Day 5
In order to further my aim to visit a National Trust and an English Heritage property in every English county, Rufford Abbey was our destination of choice. It is managed in co-operation with English Heritage, rather than being an English Heritage property per se but there aren’t any others in Nottinghamshire. The mid-twelfth century Cistercian monastery and its extensive lands were given to the 4th Earl of Shrewsbury, George Talbot after the dissolution of the monasteries and it was developed into a country house in later centuries. It is now a ruin and we saw this from a distance, rather than looking at it closely, as the weather was against us. In any case, it is only possible to view the ruins from outside for safety reasons. Activities relating to the run up to Halloween were in evidence in the surrounding country park. We did manage to investigate the adventure playground and play a round of crazy golf before it started raining. Apparently, there were two secret oil wells in Nottinghamshire, drilled during the Second World War; these produced three million barrels of oil for the war effort. A statue commemorating this is at Rufford.
Today’s lunch was at Maxey’s Garden Centre. Afternoon and evening activities followed a similar pattern with more Traitors game, House of Games and Banjo and Ro and then a hot tub, although it didn’t seem to bubble as it should.
Day 6
The youngest member of our party was keen to go to his football practice and as Lincoln isn’t that far away, back we went. I am not sure that standing on a touchline for an hour in chilly October weather is exactly my first choice of activity but it was a good opportunity to be able to watch him training. We then went to Darfoulds Garden Centre, where I foolishly decided that I could consume both quiche and chips and a large slice of Biscoff cake. More Traitors board game followed in the afternoon and watching the final episode of Banjo and Ro. We finally worked out how to get all the jets bubbling in the hot tub. Although the descendants are staying close by, there’s a gate between us that closes at night, making the accessible journey from one to the other much longer. This time, I left in time to get through the short way before the gates were locked and was also back in the van in time to watch Traitors. This was the night of a severe storm in the south-west, so we were wondering what we might be going home to.
