Tatton Park

Welcome to Tatton Park. This place is a grand estate and for those of your familiar with Elizabeth Gaskell's 'Wives and Daughters', this estate was the one she modeled 'The Towers' after in the novel. I thought that was neat because I really like Wives and Daughters and it was fun to be in Elizabeth Gaskell territory. She lived in the village just down below this great house.

Here I am with Angela on the steps. We are admiring the view you will see in the picture below.
These are the formal gardens and are right outside the doors of the house. I'm sure that many a lord and lady took their daily exercise out in these. Can't you just see a ten year old Molly Gibson getting worn out in these gardens on her first visit to the Towers?

To get to the house, we walked through the park. The park is acres and acres of land and it was absolutely charming to walk through it. The picture below is a sample of the landscape we got to see and pass by as we headed up to the house.

On our way, we came to this massive tree with an amazingly long branch sticking out, so, we stopped and had a rest.

The branch was actually very bouncy and that made for some fun bouncing time as we arranged the picture. I don't think the tree minded too much and it is quite an unusual thing to see a branch like that.
And then, we came upon the Stag. Isn't he majestic? I thought so. I've never been so close to a stag before. He was very happy to strut a bit for us and there is a little video of him doing that at the bottom of this blog so you can all see and enjoy him. He's quite the king of the park.

Here we are inside the rest of the gardens that are off to the side of the house. Again, there are acres of them and they are immaculately tended by who knows how many gardeners.
Here is a sample. Just look at those shrubs and how they are cut up at the top. I wonder who gets to do that and how often that job needs to be done. I'm not sure I would want to do it.

And then, my favorite of all the different gardens. These are the water gardens and as you can see they are modeled after Asian style gardens. They were so peaceful and lovely and we enjoyed ourselves in them.
What would you say if I tried to make my next garden in this style? When I make my millions, I will.

Spring in York

Spring time in York! Love those daffs! Here are a few of my favorite pictures that I took on a lovely afternoon walking around the York city walls and into Museum Gardens.
I'm not quite tiptoeing through the tulips, but I am enjoying the lovely sunshine the daffs provide!
On a glorious Saturday morning, I was able to climb to the top of York Minster Tower; something that I've been wanting to do for a long while. We couldn't have picked a better day! I am taking all of these next shots from the very top of the highest tower. It was quite a narrow and windy climb to get up there. I was almost feeling a bit sick from the constant winding of the narrow stairs that went up and up and up.
There is York from the bird's eye view. I will always love those red tiled roofs!
This is a picture of me and my friend Angela. Angela is from Canada and is a PhD student in History too. She's always up for adventures and was willing to come along with me and enjoy the day out.
I zoomed in on the carvings on my way down. You just don't see these sorts of things from the ground. While I was taking that picture, a recorded message came over a hidden speaker that said 'Keep moving back down. Do not stop. Keep moving back down.' It startled me, actually and at first I thought I was in trouble for stopping to take a picture. But the message was one of those they repeatedly play and that made me feel better.

This is a view of the Treasurer's House which is adjacent to the Minster. It's the place where the Roman Soldier ghosts are reported to have been seen multiple times. The guy who owned it last was an eccentric old Bachelor and he was a collector of fine furniture. So, the house is worth seeing and we did that, though we were not allowed to take photographs inside.