Charlecote Trip To Waddesdon Manor Through The Eyes Of Budo

Hello There,

Today we went on a lovely little trip, which is one of our many ways to thank our volunteers. So off we went to Waddesdon Manor, Buckingham,.

But while myself and another college were busy counting volunteers we left the review on the trip through the eyes of Budo. Budo is a cuddly critter that I have affectionately named after Ray Harryhausen, cute stop motion character from Clash of the Titans, 1981. It also hints towards the Greek vase's we have in our library, plus we sell our cuddly critters in our shop and hide them around the house.

So without futher adieu......meet Budo

Budo, the cuddly critter, looking over the map,
(available at Charlecote Park £4.00)

Courtesy of Warner Brothers, Clash Of The Titans, 1981

Budo first view of Waddesdon, he is looking forward to an adventure.

We didn't get to take too many photograph's inside, as 3 coaches, including ours were given the same timed ticket entrance, so it was a little bit cramped in most of the rooms. It is very overwhelming, as there is so much to see and every room is full of things, but very little information available. The only way to find out about what room you were in is if you brought a guidebook for £5.00 or the audio guide for £3.00. We only saw 5 room guides, which was very strange as we were on a group visit with 43 of ours ....but Budo was a little bit naughty...........

Here I am again, I hid on one of the exhibitions by Joan Sallas. A very pretty exhibition all around the house, of napkins folded into elaborated designs, this one has birds, me and a rabbit.

Here I am hiding in the garden, can you spot me? (i'm hiding on a rock)

In the garden is an Aviary, which has recently been given the status off a Zoo, making it officially the smallest Zoo in Europe.

After having a stroll around the house and the gardens it was very important to have a pit stop, so a cake and hot chocolate was a must.

Lovely warm scone with clotted cream will do nicely.

At Waddesdon the eating arrangements are very odd, you have a few coffee bars and cafe, but I would be wary of these. When we looked at the menu at the Restaurant it is very expensive, and add's a 10% service charge, we then went over to the stable cafe to find the same, it was expensive and came with a 10% service charge. Eating outside is much cheaper! But there was not much variety of cake available, very un-National Trust.

But Budo didn't seem to mind especially when our next adventure was towards to Wine Cellars.

Oh dear, I think Budo enjoyed the trip to the cellar far too much!

After a walk around the cellars and in hope of helping Budo feel more owl like, we went to a trip to the shop. Which sells a huge variety of things, and not stuff you would usually find in a National Trust Shop.

Budo found a little book for me, he thought I should buy, but I declined the offer and decided I enjoyed life too much.

Before we knew it, it was time to get back onto the coach and Budo's day out was over, while we counted heads to make sure we had all 46 of us. It clearly became too much for Budo, or he couldn't stand to leave.

I just jumped out of her coat pocket.....honest!

 So after an hour and half trip back to Charlecote, the trip was over and I decided since we had a small nap on the coach a bigger nap was needed, so Budo was tucked up into bed for him to wonder when his next adventure would take him!

Night Night........I wonder what house I will dream off now!

 A word from me now, on a whole I was so overwhelmed by Waddesdon that i'm not actually sure what I think. I do think there is quite a lot of the things they need to improve on and could have done much better, but I shall leave that little rant for TripAdvisor.......

I would also like to take this time to say next Thursday 3rd October it is officially 1 year away from the wedding, so many exciting things to come and hopefully more exciting news to follow.


See you soon! Hope you enjoyed reading Budo's adventure!


BYE xxxxxxx