Yesterday we visited Shugborough Estate, a vast 900-acre estate with an 18th century mansion and a Georgian working farm. Today, as the ancestral home of the Earls of Lichfield, it was lived in by the 6th Earl until very recently. It is better known as the home of the late photographer, Patrick Lichfield whose photographs are displayed in one of the rooms of the house.

An enima type machine.

A 1940's kitchen at Bletchley Park.

We have been been visiting family and friends as well as doing some sightseeing.

We went to Bletchley Park near Milton Keyes. It is the historic site of secret British codebreaking activities during WWII and birthplace of the modern computer, the Colusses. They have rebuilt Colusses and the Bombe (Polish) enigma machine and lots of other enigma machines. They had displays of memorbillia from WW2 and that era. There were a lot of people there in dress from that era, historical re-enactment society members. There were historic cars and WW2 jeeps and machinery. We spent the entire day there and did not see everything. We will have to go back one day.

The gold medal Australian Garden.

I shall put some more photos on Picassa.

On Thursday we spent the day at the Chelsea Flower Show. There is a huge pavillion with floral displays and small gardens and outside there are lots of show gardens and then smaller courtyard gardens.

We spent about 8 hours at the show walking around. Here's a few photos