The Grand Tour Part 10: Clacton-On-Sea, and Colchester/ Doll-A-Day 2023 # 186: Antique dollhouse and Modern Dollhouse

   Well the kids left in the middle of the night. We left the next morning. It's a long train ride from Hull to Clacton-on-Sea, where we were headed to visit my friend Cheryl. I guess I should call her 'our' friend Cheryl, since Ken has known her all but 4 of the 38 years I have. Cheryl came over to visit a few months before we got married. We took her to Canada, Niagara Falls, the Ohio State Fair, and King's Island. So she has spent a fair amount of time with Ken too. We also got to see Cheryl the last time we went to England. But this time we went to stay at her house, and meet her cat Ted.

Ted, owner of all he surveys. 

  On the way there, Ken did what Ken does.

Ken complained that I took too many pictures of him asleep on trains. Can I help it if there were so many opportunities to do so? To be fair, trains have always made me sleepy, but I could never fall asleep on one for fear of missing my stop. Now days I don't travel alone, so I can actually fall asleep if I'm very tired.

  We arrived in the early evening, but it was so dark so early while we were over, that it seemed later. We installed our huge bags in Cheryl's sunroom. You might remember that we had some HEAVY bags. They were about 50 pounds each for the two large ones, and 20+ pounds each for the small ones. We had thought we would be travelling lighter by the time we left Hull, having unloaded gifts for three sisters, three brothers in law, three nephews, one niece, four niece/nephew partners, five great nephews, two great nieces, two great great nephews, and one great great niece, as well as several friends. We also had a delivery of gifts for Cheryl. (You should have seen her face when I pulled out a red t-shirt and held it up, saying, "This is for you." Her perplexed look finally made me turn the shirt around to look, and found that, instead of one of the two Ohio/Marion t-shirts I had brought her, I was trying to give her Ken's Gilbert O'Sullivan shirt that Gloria had gotten him at the concert!) We thought it would be smooth sailing after that. But Ken bought food. Ken loves food. He also loves food he can't get at home. So he wanted to take the opportunity to stock up while he was in England. He did it last time too, but somehow it was less that time! I swear he bought the same things as last time, but somehow they were heavier this time. I didn't think I bought as much stuff on this trip. I bought a couple of books, and Gloria treated me to the set of Adrian Mole books I was going to buy to take home. They were paperbacks, but it was a stack. And then there were the Michael Palin books I bought for Lisa and myself at the show in Glasgow. And the posters, and the wrapping paper I brought posters home in. I bought Off the Hook Alexis, the small doll you saw the review of here, the miniatures I bought in Hull, the Tin Tin figure I bought in Iceland, the little mice from Haworth, and a felt mouse/cat, (there was some disagreement!), the day I went to Beverly with my friend Jenny.  And we were given a couple of lovely, but large gifts.

  Of course, I did bring home a bunch of fossils from England, and some rocks from Iceland...

  The big problem, besides making everything fit, was that one of our wheels on one of the big cases had died before we left Gloria's, and just shattered. So we realized we couldn't possibly drag the case around with only one wheel. This was only that case's second trip. I bought it just before the 2015 trip to England, and it hadn't been used since. But, it had to call it a day. It now resides in Clacton, where it stores Cheryl's friend's yarn. I'm glad Cheryl found it another life rather than it just being taken to the tip, as she was going to do for us. It was in good shape otherwise, and will store yarn for years. But now we needed another case.

  In any 'case', the next day Cheryl had planned a trip to Colchester for us. Colchester is the oldest city in Britain, having been founded by the Romans in 49AD. There is still some of the Roman wall around part of the city. It has been restored, obviously.

We went to Colchester Castle, which is a museum.

Cheryl and Ken in front of the gates.

Just inside the gates was Hollytrees Museum, a beautiful building covered in red ivy. I asked Ken to take a picture with my phone so I could send it to my sister, whom I was still keeping updated, as she was bored.

Cheryl with me in Colchester.

Cheryl has quite an interest in history, and if I'm not mistaken, a degree or two. Colchester Castle is one of her favourite places to go...besides other real historic sites, that is.

  

  I love museums. I love old things, and museums are sort of the ultimate in that, aren't they? I always loved History. Ken complains about my watching of historical documentaries, (but he's more disturbed by my viewing of true murder stories.) There were loads of things that were over a thousand years old, things that were just dug up in local people's gardens! If anything nearly that old is dug up in Ohio the town gets a marker, like the town with the sign reading, 'mastodon bones found here in blah blah'. Okay, mastodon bones are way older than that. My point is, if they find anything really old in Ohio, it becomes the only thing the town is known for, because it doesn't happen that often. My sister and I did find a couple of flint arrow heads in the cornfield behind the house when I was a kid. She had the whole one, and doesn't know where it is now. I have a sliver I found. It's just enough to know it was an arrow head. That's the oldest thing I've ever found here. For the record, I did find something less old in our yard once too. It was a thing that looked like a penny, but said 'Dr.s Dill and Brown, Dentists, Piqua Ohio'. It was dated 1912.

  As we were leaving I purchased this little guy in the museum gift shop. 

Even if he was actually made in Nepal, and not Colchester.

  Here I'm a bit foggy. I know we ate at a pub, but for some reason, I'm thinking we did that and then went to Hollytrees Museum. Maybe we did. I know I spotted these shop window displays that day.

But at some point we went to the Hollytrees Museum, just in time before they closed.

I was, as usual, trying to paint with the camera. This was in back of Hollytrees

 Museum.

Whenever it was, they had some beautiful stuff there. Cheryl's favourite was their collection of grandfather clocks.

There was a very old postbox, next to the fireplace, which was decorated for Christmas.

The VR is for Victoria Regina: Queen Victoria.

There were a lot of toys.  Sorry about the blurry photos. It wasn't the brightest place, and no flash was allowed, which I understand.

What's Barbie doing in there?

A Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car, just like the one Ken had as a kid. I haven't shown you what happened to his yet, have I?

  And I loved this bunny painting.

  And today's dolls. They had two dollhouses. One was quite old, with an outdoor scene around it. The other was fairly new, but filled with beautiful miniatures. Let's look at the old one first. Scroll on. They aren't all blurry!

The lady behind the red hassock is holding a tiny baby, and there are two almost as small on the hassock.

Look at the eensy dollhouse on the mantel!

And then the modern house.

 

 This doll was in a separate section under the house. She's in the cellar getting coal!

  Before we left, I bought this little thimble in their gift shop.

I can barely get it on my finger and I have small fingers, so I'm not sure anybody could really use it as a thimble. (I'm not sure they could anyway!)

  But, like I wasn't just going to have it on display in the dollhouse anyway!  

   That's it for today. Tomorrow we'll see what Cheryl had in store for us on our second day. She was a good hostess and really tried to find interesting things for us to see.