Chatsworth - Fairies and Lights

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 It rained overnight. Oh boy did it rain! York was flooded once again we heard but, despite being by the river, Chatsworth is OK. Ian slept fitfully as he kept hearing things dropping on the roof. I slept like a log. We awoke around 8 with the rain still battering us, and I made coffee. No point in getting up so we pfaffed a lot. Then I made a lovely full English, with beans!


Cafe quality Full English

All the while the rain was beating down. From the window we could see people is sou’westers and dogs in raincoats braving the torrent. ‘Do you fancy a walk into Baslow and some lunch?’ Ian asked. Normally I love a little walk to get some air, but not today. Thankfully Ian’s mums heating and water weren’t working! He spent an age on the phone to various people to arrange an emergency plumber who mended it very quickly (thanks to Chris for rushing down to let him in when he should have been working) . Then Chris had a query that necessitated the full laptop/ipad spread on the table. Then he decided to do some billing. And by this time it was 2.30 and we had tickets for the house at 3. So despite my enthusiasm we never did get to Baslow. 

But! By this time the rain had stopped. We exited the secret door (see previous Chatsworth blogs) and walked across the very busy car park. A little train pulled by a tractor was just arriving so we decided to treat ourselves. 


Tractor Train

We had a quick glance around the market, which was heaving, before entering the house. Because we had come under our own steam (well nearly) and not used the car park, we got a free glossy Chatsworth guide book. Last year we got some money off, but times are hard. The theme this year in the house is ‘woodland wonderland’ and I really enjoyed it. There were little domes with fairies in all over, and the fairies flew about! My favourites were the robin fairy, and the mushroom fairy. We have a Hard Robin who lives in our front garden, and we are now fully fledged mushroom hunters. Here are some photos.


A green fairy


Me and a nice tree



Fun in a frame


Us on the stairs


By a nice big tree



We came upon a wishing tree





The Robin fairy

After we had had a good look around the house and shop (£14 for a tiny mushroom tree ornament! No thanks) we came out into the gardens. It was just about dark enough for the light trail, so we had a nice wander around that. It culminates with a light show projected onto the wall of the house which was very good. I wasn’t so keen on the accompanying music though. 





Lights


Firework lights on the house

By the time we exited the garden the market was very quiet. We treated ourselves to heinously expensive, but very nice, mulled wine and sat for a while. 


Delicious mulled wine 

We then wandered on back to Dame Shirl, who was looking resplendent in the waning light.


Evening Dame Shirley 

Ian made the tea, a Charlie Bingham of course, but I forgot to take a photo of this momentous occasion so there is no evidence it ever happened. As we ate we could hear the pitter patter of tiny raindrops on the roof. We had certainly had the best of the day. 

After tea we did a few more quizzes from the book before watching Only Connect and University Challenge, although Ian slept through most of them. Then the final episode of the maths thriller we had been watching, bit of a strange ending as is their want these days. Then time for bed. 

Notable Events

While Ian was doing an extended version of pfaffing, I watched the first Christmas film in my quest. The Princess Swap. The girls and Alex love it. I wasn’t so enamoured. Not sure I will be going in for Princess Switch 2, switched again.

The answer to yesterday’s puzzle was Archery. Art(Garfunkel) Cherie ((Blair) 

How about this one, if this is the answer what is the question?



Comments

  1. Vicky2 December 2025 at 13:39

    I see the wishing tree has immediate effect. I am no good at the cryptic puzzles, this one makes no sense to me!

    ReplyDelete

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