The detailed posts of England have begun, and I’m recounting the trip day by day. After the delights of beautiful Derbyshire on Sunday, my mom and I managed to navigate the driving-on-the-left-side thing and actually returned our rental car without a scratch. We were pretty impressed with ourselves. We then took a train to London, where we stayed for the remainder of the week. But our sightseeing often took us an hour or so outside of the city, so we got good at the train and bus travel thing.

That said, Monday morning brought us to the train station, where we rode to the charming little village of Chawton to see the home of Jane Austen. People usually associate the city of Bath with Jane Austen, primarily because of the tourist-friendly Jane Austen Centre there. But I find this funny, as Austen was very open in her writing and letters about her dislike of Bath, and it’s well-known that she only lived there for about two years. This house in Chawton that we visited was where she passed the last eight or so years of her life and was also where she lived when she made major revisions to her books and then saw them published. The house is simple, quaint, and has been so amazingly well-preserved that it was like stepping into a time capsule. I’m so grateful for the glimpse it’s now given me into the life of this author who means so much to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This view was probably my favorite from the garden