Bank holidays # one

The last few weeks have been a bit stressful as I have acquired a new job! I won't be leaving my current job and starting the new one until July, but I put my application in in March and went to a rather stressful interview (including having to give a presentation!), got offered the job the next day, then had to wait ages for paperwork to come through to confirm it. Anyway, I am really excited about it, although July feels like a very long way off still. The good news too is that it's a longer commute as I'll be heading into London every morning, which means more time on the train to knit or read.

Thankfully our bank holidays have been piling up in this country, and some time to relax was just what I needed after all that. Last weekend we had Good Friday and Easter Monday off work, and this weekend we have Friday off for the royal wedding, and Monday off because it's May Day. I could get used to 3 or 4 day weeks at work...

We put the Easter weekend holidays to good use. On the Monday we paid a visit to a National Trust property,  Clandon Park, near Guildford. This is the side of the house, I tried taking a picture of the front, but there were too many cars parked there, which looked a bit incongruous!

Inside was perfect for a visit on a hot day. Cool, light and airy. The rooms are huge, the biggest being the Marble Hall (with the side of the OH in for scale):

 This was the only room where photography is allowed. The other rooms aren't so high, but are equally imposing. And afterwards walking through the grounds, we found a field of daffodils that must have looked amazing about 6 weeks ago.

After Clandon we travelled on to do some exploring in Guildford. Of course, being a bank holiday the tourist information centre and the museum were shut, but we did climb up to have a look at the keep (all that remains of Guildford castle, and now surrounded by park).

and found the river Wey, slightly prosaically hidden behind Debenhams.

On the Saturday we paid a very hot and sticky visit to the garden centre to get stocked up with compost and plants. I would recommend not visiting a garden centre on Easter Saturday as about a million other people had had the same idea and we had to queue for ages to pay.

So we finally escaped, with the boot full of compost.

And the gap between the front and back seats stuffed with plants.

I'll be posting more about the garden soon when I do a gardening post for the 1st of the month.

I have been beavering away doing some knitting, but haven't any photos yet to show. Oh and the OH got me an Easter egg:

The next few months promise to be fairly hectic. I've got a couple of big projects to finish off at work before I leave, plus some reading and preparation to do ready for starting the new job. But, of course, there's still another 3 bank holiday days still to go...