Tamarisk

The glory of the garden at the moment is the Tamarisk tree.  I took this photo across the garden from our bedroom window.

Its warm pink flowers on soft, floppy stems dance lightly in the breeze

It is a playground for the sparrows who bounce on its branches and pick little buds from its flowers.

At the start of this year, after the bad weather of late last year, it had turned a strange brown colour and we were afraid we had lost it but it has bloomed again in the warm weather of the last week or two.

The only worrying thing is that it should flower in late summer - once again this year spring and summer have all rolled into one.  I wonder what will be left flowering in the garden during the months that are supposed to be summer?   I hope this wonderful display isn't its swan song!

EDIT 14/5/11:-   Due to the problems with blogger over the last few days I lost 8 comments on this post.  I've replaced them by cutting and pasting from the e-mails I received and putting the names in of the people who left them.  Thank you everyone.  I've noticed that one or two comments I left on your blogs have diappeared too, I've been back and left them again where I could but I apologise if I've missed anyone:)

At home with the Tudors - part 2

We had spent ages in the kitchens but it was time time to move on and look at some of the other rooms in Haddon Hall.  My favourite was the Long Gallery, with its mellow oak panelling, filled with light from the leaded windows.

The Long Gallery, 110 feet long and 17 feet wide, was built towards the end of the 16th century by Sir John Manners and his wife Dorothy, formerly Vernon, whose family owned the Hall, to celebrate their marriage and the joining of the two families.  There is a local legend that they eloped.

One of the things that we all admired was the use of wild flowers like cow parsley in displays around the hall

They looked so pretty and natural in plain glass vases in window sills and on polished wood surfaces.  I was so glad that I'd had my new camera in time to take photos here because I don't think my old one would have been up to the challenge.

The sun suddenly appeared, streaming through the windows of the Long Gallery, so we ventured outside to look at the gardens.

The grey stone walls of the hall looked wonderful against the lush green of the surrounding countryside.  Above Paul's photo of Diane, Rowan and I looking at the wonderful view.

The flowers too looked stunning against the grey stone

The one thing that  I particularly noticed about Haddon Hall was its windows with the wonderful light shining through so I've made a collage of some of them below,

 

After standing in the great hall watching the feast taking place for quite a while we decided to find a welcome cup of tea at the cafe and then make a visit to the gift shop before we left to go our separate ways towards home.  A good time was had by all!

In spite of the rain!!

At Home with the Tudors - part 1

Yesterday saw our long awaited bloggy meeting with  Diane  and Rowan at the wonderful Haddon Hall which is close to Bakewell in Derbyshire.  In spite of the rain we managed to picnic close to the river on the edge of the car park at Cauldwell's Mill at Rowsley before setting off  for the Hall in time for its opening at midday.   We were looking forward to experiencing a Tudor re-enactment within the hall, of the cooking and preparation of a family dinner,  from - The Tudor Group

 I think Haddon is my favourite of all the famous Derbyshire Houses - and there are many!    It stands so majestically on its hill and is approached by an arched bridge over the river Wye. 

 There is then a flight of steps to the entrance - if you are lucky you may pass some little Tudor people on the way!

Through the entrance you are greeted by the loveliest courtyard - in here you feel protected and sheltered from the world outside.

At the top of the courtyard some of the servants were collecting herbs for the kitchen

 

The courtyard must seem such a huge expanse of stone to such a little one!

Inside the great hall where the food was to be served the male servants, often from high status families themselves, go through the moves of service which includes lots of  deferential bowing towards the head table, thought to be the manners of the day.  The higher status, pristine clothing and more graceful deference of the servants indicated the greater wealth and status of the owner of the house.

Female servants were quite rare at this period;  only nursemaids, wet nurses and outside laundry and dairy staff were female.  All the kitchen staff would have been male.  Of course, this wasn't possible to re-enact as there were many female members of the group, as TV Historian Ruth Goodman pointed out that the role she was playing would have most definitely been held by a man within that household.  'I'm sorry I'm a girl' she said with a twinkle in her eyes.  She really is a most charismatic woman holding the crowd fascinated as we waited for His Lordship and all his ladies  to come down from the Long Gallery to the dinner table.

I'm getting slightly ahead of myself  here as there was much to see elsewhere as the servants prepared for the feast and before we looked at the rest of the rooms in the hall and the gardens we hot-footed it straight to the kitchens to get in on the action.

I just loved this man's costume and hat.

Bread, salt and pickled onions!

The young man behind the basket of herbs had the thankless task of peeling the shell from quails eggs!

Lovely greens from the garden!

This lady was very interesting as she described to us the making of the different kinds of soap that were made for jobs like laundry, pot washing and the washing of metal pots and pans.  She also told us how to make a calendula lotion which was used mainly on the hands as a barrier against the washing up water.  As you can see, Diane, Rowan and I are fascinated.

I'll be back with more photos of the Hall and  gardens in my next post.

Baslow

Yesterday, on the way back from visiting my sister in Chesterfield, we stopped for a while in Baslow.  We were actually looking for a post office which we didn't find but on our quest to find one we parked behind the church.  This was an area of Baslow I'd never been in before and as it was such a lovely late afternoon we took a stroll through the churchyard so I could try out my new camera.

St Anne's Church in Baslow is in a lovely position right next to the River Derwent.  The tower, spire and nave are either 13th century or 14th century, depending on which information you read, but much of the church was restored in the 1850s by the then Duke of Devonshire with the help of his head gardener and great friend Joseph Paxton.

The churchyard was full of old memorial stones some standing quite close to the river.

Inside,  the nave and chancel were neat and well kept,  the stained glass in  the windows shining in the sunshine.

The Priest's stairway with reflections of the trees on the stone wall

Opposite the church was a rather spectacular shop called Avant Garde full of lovely household things.

This area of Baslow is know as Bridge End and this is the Bridge End toll bridge a 17th century, 3 arched  construction with, as you can see below,  a little stone shelter built for the toll collector which has an entrance of only 1 metre in height.

The views from the bridge down to the river were lovely - you can just make out the water fall in the photo below.

We didn't have long to linger here but it was a spot I could have spent ages in just wandering around.  

Cameras and Kindness

For a  while now I've been struggling with my formerly trusty Kodak Easyshare C330 digital camera which I must have had for about five years now.  For some reason known only to itself it defaults to flash, sometimes even in what I would consider to be be light enough conditions and it certainly can't be trusted not to flash in places where flash isn't allowed.  So over the last few weeks I have been looking at new digital cameras - just small compact ones that I can slip in a bag or pocket - but could I find one at a reasonable price that had a view finder?  No!  

My Old Kodak Camera

I've been  reading several on-line reports and forums where people are bemoaning the fact that manufacturers no longer include a view finder in their smaller compact cameras and all of them, like me, find it difficult to see the LCD screen image in bright sunlight. There were a few cameras with viewfinders over £300 but I didn't want to spend that much.  Over the weekend I saw a little camera with a view finder in Jessops but wasn't sure about it, however  on Tuesday,  I decided that as they were selling it for half price that I really ought to buy it as it might be the last chance to get one with a view finder.  I'm now the proud owner of  - this - Cannon Powershot camera and I gave it a test run yesterday.  I'll show you the results in my next post; so far I'm  thrilled with it

I'm  always humbled and amazed by the kindness of fellow bloggers and this week I received a lovely parcel from Liz at Love those Cupcakes who, concerned about my fall in the garden, sent me a super book to read and some chocolate to indulge in whilst reading it.  Thanks Liz! Aren't people so kind and isn't blogland wonderful?

Talking of the wonders of blogland I'm off this weekend to meet with two super bloggers whose blogs I have read and followed for quite a long time.  I'm really looking forward to the meeting and I expect you will read more of this in a later post.

A Visit to Shugborough - part 2

As promised in my last post here is a peek inside the Mansion House at Shugborough including some of the recently opened rooms that are in the appartments used by Lord Lichfield until his death in November 2005.  We hadn't expected to be allowed to take photos but we were told without asking that we could as long as we didn't use flash.  Thinking about it as Lord Lichfield was such a renowned photographer I expect he would have encouraged the taking of photographs so it shouldn't have been such a great surprise.

As I said in my previous post I let Paul take the internal photographs as his camera could cope with the lighting conditions.  Here are just a few of the many we took...

 I can't remember the exact name of this room so let's call it the red room.  In here was the most beautiful, twinkling chandelier - you can just glimpse it through the mirror over the fireplace.  The guide in this room told us how lovely it looks  lit with candles when the hall is open each December for candlelit Christmas evenings.  The chandelier is reflected in a mirror at the opposite end of a corridor making it look as if there is another one at that end of the ground floor.

 The Library - full of architectural illusions created with mirrors and secret doorways.

 The Royal Appartments

  This is the bedroom slept in by royal visitors there is also a sitting room and dressing room.  Princess Victoria slept here before she became Queen but not in this bed which was placed here in 1847.  The carpet on the floor is an exact copy of the original two small pieces of which can be seen on the steps used to get into the bed.

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 Equipment from Lord Lichfield's studio.  In this area were some of the photographs he took during the 1960s and 1970s of   famous and beautiful people  like  Jean Shrimpton, Joanna Lumley, Mick Jagger, Antonia Frazer  and Lulu.

 A charming corner of one of the rooms.   Lord Lichfield's private appartments were off a long corridor on which was an area for drinks and music.  Guest bedrooms and bathrooms were along here with views to the back of the house.  The Earl's private rooms were overlooking the front of the property.  Some of these rooms were open although the bedroom is expected to open next year.

 The lilac bedroom

 and the lilac bathroom

The breakfast room.  This was my favourite room it was completely circular and so light and airy with views over the front and side of the property to the windows.

Directly below the breakfast room is another lovely, circular room which was yet to be refurbished. The Boudoir was open for public view to show how this would be done.  The wallpaper is the original from 1794 and contains silver leaf.

The ceiling is the only hand painted ceiling in the  house and the room also has lots of ornate gilt work.

 

Back outside - I also promised photos of the statues and bluebells along the Lady Walk.  The scent and colour of the bluebells was wonderful I'm afraid my photo doesn't do them justice.

Heron

Otter

Newt

Dragon Fly

There will be more sculptures to see as part of the Sculpture Trail which is to be launched on 22nd May this year so we hope to go back again soon and discover those, walk around the island arboretum and visit 'downstairs' in the servant's quarters - photo below.  If you look closely you can see the washing on the line through the gate.