New Year ... New ?

We started the day with a wish to do something positive, so Gill cleaned up the woodwork in the downstairs cloakroom, and then repainted it.  I found some gutter mesh in the garage and fitted a section to the conservatory, which seems to collect moss & leaves at quite a rate.  After this unbounded excitement & lunch we went for a walk around the gardens at Upton House. Quite grey and dull while we were there, but there were few other visitors so we had a lot of the views to ourselves.  Some blue was appearing in the sky as we left so hopefully tomorrow will be brighter and with perhaps the first frost of the year.

My main blip is the front of the house with it's imposing structure which I always think looks quite dark and forbidding.   The other side of the house is much more  friendly and, although nowhere near full, the mirror pool is looking much better on still days. (see extra).

As seen now Upton is as Lord Bearstead (Shell Oil) left it in the late 1940s. He and his wife had only owned it for ~20 years, and had some extensive work done in the gardens as well as the house which still holds much of his art collection.  I'm never quite sure what to make of these places where someone's great vision and a huge investment of money,  time and effort went into something which only lasted a relatively short time. 

So - back to work for many tomorrow, the schools will have restarted by next week, and that will be it for another year.

While I remember - tomorrow I am hosting Wide Wednesday while BobsBlips is away. Until Mid February Freyjad or I will be hosting, but the format is as usual - optional themes are listed here in the community pages.  Tomorrow it is The Natural World, with the tag: widwed020119