Good morning Michael and all GN's on a slightly lightening morning in North Yorkshire. I can just make out the silhouette of the tree and a few birds are twittering a little. No sign of the squirrel yet. At last I was able to get on here. My lap top was throwing a hissy fit, and it just kept showing a blank screen, and when I attempted to get it to start it just pinged and whinged but nothing appeared on screen. I started by methodically trying to get it to work but then just tapped and pressed anything, until at last it begrudgingly started to work. No idea which bit made it work for future occasions!!
Well I did put a post on yesterday when I came home, but I will say that I actually ended up with a very pleasant and calming day, and I am sorry that I was such a misery yesterday. As usual , I do tend to fight the inevitable for as long as possible! Anyway I went to Beningborough , which is a lovely NT property. I do enjoy seeing round the houses , when I am up to it, old properties were not made for hobblers and have lots of steps and so forth, but for calmness and peace at all times I love the gardens.
I do have a bit of a problem these days, as now I can only manage if I have a buggy to go round on. No chance of walking round in any way today. But the problem is this. If I know in advance when I am going I can book a buggy so that I am assured there is one for me. However if I only decide on the day, I cannot speak to anyone until they open at 10am. So especially with the cost of fuel these days, I cant set off on spec, so it always means hanging around before I set off. As the only good things about being up very early is to set off early, I cant do that so it makes it later. I have always tried to be fair to others, and I dont like to book a buggy, and then wake up knowing I just cant go that day, when someone else will have been told that the buggy is booked out. However when I got there and spoke to the lady about this, I found out that there is no one there earlier and so I plan in future to book a buggy, so that I can get off early. But if I cant manage it, if I ring them at 10am then they will be able to let someone else use it. So that is a good plan for the future. The lady said that it was very good of me to think of other people, but to me , I didnt think it was good of me at all, that is the only way to behave , and be fair to everyone. She told me that they sometimes had people booking it, not turning up but not letting them know, and I think that is very selfish of them.
Anyway it has been some time since I have been there and they have been doing quite a bit of new work in the garden. Despite the forecast for some rain, it was a lovely, windy autumn day, and I got my bag ready with my drink, sandwich, binoculars (good to look at the back of beds and read labels) and spare jumper and my by now very tatty fold up plastic cape. It is very very light, scrunches up to nothing and if it rains you put it on and it has a hood then a wide cover, so that I cover the top half of myself and some of the buggy. So Dora the Explorer was ready for the off.
What a joy to be free to travel where I wanted, and I am so thankful for the invention of these things that give us back a chance to move about more. Some areas were very painful as there were cobbles and rough ground, but it was worth it to be able to reach areas that I wanted to see. The weather remained ideal, as it was quite windy but very warm, and I didnt even need a jumper on for much of the time. Lovely vistas out over the autumn countryside, vegetable beds of all sorts and big squashes colouring up, and leading on to beautiful flower borders, where the autumn colours from the dahlias and the varied sunflowers , with some of the darker and smaller flower heads adding different colours. The perovskia - russian sage - was all over adding a lovely light blue to the beds and I was reminded what I need as my medication is , "take an hour in a garden , to be repeated at every downtime to lift the spirits."
The gardening staff were hard at work adding plants to a shady bed under trees, close to the playground that had been built since I last went there. It had lots of things for children to enjoy, but I do wish that the providers of such areas would take a moment to think. about the adults there. They always provide some sort of seating, yet to me what is missing is an adult size swing and a slide that they can use as well!! We have all spent those chilly days with children or grandchildren, when they are rushing about, enjoying things and keeping warm, while we freeze on a seat or boringly walk about to try and warm up. Often I am sure , we end up getting the children to leave before they want to, as we are just too cold and bored to stay any longer. Now a comfortable swing or a roundabout, or what about one of those boat swings where you can sit in with a child and pull the ropes to make it move? I constantly suggest it to staff in places or write it in a suggestion book, but so far havent found anyone taking much notice. Perhaps I shall next time write in that if we were encouraged to stay longer that we might choose to go to the cafe too and that we would choose to come here instead of other places. The thought of more entrance money and cafe profits might work. What do you think? Perhaps this could become a gransnet underground project?
Anyway it was all very enjoyable and they had done some lovely weaving with thin branches and making arches etc. I was finding it a bit painful as the paths were bumpy and then managed to find myself a corner in an area with some chairs and where the sun shone and the wind was blanked off a bit. I carefully transferred myself to a wooden chair, and with my rather squashed sandwich and a bottle of water and an apple was very content with my picnic, and half an hour with the Yorkshire post. Very peaceful and restorative, and so hurray again for the Heritage days. I no longer belong to the NT, which is a shame , as have been a member for many years and worked for them too. Unfortunately in North Yorkshire there are not a lot of properties close by, and as I have to think of the cost of the fuel especially these days, I reluctantly chose to stay a member of RHS, as I can get to Harlow Carr reasonably easily and not too far away. But the individual cost of entrances must surely make season tickets even more worthwhile.
Anyway I do hope that these weekends have shown families the pleasures and interest that there is from these lovely places and will encourage them to join. I am thinking of joining the Bowes Museum , as again it is quite close and I can enjoy the art exhibitions and of course the lovely silver swan. The Norman Cornish exhibition was particularly good. I got quite a good couple of photos of the swan working when I went there. I do recommend it if any of you are in the area. The art exhibition did inspire me to root out one of my sketch pads, and I am now going to add that to the bag of bits to take with me and perhaps I shall get back to doing more drawing and perhaps who knows I might think of going to an art class this winter.
Well have just heard the lovely Spiegal im Spiegal, followed by of course the great Bach before 7, and it is quite light and bright outside. The squirrel has put in an appearance, but not doing its mad dash up and down the tree at the moment, but no sign of the fat pigeons that usually walk about at this time.
I havent managed to get in the shower yet, too creaky, so time for coffee and a shower and then decisions decisions. I know that the ironing mountain has not reduced and there is plenty of jobs to do inside, but if the weather stays sunny and dry, I may yet again abandon all jobs with a quick picnic making and deciding whether I might go up my beloved Swaledale or off to the coast at Saltburn. My excuse is these days that autumn has to be made the most of. A sunny day might not come around for ages, so I can hear my mother , tut tutting, at the slovenly ways where I put enjoyment before jobs. Well everything is clean so thats all that matters. Blow the jobs. I might even look to see if there is yet another garden I might get to as this is the last day of the heritage offers.
I am glad you had a decent day out Mike and hope the cycling is good to watch. Hope you are feeling better today GrandMattie and the spanish homework went well. I quite enjoy a quiz at times, but am not in any group to do one. I could probably hold my own in geography and history etc, but even as a musician, dont know enough about pop music to do well in that and as for sport , I might do ok in rugby and any equestrian sport but football aint my thing and I would be useless at that. Glad to read that some of the time with your mum was good Susan. Oh I wish I still grew runner beans and french beans. Bringing them straight in and cooking them was so much better than buying them from the shop. Even when I stopped having a big garden, have always grown cherry tomatoes in pots . Always loved this time of year when in our rural area, Harvest Festival really meant something, and as a child I was quite proud of taking the best of my little gardens efforts, so runner beans and lovely radishes scrubbed clean and some of my dads rhubarb , were carefully carried up to the vicar to be added to the lovely array of food. I always loved the really sharp long red and white radish, cant remember their name but they were very sharp and bit back. Not like the rather boring red round ones you see in the shops.
Well wishing you all a peaceful and happy day and thankyou all for your concern yesterday. It really is so good to feel that even if I am alone here, that you are all there within reach, with thoughts and advice and care. So wishing you all a painfree and peaceful day today.