The Georgian House, Edinburgh

Last weekend, I took a very quick trip to Edinburgh for a lovely Regency Ball that was held in the city's Assembly Rooms. The day after, my friends and I had a few hours to spare before our flights so we took in a couple of the city's highlights. Our first stop was The Georgian House, a wonderful georgian townhouse owned by the National Trust for Scotland.

The facade

China cabinet in the Parlour

A tea table with a tea draw!! I had never seen anything like it. Apparently tea tables usually come in pairs with a games table. 

In each room there was a little mouse dressed in edwardian-esque clothes. I'm am pretty sure they were there for children to find, but they were too adorable to resist so I had to take a photo of each one! :)

A gorgeous tea caddy in the Parlour

A rather rubbish photo of another gorgeous one

Decorated with tiny rolls of paper!

The Drawing Room

:)

The beautiful bed in the master bedroom.

The little pockets on the headboard are pocket watch holders! They were meant to keep them warm and upright so that they kept accurate time.

The Dining Room

This is a little silver contraption to keep you melted cheese on toast warm, whilst transporting if from the kitchen to the dining room!!

Mouse maid in the kitchen :)

The Butler's room

It was a fabulous house with very jolly and knowledgeable staff, and definitely worth a visit!!

The New Nelson Gallery - The National Maritime Museum

Last week I spent an afternoon visiting my grandmother, who lives in the beautiful and historic part of London that is Greenwich. Whilst there we went to see the new permanent gallery, at the National Maritime Museum, celebrating all things Admiral Nelson. 

I took a few photos, but most of the artefacts are displayed in glass cabinets making clear photo taking a bit difficult! 

Nelson's writing slope

Nelson's uniform - the coat he was wearing when he was shot at Trafalgar (you can see the bullet hole on his left shoulder).

Nelson's knife/fork - designed for him after he lost his right arm.

A few examples of officers uniforms:

A needle case c. 1805 - made and owned by one of the sailors or officers on board HMS Victory

It still contains original needles and pins!!

A close up of a painting in the gallery. I loved the pink gown so of course only took a photo of it and not the rest of the painting! :)  And I failed to take down any details about the painting!!

There were so many more fascinating artefacts to see but I ran out of time to take photos of them all. I would definitely recommend a visit if you find yourself anywhere near Greenwich.

Osterley Park Country Fair

Right at the beginning of September I attended my last reenactment event of the year. :(

No one in my group wanted to attend so I thought I wouldn't be able to go, but a friend's group kindly let me tag along. :)  We were the only Napoleonic group there so it was a small reenactment, but it was fun all the same. :) The annoying thing is that I seemed to have been absolutely rubbish at taking photos of the camp! It was partly because, as we were the only Napoleonic group we did have visitors wandering around most of the time so there wasn't much opportunity to whip out my camera, but also I just kept forgetting to take photos. I sincerely apologise as what is a reenactor's blog post without lots of photos, so you can imagine being at the event!!? :)

Our small camp. Rosie and Sarah working very hard sewing some of the soldiers' clothing.

Apart from us there were lots of animals - owls, horses, dogs, ferrets, goats, and a wallaby!

These were our neighbours. :) So adorable but there were about 20 of them and 2 kept escaping and trying to eat our tent ropes!!! 

There were also a few fairground rides, but I think the highlight of the weekend for the public was the jousting tournament. It was recreated by a group called 'The Knights of the Damned', and was pretty much a recreation of the jousting tournament seen in the film 'A Knights tale', down to the music and the participants names's (which were slightly changed).  

I have to admit that it was great fun to watch. :)

As well as the fair there was also Osterley House itself. A beautiful, mainly 18th century, historic house. 

I didn't take a photo of the exterior of the house as I have taken many on previous visits. So borrowed this one from the National Trust website.

Beautiful wall and ceiling decoration in the basement front entrance hall. 

The stewards office

The housekeepers Parlour

Sarah and I decided to take some silly photos in the kitchen, pretending that she was a maid working at the house. :) We got a few strange looks from the room steward! :)

Sarah washing up

The kitchen

Off to collect the eggs from the farm. :)

the larder

The dining room all dressed up to recreate what it would have looked like during a ball in the 18th century.

During the weekend the Covent Garden Minuet Company (a London based 18th century dance group) were doing dance demonstrations in the entrance hall.

We were also allowed to join in for a couple of dances, which was fun but I think I prefer Regency dancing. Georgian is much slower and more sedate - probably owing to the cumbersome clothing. 

They also talked about fans and fan language (getting some of the audience to join in with the demonstration)

I learnt that there was never any official fan language - that groups of friends each made up their own.

I loved this lady's gown.

The weekend started off with hideously wet weather, but by Saturday afternoon the weather had really improved, and Sunday was beautifully sunny. Overall it was a lovely relaxing weekend, and the perfect event to round-off this years reenactment season. :) Oh and I also got to try my hand at archery, which was so exciting as I have wanted to try archery for as long as I can remember!! :)