Saturday, December 8, 2012

The Duke of Puppies

As we all know the Duke of Devonshire was the definition of socially awkward.  We also know he  preferred the company of dogs to men ( no blame there!) which is why he was known as Canis to his close friends.  This was an affection that did not wane with age, according to his daughter, Harryo (probably the most opinionated of the Devonshire brood).  After Georgiana's death, the duke was more aware of his mortality and put in a last-ditch effort to get to know his adult children.  The olive branch he extended to Harryo came in the form of a puppy, which must have had the middle-child rolling her eyes at her senile old dad.  She wrote,
he really thinks of little else [besides puppies] and the whole time of dinner and supper he feeds and watches them, laughs excessively every time they squeak or run and listens to no conversation with half the pleasure as he does when these puppies are the subject.
Despite his many, many flaws, there are just some aspects of the duke that I can't help but relate to.  Puppies > Dinner conversation.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Wimpole Hall

This weekend I had the pleasure of visiting Wimpole Estate which was all decked out for Christmas.  Construction begun on the house in 1640 and saw a multitude of architects in the eighteenth century include John Soane.  The end result is a really big Georgian mansion just outside of Cambridge.












The last picture I took from the garden and as I found out later the tower is called Wimpole's Folly.  Thanks to craze for the gothic, Lord Hardwicke (the owner at the time) had ruins of what looked to be an old medieval castle built on the estate, because as we all know, there aren't enough old (actual) ruins just hanging about England!