Ascension Day Picnic!

[Katharine]

I was given a surprise picnic at lunch today, as I had said that we always had picnics on Ascension Day!

Memories, memories!!!

[englishangel]

I seem to remember them as being warm, wet sometimes, but definitely warm. That was not the case yesterday, still wearing my winter coat.

[sejintenej]

I seem to remember them as being warm, wet sometimes, but definitely warm. That was not the case yesterday, still wearing my winter coat.

11ºC and raining all day. Didn't realise what day it was and found all the hairdressers (and other shops) closed.
They are probably closed today as a "bridge" day which the French seem to love. (If Tuesday is a bank holiday they don't work Monday, if Thursday is a holiday they don't work Friday. At least if Sunday is a holiday - as last week - they get no time off)

[Angela Woodford]

Sitting under huge dripping rhododendrons at Woburn Abbey, eating pilchard sandwiches and "sticky" buns (which were a slightly sweetened bread roll with an icing sugar glaze). Those buns tasted wonderful.

[midget]

Typical Ascension Day thenn weatherwise.

[Angela Woodford]

It's true, Maggie. Ascension Days seemed always to be wet!

[fra828]

That's what I remember too, I don't think we ever had a hot and sunny Ascention Day.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

It's true, Maggie. Ascension Days seemed always to be wet!

Check the photographs I posted somewhere (I think they are also on the CHA site): 6's playing the AD rounders game while wearing Ashbourne Hats sans wellies and umbrellas, and another (possibly the same year) of Munch, Bun, Phillipa and possibly Jasmine sitting under a tree with no sign of wet weather gear

[kerrensimmonds]

AAh... Ascension Day. A day with a Chapel service, than fun and games including a House picnic somewhere off site, taking our food in brown paper bags. Getting to the destination (sometimes by coach?) and then splitting up into small groups, fanning out and playing up if we had the opportunity. What fun, as teenagers! I have lots of photographs, taken from a little Brownie.

[midget]

Why are my memories of Ascension day of boredom? Probably because we went no further than we could walk, the "picnic" was a bore and we had to "entertain" each other in the evening, ie raiding the dressing up box and fooling about!

[Fjgrogan]

I remember visiting Knebworth Park (before it was a venue for pop concerts), Whipsnade, Sawston Hall, but strangely never Hatfield House, which would seem to be an obvious choice - I have never been there to this day!

[Jo]

I'm sure we went to Hatfield House at least once. We certainly went to Kenwood a couple of times. We also went somewhere one year about which I have one very clear memory, though I can't remember where it was, or anything else about it. It was a minor stately home or large mansion, and I don't know whether it was open to the public, or whether we had made a special arrangement to visit it. We'd been shown round, I think, and were then free to wander inside and outside for the rest of the day.

Someone went exploring and found a trapdoor under a grand piano. Word got round and we all went to look. The lady of the house appeared - we may have been in a private part of the house because I seem to remember she wasn't very pleased, and shooed us out. Then she said something about someone having fallen through the trapdoor and been killed. I don't think she said whether this was an old family legend or something that had happened recently - possibly recently as she seemed rather upset. Of course, we immediately scuttled off as instructed and set to with examining her words and concocting a whole range of sinister possibilities as to what had happened and the circumstances - was it an accident? Murder? Suicide?

It's always intrigued me to this day that I haven't a clue where this place was but I remember the mystery of the trapdoor and our excited chatter afterwards about what the story might have been.

[Fjgrogan]

OO - er! I remember one of the places we went to had a priest's hole - possibly Sawston Hall?

[J.R.]

OO - er! I remember one of the places we went to had a priest's hole - possibly Sawston Hall?

The mindl boggles !!

[Fjgrogan]

Yours would, JR!