I capture the castle

This weekend saw me staying at 'home' for a change. I try to set aside one weekend a month where I'm not on a train/bus with a bag in my hand. It gets wearing after a while and five months is a long time to be doing all the travelling to Preston.*

The sun was shining and I'm no good at sitting still so there was only one thing for it - pack up and have a wander down the road to my favourite and my best thing about where I now live...

THE CASTLE!!

Look at it in all its ruiny, stony glory. And even better, I got in for free as my sister has an English Heritage card. 

I've been a few times before but stuff like this never gets old for me I'm afraid and this time I decided to take an audio tour (which is free my friends) and actually learn something about it. It was ever so slightly cheesy and cringey in places but I happen to enjoy cringey cheesy things so it suited me right down to the ground.

My favourite parts are all the little details you can see when you stand and look closely for a while. Take that top picture in the left - can you see the fireplace? Mental. I can only imagine how massive that is as you can see it from where I stand when I walk past it on my way to work. I do love an ornate fireplace. In the bottom right you can see another example.

If you make your way into the kitchen you can stand in the fireplace if you so wished and you can even see the oven, plain as day. It all fascinates me and I lap it up like the history loving nerd that I am.

I mean look at all the details - look at all the different kinds of windows and archways there are to be seen. Look at the flowers growing out of places they have no business growing out of!

It is a shame it's so ruined, I would love so much to have seen it how it really was, but that's history for you and that's what happens when you back the wrong side in the Civil War.

What is mega cool is that you can actually climb up the steps to the top of the tower - unfortunately for me it was closed for maintenance so I had settle for going down into the cellar and getting a little freaked out about it and turning my audio guide on early for company.

And then I had a nice sit in the remains of the sunken gardens (which had some excellent banks for rolling down, but I refrained. I didn't want to be that person) and tackled my main challenge for the weekend, that of getting The Woman in White finished.

I'd been reading it for what felt like forever, it's a beautiful copy that Lucy kindly got me for my birthday, and I had really been enjoying the story but it just felt like it had been going on for my whole lifetime - probably a product of the fact that it was originally published in serial format. But it was lovely to sit in the grounds of a real life castle and read, whilst vaguely hearing all the footsteps of those that have tramped those gardens before me.

I wish you could all have a castle near your houses, it's so much fun. But I'll go back when I can go up to the top of the tower, yeah?

*The Person isn't an awful person who refuses to come and see me by the way. I go up to Preston because it gets me out of the way of my sister and her family who probably appreciate having their own home back, rather than The Person coming here and adding to the melee.