The Many Delights of Hampshire

What a wonderful day it has been for us!  We are staying two nights at The Three Horshoes, so we didn’t have to wake up and get going quite as early this morning.  We left about mid-morning for Chawton to visit Jane Austen’s House.  She lived there with her mother, sister, and a family friend after her father died, and it is where she revised Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, as well as wrote other novels.  It was amazing.  I really should have brought along a thesaurus on our journey so I can come up with better descriptive words than that, but being there truly was a delight.

I loved it so much.  It really was more than I hoped it would be.  I didn’t realize they would have so many of the Austen family’s belongings.  (When you see my pictures, you will get over your distaste of air travel, Mom.)  I think we spent nearly four hours there wondering the rooms, and MOST THANKFULLY, I snapped all the pictures I desired, and no one stopped me.  The sign said photography was at the discretion of the stewardess.  I was very discreet at first, thinking I might be stopped, but to my delight no one ever said a word.  I think I took over 300 pictures.  How could I not?

Most unexpectedly, one of the stewardesses said that if anyone could play the piano they were welcome to sit and play.  It is not known if this is Jane's actual piano, but it is the same kind of piano that Jane's mother, sister, and friend pooled their resources to buy for her when they moved to Chawton Cottage.  All that to say, I played her piano today!  

There was a book of sonatinas open, and there happened to be one I had played before back in my piano-lesson days.  They also had a book of music from Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice.  I played the beginning bars of My Father's Favourite, the song Marianne  is playing in the movie while Elinor looks on crying.  That was really special.

In the future I'll post pictures of a lock of Jane's hair, copies of her letters, piano music copied out in her hand, a patchwork quilt she made, etc.  But for now, here is the writing table where she sat and worked her magic.

And here I am in the bedroom she shared with Cassandra.

Our time in Hampshire has been so wonderful today.  After leaving the home of Jane's later years, we drove to Steventon to see the place she lived the first 25 years of her life and the church where her father and brothers served as rectors.  It was so beautiful, too.  I haven't gotten those pictures off the camera card yet.  I'm so sorry I can't make them magically appear on my blog; I can't wait to share them.  

Hampshire has been beautiful and wonderful.  It's been the prettiest of all our days here so far, sunny and cool.  Tomorrow we head to Oxford.  My goodness, it's just so much to take in at once.