Chatsworth

It was not a very promising start weather-wise, I awoke this morning with rain drumming on the roof of my long kennel, it had been doing this most of the night. By the time I got my bearded one up however, I am happy to say it had stopped raining. We do not want it to be a wet day as we are off on a trip to Chatsworth House near Bakewell in Derbyshire. This is the seat of the Dukes of Devonshire.

It was a rush to get ready and my walk was un-reasonably brief, I think he must have assumed that I was in for a lot of walking later today because I was bundled into my short kennel and we were off to Bakewell just as I was finishing my breakfast.

It was a lovely drive through the Peak District National Park. You will recall from my diaries of a week or so ago, we were doing this on water cruising in my long kennel through the canals in this area.

First, we went to visit the small and very pretty town of Bakewell which was busy with a market and agricultural show. We had arranged to pick up my friends Barbie and Mile from Mickey Jay.

We then all went to Chatsworth House, after a picnic lunch in the gardens, I had two tiny sausages, we walked for miles around the grounds, there were lots of modern sculptures on display on loan from Sotheby’s from American modern artists. I left my comment on as many as I could until I ran out of comment. My humans, who are all artists were singularly unimpressed with them too. I did not waste time photographing any. They were all for sale! I will describe one here. It was a structure made from breeze blocks about the size and shape of a small coal bunker. If you were mad enough to purchase this you would not get any breeze blocks, just a piece of paper describing how to construct it! If that is not taking the comment … We were all very impressed with the beautiful landscaped gardens designed largely by Inigo Jones and I had a lot of fun pretending to herd the thousands of sheep roaming around.

My photos, the nice house where the Duke and Duchess live, I was not allowed inside) and the front garden water feature. It was a lovely and exciting and exhausting day. The weather was kind.

Love Douglas x