vivandlarry.com blog

This is the 100th post here at the vivandlarry.com blog! I feel like that’s a lot, although in reality it’s probably not since this blog has been online in one location or another for about 3 years. I’ve got other posts lined up but on this late-winter Friday, I thought it would be nice to take a trip down memory lane and revisit part of 2009′s Viv and Larry London Adventure Extravaganza! Mostly because I miss it and sometimes I get nostalgic.

A little over one year ago, I caught a train from Marylebone station in London en route to a tiny little hamlet in the English countryside called Haddenham and Thame Parkway. The station had a little cafe (Brief Encounter, anyone?) and one road leading out from the rather flooded parking lot. I was on a mission to find Notley Abbey, the Olivier’s famed estate near Oxford, and had an invitation from the current owners themselves. The previous day, I had met up with my friend Kasia who was traveling from Poland at the Starbucks near Marylebone and, having visited Notley before, she drew me a little map on a piece of paper.

Of course I ended up going the wrong direction! I would. I walked for about an hour over frozen grass and mud, with no sign of Notley, just fields and emptiness with the occasional house in between; nothing as majestic as what I’d seen in photos. Finally I saw a guy sitting on a tractor eating lunch, so I stopped to ask the way. He said Notley was on the other side of this giant field across the street, and that I could either walk across the field or take the long way around and walk on the road. After making it about 20 feet into the field, I realized it wasn’t frozen at all, and my boots got covered in cold mud, so I turned around and continued on the road. About 2 miles later, sweating and hot, I finally came to Laurence Olivier’s famous lime walk drive.

I had finally made it!! Well, almost. The drive was really long. So I kept walking and walking. Eventually, there it was: Notley (cue heavenly music)!

It was smaller on the outside than I had imagined, but inside it was humongous.  No wonder they always had people over, you could get lost in that place.  Because I had an invite, I was allowed to walk around and take photos.  Another Viv and Larry fan, Meg, met me there by surprise, so we took our own self-guided tour.  I asked Meg if she could sense their presence there and she said yes.  I said I couldn’t.  I don’t know, the inside has been made so modern by the people who own it now.  The outside was magical, though, and quite a lot of Vivien and Larry’s things are still there: Vivien’s trees, the tennis court, Vivien’s greenhouse, the secret walled garden (which has probably been there for centuries).

Walking around the outside was amazing.  I just love grand old stately homes.  The River Thame was flooded on account of all the snow they’d had just days before I got there, but it was ok.  The house itself was gorgeous.

A year later, I miss this place very much.  Now that it’s a wedding venue, I’ve said many times that I’m going to get married there one day.  Although, i don’t know if it can get any more obnoxious than the photo below (wink):

This was truly the trip of a lifetime (and you can read my original Notley post HERE).  I can’t wait to spend a year over in London for school, I see many adventures in the future!