Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy!!

The day after our adventures at Royal Ascot, the four gals decided to stop off at Chatsworth House to break up our multi-hour drive home. Chatsworth House is an incredibly large country estate owned by the Cavendish family, who are the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. 

You may recognize Chatsworth House from the picture below, as it was immortalized as Pemberly in the BBC production of "Pride and Prejudice" starting a young Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. It was more recently used in the BBC production "Death Comes to Pemberly", a story (I think) about Elizabeth Bennet's (now Mrs. Darcy) n'er-do-well brother-in-law who is suspected of murder most foul. But I digress....

Chatsworth House, AKA Pemberly

It was a beautiful day, so we took a short walk around the garden before heading indoors for a tour of the state rooms. Like many of the historic manor houses throughout England, tours of Chatsworth House are conducted through a portion of the house, while a majority of the house remains as private use for the family. 

Grand hall

The grand hall was pretty darned amazing. In most of these historic houses, the grand entrance was a show of wealth, opulence, and style. I just loved Chatsworth House's grand staircases, intricate ceiling, and massive fireplace

Bird's eye view of grand hall

Another bird's eye view of the grand hall

The picture below is of one of many similar looking bedrooms we toured in the house. This particular room was special, however, as it housed the prisoner, Mary Queen of Scots, for a short time while she was in the area. Pretty swanky prison, if I do say so myself! That said, we all know how it ended for Mary, so she didn't have it that great in the end...

Prisoner Mary Queen of Scots slept here

The picture of the library didn't turn out so great, but this room (which we couldn't enter) looked amazing. The volunteer said the family actually still used this room quite often. It looked so cozy - I could totally see myself getting lost in a book or playing Words with Friends on my iPad for hours in there! 

Fancy schmancy library

And no manor house is complete without a 20+ person dining table with solid silver candelabras! 

Formal dining hall

After touring the state rooms we went outside for a stroll in their formal gardens. I have found that England is mad-crazy for ice cream and you can purchase the stuff at nearly every historic site, event, theater, or... well, you get the idea. We each picked up a "99p Flake" which is soft serve ice cream in a cone or cup, with a flakey chocolate stick shoved into the ice cream at a jaunty angle. The strange thing is it always costs more like £2 to £3, depending on if you get a single or double, so I don't know why it's still called the 99p Flake!

Formal gardens

We strolled around the formal gardens for about an hour, finishing up our 99p Flake and catching some rare vitamin d.

Second water feature within formal gardens

And then we had to hit the road and head home, completing our three-day extravaganza of fun. 

Up close view of water feature

...And They're Off! Short Video Clips from Royal Ascot

I took a few videos while we were at Royal Ascot that I thought may be fun to post. While it definitely doesn't feel the same as being there, you at least get the idea of what it was like during the race day festivities. 

The video below is of the finishing stretch of the Gold Cup race; the winner gets something like £500,000 and a gold cup, presented by the Queen herself. This is the race I won £3.60... on a £4 bet. The betting kiosks definitely have a good thing going for themselves!

After the sixth and final race of the day, attendees are encouraged to rally 'round the bandstand and sing along to the oldies but goodies. Union Jacks and songbooks were handed out, and although we saw a lot of people streaming towards the exits, our taxi wasn't scheduled to arrive for another 45 minutes. Therefore, we snaked our way through the crowd towards the bandstand and had us a right jolly good time! 

My British friends were astounded that I had never heard this song (below) before. Have you? Perhaps it's an English pre-school song that never made its way across to our neck of the woods. 

Now this is a song everyone should know! 

The crowds were still singing when we got a text from our taxi letting us know it was time to go. Sadly, we made our way towards the exit. But I will never forget this a once-in-a-lifetime adventure!! 

If we're still around next year, I may try to talk Bill into going to Royal Ascot... he'd look GREAT in a morning suit and top hat! :-)

Fancy Ladies at Royal Ascot!!

The day of Royal Ascot arrived!! My friends and I got all dolled up in our fancy dresses and bespoke hats and caught our taxi to the race course. 

A bespoke hat!

Once we arrived, we got ourselves a table, some champagne, betting forms, and proceeded to research the horses for our picks on each race. Oh, and people watching; we did lots & lots of people watching! 

Champagne and race forms

We took a moment to pose for a group shot before heading into the racecourse area to stake out our area for the rest of the day. 

Fancy dressed ladies

On our way into the racecourse, I got a good photo of one of the lawns with all of the decorations, people, and festivities. What fun!

Bunting, festivities, and fun

Right on schedule, the royal procession began. We had great "seats" (standing room only, but up on risers) - I still can't believe it, but I saw the Queen of England (in blue), her husband, the Duke of Edinburough (seated next to her), and Prince Harry. Princess Anne was also in the procession, but I saw her later, and only from the back. Everyone sang a rousing rendition of "God Save the Queen," and I honestly got goosebumps. 

The arrival of the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh, and Prince Harry

Once the Queen arrived, the race day officially began! I took the photo below of the crowds just before the first of six races. It really doesn't do justice to the amount of people who were there that day. It was PACKED!!

The raceway was very, very crowded!

I lost £2 on each of the first two races. In fact, my picks came in dead last on those two races. D'oh! I skipped betting on the 3rd race, and placed a split bet on the 4th and biggest race of the day, the Gold Cup. I bet £4 - £2 to win and £2 to show - my horse came in second place, so I won a whopping £3.60 on my £4 bet - woohoo!! 

After the Gold Cup race, we popped out of the grandstand and high tailed it over to the winners circle in time to see the winning horse and jockey honored by the Queen. 

The Gold Cup winning horse

The Queen hung out in the winner's circle for a solid ten minutes. We watched her chat with a bunch of other royals and royal hangers-on. Prince Harry came out for just a minute and hammed it up, it was a royal good time! 

The Queen of England

Windsor Castle - The Queen is Nearby!

A few of my new friends and I bought tickets to go to Royal Ascot's Ladies Day way back in January. We purchased dresses, had hats made, and booked hotel rooms. We drove down bright & early the day before Ladies' Day and spent the afternoon in neighboring Windsor, touring thier famous castle.

The Royal Standard is flying high!

When we arrived at Windsor, we noticed the Queen's royal standard was flying, which means the Queen is in residence. Our excitement began to build as we knew we would most likely see the Queen the next day at the race. We kept our peepers open, just in case she (or any members of the royal family) happened to stroll by!

Entrance gate to Windsor Castle

Windsor castle is a pretty massive castle, set high atop the tallest hill in Windsor, a city just outside of London. We weren't allowed to take photographs inside any of the buildings, but trust me, the state rooms were massive, ornate, and steeped in history.

St. George's Chapel

St. George's Chapel, situated within the walls of Windsor Castle, was also quite an historic treat. It is the burial place of Henry VIII, his favorite wife, Jane Seymore, and his infant son with Anne Bolyn. It also had a small balcony that Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine, had built so she could attend mass privately away from the rest of the court.  

Royal Guards

At the end of our visit to Windsor, we started seeing dark-windowed Range Rovers pulling into the castle's private courtyard. We loitered for as long as we could, thinking we may be able to see someone we recognize. Alas, the Royal Guards started closing off areas and gently ushering everyone towards the exits. 

Teaser for the next blog post: we saw the Queen!!

What the Heck is a Silent Disco?!?

Some friends of ours had a spare pair of tickets to a silent disco and asked if we wanted to join them. What the heck is a silent disco, you ask? We had to ask, too. It is a disco, where everyone wears headsets, you can pick one of three channels, and boogie down. If you don't want to dance, you can take the headset off and have a conversation, or simply watch the hilarity unfold. Sorry the videos are so dark, but it was a disco, after all! 

The disco was held in a 100+ year old traveling circus tent that was really quite attractive. 

Center of the tent

Mirrored walls of the tent

And as the crowd had a few more alcoholic beverages, they got a bit more vocal as songs they liked were played.

And a bit more rambunctious. 

And hilarious!

PS I've finally figured out the only way to successfully add video is to first upload them to YouTube. We hope you enjoy! 

The World of James Herriot

When a friend heard I was moving to North Yorkshire, she told me I had to read All Creatures Great and Small. I had heard of the BBC show from the 70s, but didn't realize the show was based on a series of books written about the life of a Yorkshire veterinarian. I finished reading ACGandS just as our house was being paked up for the move - and completely loved it! 

Living room

Thirsk, the town James Herriot (real name James Alfred "Alf" Wight) called home for most of his professional life, is only a 40-minute drive from where we currently reside. I have been wanting to visit his home since we moved here, and last month I finally did! The home in which he lived and worked has been restored and maintained to look like it did during the time period in which his books are set (1930ish).

Dining room

Alcove and later TV room

Kitchen

I have only read the first in his series of books, which are all loosely based on his life and work stories he detailed in his journal over the years. I loved the kooky farmers and small animal lovers he depicted; folks who would call him out to their farm for ailing cows and rich landowners whose dogs overate and became Ill. The treatment rooms in his home are very close to how I imagined them while reading his books. 

Veterinary supplies

Small animal exam room

I learned that he always said to his beloved wife that the stories in his diaries would make a great book. One day, she apparently dared him to write such a book, and the rest is history!

James Herriot's diaries from which he wrote his books

As you exit his home there is a purpose-built building which houses many of the sets from the much-loved BBC television series, based on his novels. 

All Creatures Great and Small TV set dining room

ACGandS TV set vet clinic

Next to the set pieces sat his original car depicted in the book - a terrible, broke-down, unsafe vehicle that nearly got him killed many times over. The volunteer at the museum explained that a fund had been collected a few years ago to restore the car... And what a pity! I would have loved to see it as the piece of junk he had to deal with on a daily basis. Oh, well!

James Herriot's original clunker of a car

The Himalayan Garden and Sculpture Park

On the rare sunshiny, warm days in England, you drop everything and get your butt outdoors! And that's exactly what we did on a recent Saturday afternoon trip to the Himalayan Garden and Sculpture Park! 

Landscape View

It is on land owned by a family who runs a nursery. They started the garden as a way to showcase all of their many plants, trees, and flowers that can be purchased at their nursery. I think now the entrance fee probably make up half of their income! 

A carpet of flowers

Bluebells

A fuchsia variety?

Gorgeous flowers were everywhere you looked. And tucked in flower beds, lakes, and fields were many sculptures by Yorkshire artists. 

Kinetic sculpture in the lake

Faux stone circle

Water lilly sculpture

Water feature and conical sculpture

It was such a warm and relaxing day, we walked, basked in the sun, and took photos for several hours.

Relaxing in the sun - photo by our friend Brian

The garden is open for several weeks each season, in which they show off the best the season has to offer. We were there at the tail end of their spring season, and they were very proud of their rhododendrons, which I believe are the flowers in the photos below. Those of you who are flower people out there can tell me if I am correct or not! 

A type of rhododendron?

Another type of rhododendron?

It was, all in all, a very lovely day!

Gangsters and Molls Party

A friend of ours volunteers in her village, and helped set up a recent village fundraiser dinner. She and the committee decided it would be much more fun if the dinner had a theme and attendees could dress accordingly. The theme was gangsters & molls and people really got into it! 

Bill and I had just returned from Paris, and I had totally forgotten about obtaining costumes. On the day of the party, I bought Bill a gangster-like fedora and a black tie and I borrowed a bejeweled headband and made sure an old dress still fit. Sadly, Bill's hat was not large enough to fit over his mass of hair. 

Almost gangster-y and moll-y

Below is a picture of Patty, complete with fake mustache and inflatable tommy gun, and Julie, in flapper dress and red feather boa.

Patty and Julie 

Regine, one of the organizers of the shindig, wearing the feather headress, and Verity in pearls and an inflatable sawed-off shotgun. Who knew there were so many types of inflatable guns available? 

Regine and Verity

Brook, wearing the pimpest hat ever, and his lovely wife Cindy, in flapper gown, feathers, and long beaded necklaces. 

Brook and Cindy

A fun time was had by all!

Last Moments in Paris

Due to the rain, instead of spending our last hours touring the gardens of Versailles, we took the train back to central Paris and walked up and down the Champs-Élysées. The street has a lot of the typical chain stores (sephora, the gap, etc.), as well as the high end flagship stores (Louis Vuitton, Mont Blanc, etc.). I was surprised by how many people were inside the Louis Vuitton store actually purchasing the bags that cost tens of thousands of dollars. At least the buyers were getting free glasses of champagne while spending so much on their bags!

Champs-Elysees

At the top of Champs-Élysées is the Arc de Triomphe. It is so much larger than I had anticipated. If you've never been, look closely at the dots at the top of the arc - those are people's heads. And that white bus on the right-hand side of the photo? That's a double-decker bus. 

Arc de Triomphe

As you can tell, the sky was dry as we walked up to the Arc, but it was threatening more rain at any second. When we walked back down the Champs-Élysées, the sky opened back up and we had to duck into a store for ten minutes as the umbrella wasn't even cutting it. 

Arc de Triomphe

After doing a bit of window shopping, we walked back over to our hotel's neighborhood in search of dinner. We found a small cafe whose menu out front was both in English and French. Once seated, we realized this restaurant really catered to the tourists, and Bill and I prefer to find places where the actual residents would eat. Nevertheless, we had been seated, so we decided to take them up on being tourists, and ordered the snails and bone marrow as our evenings' meal. Yeah, bone marrow? Kinda fatty and gross. Well, perhaps it would be good if we had been at a better restaurant, but I am not willing to order that again. Snails are okay... it's basically just a delivery system for butter and garlic, in my opinion! 

After our small, but caloric meal, we paid and went in search of a friendly, quaint bistro. We found a terrific place just down the road and spent several hours people watching and wine drinking on their heated outdoor seating veranda. Fabulous end to an amazing trip - J'aime Paris!!

Bone marrow and snails...