May Days

It's looking very misty and grey today. But my plan is to ignore the damp weather and pretend it's last week again. So here is one hot day in May, when my mum and dad took us to beautiful Hardwick Hall. If you've never been, it's a wonderfully grand house that was built by the great Bess of Hardwick. Bess was a powerhouse of a woman, an incredible social climber, and through a series of ever-greater marriages one of the richest people in Elizabethan England. She was also appointed by Queen Elizabeth as the guardian of Mary Queen of Scots, who spent a lot of her time under house arrest in Bess's other great building, Chatsworth.

This is the hall surrounded by spring blossom.

The house is beautiful, especially the Great Hall with its walls of portraits, but my favourite place there is the kitchen garden. 

The orchard was in full bloom, and breathtakingly beautiful. I'm not sure what trees they are because they didn't look quite like apple. Maybe pear?

Pia played hide-and-seek with her Morfar around the yew tree.

Please come back sunshine. I'd really like another day like this one.