Happy Birthday To Me!

I’m very sorry that there was no blog post on Wednesday – regular readers will know my blog is always updated every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday – but I’m afraid on Wednesday I was still celebrating my birthday which happened on Tuesday!   

My son Kern spared a couple of days from his busy schedule to travel up from London to stay with us, which was a lovely added bonus.  He’ll be 22 years old next month, and is a student.  Like most students he is allergic to ironing, so as usual I made sure I nagged him about that while he was here – not that he listens to his Mum of course!

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but for my birthday I wanted to pay a visit to Chatsworth.  It’s a fantastic place.  I’ve been quite a few times now.  It’s especially brilliant at Christmas as the whole place is decked out with amazing festive baubles and decorations. Hubby was able to have a couple of days off work, so he came along with Kern and I.  The sun was shining, it was a lovely day, and I pretended not to hear my menfolk groan loudly when they heard Chatsworth was hosting an exhibition of five centuries of fashion...     

Before arriving at the house itself we had a slight detour to Chatsworth Farm Shop.  It’s a great place but all too easy to spend a lot of money on all kinds of treats! Hubby’s mood brightened when he was able to buy a couple of bottles of unusual beer!  We wanted to eat our lunch there but there was no chance, it was so busy that people were lining up to wait for a table to become vacant and by the time we thought about eating there was already a massive queue!

So it was on to Chatsworth House and the fashion exhibition.  Many of the costumes on show were absolutely breathtaking and I hope these pictures do them justice…

Hubby's imagination was taken by a vase which is at least twice as tall as I am.  He wanted to know, if you accidentally dropped a tennis ball into this vase, how on earth would you get it out again?  I have no idea how his mind works sometimes! 

We had lunch at Chatsworth before embarking on a walk around the extensive gardens, which are lovely.  It made us smile to see a gardener hard at work weeding while the fattest pheasant I’ve ever seen sat and watched him just a few yards away, as tame and as unworried as you like. 

Eventually, hours later, it seemed like we’d seen everything that was on offer, so, reluctantly, it was time to leave.  Once home we ditched the car and walked to our local for a lovely meal and a couple of glasses of Shiraz. As I’m not a night owl, within minutes of getting home again I was fast asleep!

The following day the menfolk dutifully put together my birthday present – two garden chairs and a table for the decking.  I’m hoping we’ll have a great Summer this year, and I’m also hoping that I’ll have plenty of time to sit outside and enjoy it - and I hope you will too!