Father's Day Brunch on Admiral Mountain

I had no plans for today really, except to chill with munchkin and the pops for father's day, maybe cook him a meal or something since he does most of the cooking now that his grandkid is around. But my good friend Neville gifted me brunch tickets as his dad flaked on him. Don't you love it when a free buffet falls in your lap?

It promised a tour of Lord Nelson's home as well. That one flew over my head because I'll be honest and say I really had no clue who he was. The tour however was enough to inspire this blog post, it was some really cool stuff! This is Lord Nelson's wiki if you wanna brush up on your history, but basically he won against several captain Jack Sparrows before being killed on one of those same voyages. Read up on him and Lady Hamilton too, so scandalous. But on to the tour of the house.

The English sailing hero stayed at the house for 6 months in 1780 while recuperating from a tropical fever and there are artifacts in the house that actually date back to his time there! The house was gutted by fire about 200 years ago but was restored to its old glory and the surviving stone pointed out to us. This wall to the left is a part of the surviving house, you can see where it still looks charred from the fire. Eery..... It encloses the courtyard:

Beautiful home so far eh?




By the way this house is high up in Cooper's Hill St. Andrew, its higher than I've ever looked out on this view for sure. Normally I'm able to point out certain landmarks for sure, but from so high up all I could do was point out general areas: over there is portmore, see port royal there...yah. I'm so sorry that the clouds are blocking the beautiful view but hey, we were higher than the clouds!

This chimney they say actually works still, I guess on the cold Christmas nights when you're so high up there is use for a fireplace in Jamaica after all! I didn't notice any AC units in this house and that's unheard of in this yah heat yah...is it really that much cooler up in the hills?

These next few pictures were taken in the Nelson room, which houses several artifacts like original paintings, snuff boxes, a letter he actually wrote, duplicates of the rings he and Lady Hamilton wore and an actual newspaper article from 1805 which announced his funeral arrangements. Must have been cured right? A newspaper article from 1805??? Coooool

This they say is his actual telescope for watching the seas as it took 3 days on horseback to get out to the harbour. I haven't quite wrapped my mind around that one yet, after all its only a 30 minute drive :s

That bust is kinda eery, its a little to big for my liking. 

A replica of the ship he died on. 

An original painting of him, one of the few that show his right arm as he lost it later on in battle. 

The cannon at the front of the house. 

More house...i think it went on for quite some while! 

The dining room where we ate since it was pouring when we got there. This is just off the courtyard, which is thru those arches that you're seeing which are apart of the original house as well.

The office which is off the dining room. Some of the gents were holed up in here catching the Brazil match.

The front of the house where the live entertainment played from. 

There was a lady who ran upstairs to win a prize then came downstairs, waited at the foot of the steps for the next question to be read and told her son what the answer was so he could run up there and win the next one. How selfish was that? UGH! The prize was alcohol, the announcer didn't even want to give it to him as he's about 6 or 7 and she was reluctant to identify herself as his mother as obviously she had just won a prize. SMH! And then I happened to meet up with her again blocking the entire parking lot AND the shuttle bus to wait on her family to load into the car which took ten years because her party needed help...you know, old people kinda help to get in. Come on lady think about others nuh. I hate selfishness. 

Anyway the afternoon was well spent, mi belly full and mi pa had a good time. Thanks again Nev! Tell pops he missed out :)