Chapter 6523 The Lady Volunteer (Mature Sex):>Ep2
- I looked around. The entrance hall was a mammoth affair with a grand staircase that split into two and went up to either side of a gallery. In the centre hung an enormous and complicated chandelier, under that the floor was tiled in black and white squares; dark wood panels and huge oil paintings gave the place a sombre air.
- I looked at the paintings before moving on to the next room, a large antechamber with an oak table that could comfortably have seated thirty diners. And this wasn't even the dining room!
- I won't try to describe the house as I wandered through it that day. It would take too long and be full of tedious repetition about the size and grandness of everything. Suffice it to say that there were more than thirty rooms on view to the general public, most having a rope barrier so that you couldn't actually wander round the room and touch things. I visited the kitchens, the buttery and scullery, the drawing rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, studies, galleries, nurseries and the chapel. And each room was staffed by a volunteer, sometimes more than one if there were a lot of paintings and artefacts to explain. The volunteers were, without exception, extremely polite and friendly and extremely well informed and I felt humbled that they gave so generously of their time to educate, inform and entertain the general public. A million miles from the greed and venality of investment banking.