Still going backwards.....

     ......but this time to our New Year/Darsh's birthday week.
Charlotte treated us to a weeks break, as we were celebrating his 60th birthday.
     Bearing in mind that it is the middle of winter, very wet, cold and any bed and breakfast/holiday homes would be cold and unused we weren't really sure what to expect.  So we took lots of food, thick clothes, games, books and even a jigsaw with us, we even thought about taking sleeping bags in case we were cold at night.
Nev was working an extra day.  SandJ were going to Dublin for New Year,  but Darsh, Charlotte, Selina Pete Joe and I all squashed into the Multipla and drove down to Taunton, in the rain, of course.

It was dark when we got there and still raining.  Charlotte had only arranged for us to have a week in Taunton castle!  It had only just been restored and we were the 2nd family to have used it....

 
     This is a view of our castle from the window of the museum.  Part of the castle was for rent and the other part was the museum, it was all built around a courtyard and surrounded by a moat.

The whole place was huge, very luxurious warm and very clean. 

It had huge thick walls, window seats, ancient uneven floorboards and little quirky steps and doors everywhere.  It had been very sympathetically restored.

The pictures don't really do the place any justice at all. They can't convey the sheer size, or just how atmospheric a building it was.  It was also bang in the centre of the town.  Everything was in walking distance.  As soon as you stepped out through a little archway you were back out into the modern world, and directly opposite the main shopping centre.
     We didn't go out very much, it really rained a lot.  We simply stayed in front of that huge log burner and enjoyed the castle, each others company and Charlotte and Nev's coffee machine!