8
March, 2014
I’m not sure I could possibly describe how
great this day was. I also don’t think I could possibly describe how nerdy this
day was. But seeing as that both suit me just fine, I’m fairly convinced I
would be happy retiring to the little village of Lacock.
I woke up at 6:30 so I would have plenty of
time to get ready and be at the station for my 10:00 train. Unfortunately, the
ticket machine and I apparently didn’t get along very well. I had purchased my
tickets online so I was really only using the machine to collect them. Little
did I know that, in my hurry, the two pieces of paper I collected were one
ticket for the trip back and one receipt. (This bit still irks me a little.
Anna - another of the friends I was travelling with - told me later that she
waited a whole minute for her tickets to be finished dispensing but apparently still didn't get all of hers because another of our friends – Christine – used the machine after her, and received one
of Anna’s tickets mixed in with her own. High five if you followed along to any of that! Basically, the whole system was just messed up.) I didn’t realise I was missing a
ticket until I was at the barrier, unable to get through. I tried to sort it
out with the ticketing people but there was apparently nothing to be done. They
did what they could but eventually said they were sorry, sold me another
ticket, and gave me a complaint form to mail in. At this point, I had already
missed my train and had to wait for the next one which was due in a half hour.
My amazing friends were super understanding
(especially since I was the one organising the trip and therefore should have my stuff together) and just got tea at the
Chippenham station café while they waited for me to arrive. In the end, it was
decided that you weren’t on an adventure if there weren't any travelling mishaps.
After some
more minor setbacks – this time taking the form of incorrect online bus
information – we followed (poorly) the information desk worker’s directions to
the bus stop. Before long, we were finally on our way to Lacock!
Because I
know that there will be no way to conceal the true motives of this trip through
the entire blog, and because I know it will simply be easier if I can explain
why we kept wandering around this town, I think now is the best time to come
clean. The village of Lacock and its abbey were used as filming locations for
several of the Harry Potter movies. (I know, I’m sure you’re all shocked. There’s
no reoccurring theme to these trips at all, is there?) Regardless, I was
ridiculously excited at this point and we were all nearly skipping as we got
off the bus.
First
impression on the bus ride and upon first arrival: this place is just
beautiful.
 |
| First look at the village off the bus. Honestly, this picture does not do it justice at all. |
It’s not
beautiful in the traditional grand building sort of way, but in the charming
old countryside village sort of way. Even if the style of the buildings wasn’t proof enough,
the fact that I would literally have had to bend down to fit through the doors
was ample testament of how old this village truly was.
The bus
dropped us out of George’s Inn and, immediately struck by the subtle beauty of
this town but eager to find our destinations, we headed off down the street
towards the Red Lion. We wandered along as I tried to identify streets for the
central point, and finally stumbled upon Lacock Abbey. Although this was our
main destination for the day, we decided that for maximum efficiency, we would
explore the village then come back.
We headed
down one of the side roads and came across the Lacock Cathedral.
We ventured
towards the countryside houses where we passed a creek with children playing, a tiny dirt/mud footpath along people’s front gardens, and eventually
reached a huge green countryside field.
 |
| Yupp, so this happened... We were keeping with the theme of the day... |
As beautiful as it was and though we wished
we could stay there forever, we realised that following our little path had not lead us to the Potters' house as we had hoped and there were far more important things to find, so we grudgingly
ventured on.
Eventually, we reached our starting point
and realising we had found neither the central location, nor the Potters’ house
in the countryside area, we decided to head in the opposite direction towards
the nicer looking houses that seemed a similar style to Slughorn’s. Though we
didn’t find it there, we did finally recognise the central apparition location,
from which I knew the directions to everywhere else :D
 |
| Standing in the middle of the street for this picture proved to be quite the challenge, but there was simply no way I was taking this picture half-way. |
To explain some of our misguided wanderings and failed locative attempts previously; apparently there's this thing called privacy that means people don't want their address on the internet! I know, right?! I was shocked too. After all, how are us Potterheads supposed to stalk your house and take pictures in front of it?! (This is sarcasm, of course :) I completely understand why such measures are in place, little though I like them :P) Long story short, though I did countless hours of research before making this trip, the exact locations of many places were simply nowhere to be found. Hence our wanderings around random neighborhoods and countrysides as seen above. Luckily however, I was able to piece together enough information from different sources to determine the general location of the rest of our sites from this central spot. So, once I had found this street, the rest came with fairly little difficulty.
In the movie, they make it seem as though Slughorn is residing down the street above, when in reality the house is actually a little to the left. In fact, the Potters' house was down the previous street. This lead me to wonder what would have happened if the actual locations concurred with the movie locations. Would Dumbledore have just casually mentioned, "Oh and Harry, just so you know, that's Godric's Hollow back there. You know, where your parents were murdered. Okay, so let's go see my old colleague now, come along!"
Anyways... we did actually go visit the Potters' house next :D
When we did find the house, I felt pretty dumb to say the least. It was quite literally right next to the cathedral I mentioned earlier. See that little house in the corner of the picture below? Yupp, that was it. We saw that before wandering into the middle of nowhere. I blame the pottery class sign that was in front of it for distracting me. I definitely saw that sign, meaning I was looking right at the house. But honestly, pottery is the wrong kind of 'potter' people!!!
Regardless, we did eventually find it. Notice the 'private' sign on the gate? It seems likely they had issues with that previously... can't imagine why...
Honestly though, if I lived in that house, I would play it up so much. I would definitely put up a memorial similar to the one that is supposed to be outside this house. Heck, I would probably start selling tickets to a nightly show where a mysterious hooded figure approaches the house and laughs diabolically as green lights flash from the windows... how long before that house will be up for sale, do you think?
But I digress :) Since we had finally found everything we wanted to in the village, we headed over to the abbey where the real fun was sure to be had!
At that point, there was nothing left but to take a nice walk through the Abbey grounds.
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| That's totally the Potters' backyard. |
I don't think there's any other way to sum this up other than to say; if you didn't think I was completely obsessed before, I'm sure you have been thoroughly convinced now :D
Also, sorry for the increasingly ramble-y, list-y, documentative and boring type blogs. I try to throw in as much fun stuff as possible but hey, my life ain't all that exciting to anyone but me :/ and I really am trying to just capture my life in England. It's purpose is for my own reminiscence later in life more than anything else. I'm basically just keeping a virtual journal. I know it can be boring so, if you are still reading at this point, I solemnly salute you; you must be a true friend :)
P.S. Because she's awesome and because this awesome-ness is just too great not to share... here's Rachel's video for the day!
If she seems as great as I think she is, and you simply must see/read more of here, here's the link to her blog of the day :D
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