Picnic at the Castle

Way back at the beginning of April I had a plan.

That plan was that when the weather was nice we would definitely go for a picnic at the castle. I love this castle, I would be at it all the time, every single minute if I could. It's only a ruin and you would think that I had seen all of it that there is to see, given that it is pretty much the only thing in Tiny Town.

But no. I love it.

We had to wait a long time for the weather to be nice...

...the 1st June to be precise.

(Seriously, writing this post has really made me realise how shitty the weather has been lately. Two months to be able to have a tiny wee picnic? Are you kidding me?!)

We packed up our wares and headed over. We are sadly lacking in the picnic basket arena but where we don't have picnic baskets I have an outrageously unrelenting collection of cloth tote bags which is all you every need in this kind of situation.

We had a little bit of this and a little bit of that and most importantly, one of my crocheted blankets. I always thought when I made these blankets that I wanted them to be something I took out with me. Of course I had forgotten that I lived in the UK and it is never nice ever and thus my blankets have never really seen the light of day.

Oh hello picnic blanket. Hello castle. Hello The Person. Hello The Most English photo taken ever.

The sun beat down and we lay about, eating a bit, reading a bit and sleeping a bit.

I did the sleeping, whacked off my face on anti-histamines.

But after waking up I went and did some exploring. Like I said, I've seen this castle a huge number of times. I've wandered about with the official audio tour, I have hidden and scrambled about it, playing castles with my nephews. I have been here alone and with family and I love it to it's last stone.

Sometimes I see something new, other times, it's just an opportunity to take a photo of the same thing yet again - like this one that I took through this window. I must have twenty of these hidden in various files on my computer somewhere but it just always looks so good I can't resist yet another.

I love the fact that it its very solid walls have crumbled away at the seams in places.

Although I'd by lying if I said it didn't make me nervous.

Last time I was here the tower was closed for some repairs and I was gutted. The tower is the best part, all 121 steps of it.

It is a slightly terrifying climb, I am not a fan of spiral staircases and people in the days of yore had much smaller feet than this person does. Plus there was the added bonus of two pigeons that had decided to nest in the tower on the climb up, adding an extra element of danger to the already mildly perilous climb.

But the slightly aching thighs are worth it because the views from the top that await you are, you know, kind of nice...

Although I called the picnic photo The Most English Photo taken ever, I reckon that these guys are probably up there as well. You see these photos you can't help but think of England - and not in a creepy EDL, UKIP way, just in a "Man the scenery in our country is fricking awesome."

Despite the fact that you can see for miles around it took us an embarrassingly long time to figure out where even vaguely our flat lies. And I'll be honest, even now I'm not entirely convinced that we got it right.

After surveying our kingdom it was back down the staircase (more terrifying on the way back down than the way up fyi) and time to begin the trudge home. There are a couple of other grassy areas that we could go to and picnic it up for free, but you know what?

None of those come with a castle and if I've got to wait two months to have a picnic I'm going to make sure I do it in style.

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Yes. I am blogging about something that I did at the beginning of June at the end of the June. I'm a little behind around here.