Honeymoon-Day 2

Day two found Matthew and I a little less exhausted and jet lagged, but with head colds that we’d been developing since the day after the wedding (technically Matthew had one before the wedding so he’s a bit ahead of me as far as recovery is going). However, we slept for about 12 hours give or take which helped quite a bit. We made it down in time for breakfast which was amazing as we both had our first full English breakfast of eggs, sausage, baked beans, mushrooms, toast, roasted tomatos, and black pudding (which is a kind of blood pork sausage). It was delicious! It may not sound like all those things go together, but once you get them on a plate, they work really well.

After eating out yummy breakfast, we packed up and headed back west. Our next stop was the Jane Austen House in Chawton which is in the area of Hampsire near Alton. Jane Austen is one of the reasons I fell in love with England and wanted to come here, so it was only fitting that we stopped in. Since Matthew hasn’t read any of her works yet, I helped explain some of the things as we went along. The house that we visited is the last one she really lived in with her mother and sister before she died. The house is now a museum, so we visited all the rooms as Jane would have known them.

Something really neat happened while we were there. In the first room of the house, they had an 1813 pianoforte which would have been similar to one Jane would have played, and appropriate to the period. The lady who was guiding people through the room saw us looking at it and asked if we played. I said I did, and so she invited me to play on the instrument. I skimmed through the books they had available and found a book of Muzio Clementi’s sonatinas for piano, some of which I have in a book and have played recently. Once I finished playing, I took a look at the card with the information about the piano and saw that it had been made by Clementi who was also a piano maker. So, I played a piece written specifically for that type of piano! It was a very exciting moment. 🙂

After visiting the house, we ate lunch at a local pub before taking a walk out to Chawton House. This house was the one Jane Austen’s older brother Edward Knight (formerly Austen) lived in. He was adopted by the Knight family as they had no heir for their estate. Edward inherited and gave Jane the house (now museum) to live in.

Chawton House was quite nice with some beautiful gardens and an area of designated wilderness. I did not take many pictures as I think the jet lag was kicking in at this point of the day. We also got to see the library where they have a large collection of books written by women who were published during Jane Austen’s lifetime. It was an impressive collection to be sure.

Next. we got back in the car and drove further into Hampshire near Newbury. We spent the night at a very cute inn that also had delicious food for dinner.

Day 3 was set to be one of the biggest days so far, and one of the most exciting, but you’ll have to wait to see where we headed next! 😀