A Little Trip Out

This week the children have their school half term break, so the house has been filled with sounds of piano playing and smells of biscuit baking.
The sky has been really showing off, wearing the most amazing clouds and colours.

Its been a week of recharging batteries. A time to visit special places.Today, a visit to Gloucester cathedral.
It was snowing and icy cold.

Luckily inside was lovely and warm and we wandered around drinking in history and inspiration for two hours, fuelled in between by a mug of hot chocolate and slice of cake in the coffee shop. I won't go into too much detail about the cathedral, as you can read  about it here. But here are my photos of things that inspired me.

  The hand painted ceilings and walls.

 Beautiful  lettering on stone and stained glass

Cold stone faces

Everything reminded me of how much I love medieval colours.

 

And this marble hand was so beautiful, I just had to keep touching it.

 

  

 

I've always been in love with stained glass and here of course it is everywhere.

But this window below wove a magic spell over all of us.It's by local stained glass artist Tom Denny

My small camera couldn't capture how beautiful it really was. It needs to be seen! You must go and see it, if you are not far away. It's simply stunning.

A different kind of magic crept into our visit too. The cathedral has been used numerous times as the film set for the Harry Potter films. Here are 'my two' standing in the passage where the message written on the wall proclaimed..... "The Chamber of secrets has been opened"

They enjoyed exploring, seeking out the different areas that had been used in the films, and so did I.

To finish our trip off and because it was snowing, (as in the story) how could we resist a wander, just a few steps from the cathedral to a rather famous address. Number 9 College Court. A little shop just off Westgate Street that once belonged to an old Tailor his cat and some very clever mice.

My favourite Beatrix Potter story. :)