even got a card from the Queen herself! Which was amazing to see in person, usually you only see it on the News, rarely!

 

On the following Sunday we had the Party! It was held in my Grandma's home, she lives with her Mum, so it was the best location too because her garden is super big! We had a huge gazebo and it was a bit like a Tea Party - with no tea.. and only one cake.

My Aunt and Uncle supplied the food, and we did the decorations. Sadly I don't have any photos of the decoration - or food. I actually didn't take many photos at all. (_ _ ||) It was difficult because I didn't want to seem rude by using my phone often. 

 

YUM YUM WATER, due to personal reasons I shouldn't drink alcohol, even a low percent, well I lie my shandy at home is 0.05% alc so.. at the party I was limited to water and flat warm cola. Which I wasn't happy about considering my Family know my situation r00d.

 

Ta-da~ cake! We also supplied the cake, which was pretty amazing! I mailed a photo to my Boyfriend and he was impressed with the size alone because it was a three tier cake! Yummy and sickly sweet. The cake had "rolls of film" around it, to show my Great Grandma's 100 years of life, or ATTEMPTED to, granted cameras had not been so popular back in those days, and some film had more than likely been lost over the years. Anyway the cake had Family photos and photos of places my Great Grandma had visited all over the world. Hearing her stories is always great, even if her 'today memory' is fuzzy, she can remember something  60 years ago perfectly!!  

It was a long day, and afterwards we helped clean up and move stuff back to the original place in the Garden. It was super tiring, so I had to sit back indoors and rest. This feeling of constant lethargic is really dragging me down.. until I get mounds of energy which just pisses people off HAH. It was a really fun day~ even if I didn't know 90% of the people, even though I may have met some of them, fifteen years ago.