Girls day out

With the wedding behind us, along with all the preparations, I thought it was high time I spent a quality girly day with my daughter before she jetted off on holiday for a fortnight with her other family. I ignored the grumbles of ‘if you’ve seen one stately home, you’ve seen them all’, as teenager ‘pretending to be cool’. I asked her to put on a nice dress (more grumbles) and with the promise of a drive through Starbucks (yes, I know) we set off for Castle Howard in North Yorkshire. My husband and I had spent our first few days as man and wife at Whitby, the location of our first weekend away 10 years ago. As we took the long pretty way home in the sunshine I realised how little of North Yorkshire I knew, despite relocating to Yorkshire some 16 years ago. So many places to visit. So many places we could have discovered instead of our twice yearly trip to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. Anyway, despite earlier teenage protests, we both had a lovely day. With my camera around her neck Freya revelled in taking hundreds of shots within the house. I managed to wrangle it off her  when we got back outside.

The thing that struck me about Castle Howard, as opposed to Chatsworth House, was how peaceful it was. Everywhere was calm. It was a warm, humid steamy day. Everyone seemed to be exerting as little energy as possible, slowly ambling along the paths, speaking in gentle tones, such was the heaviness of the atmosphere.

We learnt about the real characters within the family over the last 300 years, how the house had been influenced and developed over the decades. A history of ambition, public service, liberal politics and a love of contemporary (in its day) artistic ideas. There were so many opportunities for great shots. I managed the post card shot of the house.   I love this one. We took tea in the tea room whilst the day cooled under a short shower. A stroll through the walled gardens, somewhat bashed by the previous day’s downpour, completed our visit.

So as not to cut the day short we took advantage of being very close to two Lavender Farms, Wolds Way Lavender and Yorkshire Lavender. We choose the first one, mostly because I knew it was one of the (previously struggling) businesses featured on the BBC ‘Million Dollar Intern’ programmes about to commence showing this week on ‘Watch’. We were a little early for the lavender and a little late for the wildflower meadow walk but we still got a few shots and could see the potential given another couple of weeks of sunshine. We picked up some Wolds Way local lavender infused honey (mmmmmm) and a pot of glorious hand cream.

We headed home to veg out in the garden where we picked further veg for tea. And drank my surprisingly ‘tastes like a mojito even though it has no alcohol’ freshly made juices. Photo styling by Freya. A lovely day although my husband remarked that night, at lights out, that I smelt like his granny. Love, Lucie x Any other particular recommendations for places in North Yorkshire happily received.