Berkshire part 2

My sister in law took me along to a craft fair held at the fitness club (open to the public) at Wellington College. I'd never even heard of this place and was absolutely astounded by the magnificent building/s. It is in fact a public school which is not surprising! Bit different from the average state school..... For those who don't understand the British public school system, public means completely the opposite - they are private, very exclusive, incredibly expensive, and traditionally boarding, schools. Think Eton College, where all the young princes go to school! We're talking that kind of establishment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_College,_Berkshire

We had a great walk around the outside of the buildings and some of the grounds, which in fact extends to 400 acres. It was really quite an eye-opener as to how the other half live.

As a fun comparison, I found a picture of my old school - it was a girls only, free state school, with a good academic reputation, but with this hideous 50s or 60s 'tower block' as we called it, at the front. Just a tad different from the one above!

Photo credit: Bucks Free Press (photographer unknown).

The craft fair was really good with some great original crafts there and I got a ceramic pot with a lid with chickens on, which my SIL bought me as a Xmas pressie. Some more pics of the buildings around the college:

Something I really noticed in England, most particularly around the parts of Berkshire where we visited, was the absolute abundance of berries on so many plants. Very attractive and great for the birds!

My SIL spotted this fungus - I hadn't seen one for years! This is the original 'toadstool' - just google toadstool and all the images will be this spotty red and white one. 

Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria).

My sneaky SIL took a photo of me taking a photo of it. She's been into photography for years and I used to think, oh come on, for goodness sake, stop taking photos because we are taking forever to walk around this park/garden/town/whatever and I'm getting bored to tears. Errrrm. That's me now!

And to finish off, the whole Outlaw family out for fish and chips. (Inlaw - Outlaw, get it?) :-)

I'm happy because I got my fix of scampi and chips!
Brother in law on the left. OH doesn't look amused.

And BLEAGH! They sell mushy peas at this place. Double yuk. Even my Polish SIL ordered some!

And that's the end of my English trip in photos. Hope you enjoyed them - makes a bit of a change from bugs. ;-)