Framlingham Castle

The day we went to Framlingham Castle did not start off well. I was driving the Jeep with my handy dandy GPS and The Man was following in the Fiat with my dad as the "spotter/navigator". OK for this to make sense I need to draw a diagram...hold please.

Click to enlarge.

Not 5 min after we began our journey we got to the 5 Way. It is a large roundabout with 5 exits. It strikes fear into most of the American's hearts around here. Not me. I have been to this rodeo more than once in my quests. The GPS told me to take the 5th exit. I checked my mirrors, made sure he was behind me and entered the roundabout. As I got into the round about I counted the exits, took the 5th exit, checked my mirror and saw he was not behind me. He had taken the 4th exit. SHIT! Look for mobile phone. No phone. Left it at the house. SHIT! I drove up the road about a mile. Look there is a phone booth! Well at this point I was so pissed off at his driving and my dad's navigation skills that I litterally could NOT remember his mobile number. What to do? Well surely they will just go back to the house when they realize that I am not on that road and I don't have my phone. We will just go back to the house and try this again. I proceeded th unleash a tirade of cussing all the way back to the house.

I got back to the house and located my phone. Dial The Man. My father answers the phone.

"Where are ya'll?"
"Oh we are just getting to Bury"
"WHAT? Why didn't you guys turn around? You don't have a GPS. How are you guys going to get to the castle without directions?"
"Well I did study the map lastnight. I think we'll be OK. Meet you at the castle."
"Whatever (note this is the whatever that means I hope you wander all over Suffolk get lost and have a really fun day of seeing nothing but the countryside and no castle)"

After I got off the phone I got back into the car hell bent on seeing a frickin castle that day. Well we arrived at the castle about 5 minutes after my dad and The Man did. They, unlike most men, did stop and ask for directions. And although I had wished a day of fruitless wandering on them, I was glad to see that they had made it. Plus they had LaLa in the car with them and it wouldn't have been cool if she had missed the castle.

According to The Man (and I don't believe this for one second) by the time they had got into the 5 way they had lost sight of me and just took the exit that they knew went semi towards the direction that they needed to go. I mean, how to you lose a LARGE, ORANGE, SUV? We did see the castle at Framlingham. It was lovely.

View from just inside the castle gates

Mom coming up the stairs to the castle wall

On top of the castle wall

The Girls on top of the castle walls

The view of the countryside

After the 5 ways debacle, it was a great day. We had a really good time. The girls had a great time running around the lawn inside the castle gates. I got to enjoy the scenery and The Man got his history fix. The drive home, thankfully, was much less eventful.