The Cultureseekers Trip to Constable Country

I must confess to being a bit nervous as I approached London's Liverpool Street Station where I was meeting a group of Cultureseekers to board the train to Manningtree in order to explore the region of North Essex and South Sussex which is known as 'Constable Country' after the famous landscape artist of the 18th Century.  I need not have worried, everyone was really friendly and welcoming, plus there were quite a few newbies there too.  We boarded the train which terminated at Great Yarmouth, so it was really crowded with holidaymakers(!) and after fifty five minutes we arrived at our stop.  Although it is located an hour from London it's very rural indeed and there was nothing but countryside plus a few sheep and cows. 

We walked to the famous Flatford Mill, location of Constable's most famous painting which you may know by its alternative title of 'Bloke Who Gets a Cart Stuck In a Stream'.  The millpond was very green and housed a number of rivercraft and some glorious waterfowl, which I stated did not belong to the Queen because they weren't located on The Thames.  That was an interesting fact I'm sure you'll agree and such knowledge will undoubtedly net me a huge amount of friends in the short, medium and long term. 

The guide, Mark, was very knowledgeable and had laminated copies of the various paintings which he used to illustrate the locations at various points along the way.  It was fairly tiring though and I'm pretty darn fit, although I say so myself.

It was a great day, I met a whole load of lovely people along the way.  I must confess that I did get a bit bored by the end of it as there are only so many landscape scenes that you can say 'splendid' about, but that's me all over: I have the attention span of a dyspraxic goldfish.