Two years in London

As you probably know we received the message that Alexander will be employed with PwC in London at our wedding in September. Therefore we decided on our honeymoon which we spent in the lovely Lake District (yes, again!) to become members of the National Trust, an organisation which takes care of the preservation of historic places and spaces in the UK. Since my husband is very good in mental arithmetic he calculated fastly that the Membership will be profitable after two or three visits of buildings managed by the National Trust (which we already made within the one week of honeymoon).

Therefore we didn’t really have to think about when a colleague of Alexander and his wife asked us to join them on a Sunday’s trip to visit Hughenden Manor. Fortunately they rented a car and as Australians they also knew how how to drive it in the left-hand-traffic.

Hughenden Manor was the residence of Benjamin Disraeli, Queen Victoria’s favourite prime Minister, and his wife. Around the house is a nice park and garden where some people had a picnic. Since we wanted to have a late lunch at a pub some miles away we just walked around in the park and visited the house.

The Disraelis were collectors of some bizarre things for example hair locks which are displayed inside. But there was also an exhibition of historic cleaning utensils which was probably Alexander’s favourite room 🙂

The room which impressed me a lot was the library which contains a copy of Goethe’s Faust in English (published 1877).

After visiting the house we made a short stop at the historic garden and the small church where Benjamin Disraeli is burried although he is born Jewish.

This was also the day when we – due to hundreds of snowdrops – recognized that spring is coming. One more thing which had to be celebrated with a pint of ale or cider in the pub afterwards.