A La Ronde

Robert only had to work for about an hour this morning, so we headed up with him and picked blackberries and played games in the field while he was at work and then went to a National Trust site just a few minutes down the road.  We have been wanting to go and it will begin it's winter hours where it is only open on the weekends in a few weeks so that was my push to go.  

Ethan Jay is one blackberry picking boy!  We didn't have any cups/buckets in the car, so we used these cones to put them in!

Evie Kaye entertaining the baby with my keys and singing him a song.

She did have a cone full of blackberries, and then something mysteriously happened to them!?!?

And then off to A La Ronde.  It is a 16 sided, 18 century home that was built for two spinster sisters.  They were quite quirky and had lot's of collections including massive amounts of seashells.  In fact, one room is completely covered on the walls and ceiling with nearly 25,000 shells! 

In the yard they have chickens in their own house that resembles the 16 sided house.  Too cute!

There were the most beautiful flowers.

And there she is.  Amazing!

The inspiration for the design was that the house would always have light in one room.  So the sisters would start their morning in the first room on the right as you enter the house which was the drawing room and received the sun the first in the morning.  They literally would work their way around each room of the house during the day as the sun passed over and in the afternoon would end up all the way around the house where the sun was setting to get the lasts rays of light.  Pretty amazing concept!

Interesting fact:  J.K. Rowling went to college here in Exeter (the city that we flew in to and stayed in for two weeks and just a few minutes from Robert's work) and she based the village that the Weasley's lived in on a village right near by that she liked and apparently in the last movie, the sea cottage where they hide out in where Bill and Fluer lived had these same diamond shaped windows that were inspired by these windows here at A La Ronde!

Oh, how I would love if one of my children played the piano! 

Some of the collection of shells.

Love this.  They were looking out at the river in the distance.

Showing how the intercom system worked in the house!

Evie Kaye loved building her own 16 sided house with the blocks.

There were shells layed out in one room that you could write messages on.  We found this shell there and loved it!

This was the room that is completely line with shells!  Crazy!

Playing a little tag while we wait on lunch.

One sweet, cute, lovable baby boy!  He enjoyed every minute of the tour snuggled close to me in the carrier, his favorite spot!