A Lovely Day in the Gardens

On Monday, it was a beautiful day here in England.  I think it was in the mid-60's (Fahrenheit).  We headed up to the Chatsworth Gardens, which was about an hour away.  I guess I should have said it was supposed to take an hour, but traffic on the main road to Chatsworth was backed up, so it took a little longer than expected.  We have been to the Chatsworth House & Gardens once, during the Christmas season.  We headed there with a couple friends to experience the Christmas Markets, but it was raining so we didn't head into the the house or enjoy the gardens that day.

After Jeff and I finally got there, we went straight to the gardens.  We weren't really interested in going inside the house, but more just being outside and seeing the gardens.  The gardens were huge!  We walked around them for about an hour and a half.  There were a few ponds on the grounds, and what they called a waterfall...but I'm not sure I would consider it that---more of a flowing stream is what I witnessed.  But the gardens were in full bloom, so we were able to get some amazing pictures.  There was also a "kitchen garden" which was filled with blooming vegetables.  It definitely made us want a garden one day.  But my lack of having a green thumb is concerning.  Jeff and I both agreed that Jeff's grandmother would have loved this place!

Love the spring has finally arrived!

 One of our favorite things in the garden was the maze.  It wasn't too big, as you can see in the picture below, but we struggled to get to the center.  I'm not going to lie, I started to follow the 8 year olds, as they seemed to have done the maze at least 20 times before. What a cool thing to have in the garden though!

 The maze is the hedges that are in block form in the middle of the picture. 

 Inside of the maze

We made it! (Please ignore my monochromatic clothing choice for the day)

Many families were enjoying a picnic, some even enjoying some champagne.  Many kids running around, playing games, and having a great time.  It seems like a spot many families take advantage of on nice days.   It is also in the peak district (one of my favorite English adventures).  

 I thought at the time this picture did the scenery, lily-pads, and cloud reflect justice...but it doesn't.  What a gorgeous view this was!

  The rock garden

 This was a beautiful piece of artwork.  It was really long, and many kids were popping in/out of the water. 

 These led the way to the "Kitchen Garden"

On our way out, there were TONS of lambs following their mothers around.  I got a quick fix with the adorable lambs when we were in the Lake District a couple months ago...but there were so many little families walking around the grounds.  Absolutely adorable. 

Took this photo as we were driving away.  It is also a good shot of the house from a distance.  

The next month is going to fly by for us, as there is just so much going on.  We have 9 visitors coming in the next couple weeks!  Every weekend is packed with last chance trips and outings with friends.  Less than 5 weeks now...insane.  

On to the next adventure...

When Nature Calls

No, not that kind of nature calling...

On Saturday, we woke up early to head to the Lake District with our American friends, Julie and Andrew, who are living an hour and a half south of us.   We haven't been able to do much with them lately, because our traveling schedules have not been lining up.  Jeff visited them back on February when I was back in the states, so I was looking forward to our weekend together. 

We had to drive about 3.5 hours to get to this beautiful area.  The drive was absolutely awful, in my opinion.  Normal people would have said it was breathtaking, but I couldn't focus on the scenery as I felt ill.  Ever since I have been little I have gotten motion sickness when riding in cars (not so much on planes or boats).  The extra curvy roads that goes miles upon end are torturous on normal English roads, but they were 10x worse up in the Lake District.  I really wish I would have videotaped part of the drive, so you could see just how bad they whipped around.  I tried look for a video clip online, but wasn't impressed with what I found. Too bad.  But anyway, I wasn't feeling well the entire trip, and then when Andrew said 5 minutes left.  I couldn't make it.  We had to pull the car over...Make an inference on what happened as I did not take a picture and I will not describe it more.  I didn't feel myself the rest of the day, and that was good I guess given it was pouring down rain the entire time we were there. Well, except for an hour window, but more on that soon.

We didn't have a lot on the agenda other than hiking around and boating. Finding a place to stay for the night was a bit of a challenge, given the whole area is a giant national park.  The B&B we booked was really cute and right on one of the lakes, so the scenery was just gorgeous.  Although, the clouds and fog made the pictures not as beautiful as I had hoped.  Our favorite were the little lambs that had recently entered the world.  So stinkin' cute!!  Once we settled in, we hopped back in the car to drive to this cute little restaurant.

 Aren't they adorable?

The mommas were not too sure about us taking pictures. They were "baaing" at us for a while.

The B&B was nice.  Definitely not the best water pressure/shower I have ever taken. But cozy and quaint for sure!

Since the rain had stopped for the time being, we went on some trails nearby in hopes to get on a ferry to ride across the lake to a small village.  The walk was nice, although very muddy.  It wasn't raining during this portion, so we all enjoyed just being outside for a bit.  We decided to get tickets for the ferry, but just our luck, the ferry wasn't going that day because the water was too rough.  So no ferry ride for us.  We made our way back to the B&B to see if we could rent a boat there (they had row boats to rent).  Unfortunately, timing wasn't our friend here as they said by the time we filled out the paper work we'd have about 10 minutes on the water then we would have to be back at the dock (5:00 rule).  So, we were pretty much striking out due to the weather.

 The view from the road that led to the B&B (which is the white building)

 Not many pictures of us on this trip due to the rain.

The row boats we were wanting to get on. Bummer.

We headed back into the B&B and sat around the fire to just chat.  An early dinner was in our future.  We ate at a fantastic pub, although the food and atmosphere was not your typical English pub.  We all had excellent food and great company.  Not much to do at night in this area, given it is just nature so Jeff, Andrew, and Julie went down to sit by the fire, play some games, and just relax.  I wasn't feeling well after the dinner car ride, so I went to sleep (lame, I know).  We woke up to a yummy English breakfast at our B&B, and jumped back on the road again.  I found a motion sickness pill in my bag, so I was in heaven on the way home!  Although, we didn't do much during out time there, I'm glad we had good friends with us and beautiful scenery.

Sidenote: "Spring Forward" happened over here yesterday, so we're back to a 5 hour time difference for my Indiana friends/family, and a 6+ hour for my Chicago peeps!  We prefer the 5 hour difference over the 4 for some reason.  Not sure why.  Anyway...have a great week!

On to the next adventure...