Transition Day

Off to Dunster and its castle today, by a seaside route there and a lovely inland route back. This was for fun and to test the gear, organization, things like that. A getting sorted day, you might say. I'm worried that the boots are a bit tight after their having been resoled, but maybe it was just the sightseeing. Boots are made for walking not touring castles.

On the way, some lady friends wanted a visit, and followed as far as their confines would allow:





Happiest of daisies, blowing in the wind, reaching for the sea and sky:




The castle visit at Dunster was five star! Knowledgeable, engaging volunteers in every room, and you were invited to sit in the chairs and read, if you liked, play billiards, make yourself at home, in other words. Ah, it should be noted that this comfort is reproduced from the late 19th century, not from the castle's medieval origins.

I was beyond excited to see an explanation for the oubliette, as this is one of my favorite OED words of the day, and perhaps the best loan word ever! The explanation below differs from the dictionary one in that there it was described as a dungeon whose entry was only from the top. Why people would go to so much trouble to build such a structure in which to put people to languish and die, is a bit puzzling when they could much more easily toss them into a pit in the yard, cover them over with dirt and be done with it.





Meantime, upstairs, the table is set, impeccably, for dinner. Sadly, the present day visitor is not invited to dine, though the menu, featuring poached salmon—and not the farmed variety, you can be sure—was the main course.





Indeed:




Shortly after the introduction of indoor plumbing and heating, or what one might call the comforts we would hate to do without, one could take a jolly good soak in this tub:





View at lunch. Big leaves under the bridge at the mill:




One of the highlights of the day was a guided tour of the victorian kitchens. All I can say is neither Downton Abbey nor Upstairs Downstairs comes close to portraying the harsh conditions of working "below stairs.". For one thing, those scenes could never have been shot in the actual light conditions of those areas. It was very dark!

I did learn, though, that the expression "upper crust" may come from the fact that when baking bread, the bottom burned, so it would be cut off to be a portion of the servants' fare, while the part with the nice, brown, upper crust went to the upstairs residents.


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Location:Minehead