A Day At Osterley Park

We parked the car on the lane outside Osterley Park and walked in to the house.

The front of the house is impressive, but you enter through a little door in the cellar on the right side of the house.

An attendant in purple explains the Chinese junk model to the girls.

My sweethearts took a break on a bench in the stairwell. The strain is already taking its toll on the young ones. They are bored.

On our 25th wedding anniversary we received from some people in the church a year’s membership in the National Trust. They preserve and manage historic homes and other historic sites so that people can see what it used to be like in Great Britain. 

We went on a short visit to a nearby property, Osterley Park. It’s a mansion remodeled by Robert Adam in the 1760’s. It has one of the largest open spaces in west London. The main advantage was that it is near our house. Some family members were unenthusiastic about such a field trip. If it turned out to be unpopular we could get home quickly and do something else.

It was a beautiful day, sunny and cool. There weren’t many people around. We pretty much had the place to ourselves. Nice attendants explained the function of the various implements in the kitchen, the objets d’art, the paintings, and the furniture in the rooms.

I guess the message of the place is: Some people had a lot of money and lived pretty well, until the money ran out. It makes one think about how temporary this life is. Better to have an abundant entry into the eternal home. Which has to be better designed and more beautiful. Something to really look forward to.

It’s fun to see a place like this, though, and enjoy it on a beautiful day with people we love to be with.