Up the Downs

Firstly, my faith in my driving and finding places ability has been restored! I got to (and home again) the Downs with no deviations or mistakes!

So, yesterday I was up at Dunstable Downs as part of their Food Festival week of events, well to be more precise I was at the Chiltern Gateway Centre which is at the top of the Downs. The centre houses a great cafe which can hold plenty of people and is a great place to fly a kite, walk across the countryside or just watch the gliders.

It is spectacular up there, not to mention windy! The view is fantastic as you would expect when you are at the highest point in the East of England! We don't have mountains here so this is special!

This has to be the best view I have ever had from a marquee! If I could paste together all my pictures I could show you the 180 degrees panoramic view from here, but I don't know how to do that, sorry!

Inside the marquee, which also housed the beer (poor hubby opted out of coming with me, he could have enjoyed a day sampling the beers and watching the view!) we had plenty of room and I tried out a round table set up for a change!

A few of my hearty goodies! The patchwork hearts have a wonderful scented blend inside them.

Just one of the beers on offer, there were varieties from Potton Brewery, Tring, Dunstable and Chiltern.

Back outside and there were plenty of kites flying.

If you look closely at the middle of the picture, you may be able to make out two white objects (they looked bigger in real life!) these are actually an aeroplane towing a glider, but we were higher than them!

Being this high up and with such a great panorama to watch, it is easy to see the weather coming! We watched this creep closer and closer to us in the afternoon, and it did seem that it may just carry on through the valley and leave us alone.

But it didn't! I could only take a picture through the window as it was such torrential rain you couldn't get near the doorway with out getting wet! Plus the fact that it was thunder and lightening with avengence and being at the highest point in the East of England certainly makes you feel like you are actually inside the storm!

Just as a comparison, this is what I had been seeing through the arch window earlier in the day!

Unfortuately this is a poor photo but the carpet is not actually specked with white and there is no bright sunshine outside - that is hailstones!

As quickly as it had started, it stopped! All the people who had been taking shelter in the centre re-appeared and the kites came back out!

If I was going to be anywhere, even in a thunderstorm I think I would choose here again, it was simply stunning. What a great place to work, you would never tire of watching the views change, just a danger of not getting any work done due to looking out the window!

Take care all, til tomorrow

Sarah x