DH and I went to Chatsworth House on Saturday to see the Christmas decorations.  Each year they have a theme and this year is Mr Charles Dickens.  Chatsworth is not too far from where we live but to add to the fun it snowed overnight and there are a few hills to get there, so we took the long main road way round to be safe.

Warning : Picture Heavy Post!

Looking across Chatsworth from the House entrance.

The entrance with books everywhere.

The hallway from the entrance and more books and alphabet swags.

The following are actually the outside windows which had been covered and then filled from outside with goods as shop windows. 

The Haberdashery window (you knew I would have to get a picture of this!)

The Butchers window  with the prize turkey from “A Christmas Carol”

The Doorway to Scrooge & Marley

In the Family Chapel

These three pictures are Christmas Trees created by the various departments that run Chatsworth.

In another hallway the houses lit and unlit which are made of pages of books and standing on books.

Scrooge being visited by one of the Ghosts and his Christmas Tree (it looks a little too big for Scrooge’s Tree!)

One of the Staircases with pictures of the Duke’s family with a hologram of the Ghosts which DH described as very “Harry Potter-ish”!  Another tree at the staircase

The Great Hall and one of the many trees.

Mr Dickens I presume?

The main tree in the Great Hall

Hanging decorations into the Great Hall.

Looking down into the Great Hall.

The tree at the top of the Grand Staircase.

My favourite room of any home but especially Chatsworth, The Library.

I could quite happily stay in this room for the whole of Christmas and never move anywhere else!

One of the Bedrooms made up as Fagan’s Hangout

 

The Tree in the anti-Library

Which was covered in sewing notions and button garlands and watches and it was great.

More books!

The Dining Room was dressed from Great Expectations

In the Sculpture Hall the trees were all dressed in white but because of the blue lighting they all glowed blue.

Scrooge seeing the error of his ways vows to keep Christmas in his heart all year, which I think we all should try and do.

The famous Chatsworth Lions either side of the door

This reminded us of Treacle asleep!

I hope you enjoyed a tour of the House with us.  It was lovely to see all the decorations and as the tickets were timed we actually got to see everything without people pushing and shoving!

As we were going to Staffordshire in the evening for the swimming competition we decided to call on Fliss, Lee, Evalyn and Owen as they live on the way to the event and deliver their Christmas gifts.

As we were quite high in the Peak District it was very snowy.

As you can see they are not excited about Christmas at all!!!!!!

We spent two hours with these two, who were hyper to say the least, with still two weeks to go!!  I don’t envy Mom and Dad!!!  We got to the swimming pool at 5.00pm as it was due to start at 6.00pm and the pool was quite small and not much car parking but we were first in the queue.  There were six teams and we were swimming against them as they were the top ones of our division and it was the final round. 

DH and I sat at the front and could see all the action and our team.  Behind us were two women who were from one of the rival teams who were nearest to us in points in the league.  There were 50 events and from event 1 these two women were SCREAMING the names of every swimmer, including all of those in the relays, of which there were several.  The two other ladies sitting next to us glanced our way and raised their eyes!  By the end of event 10 I would have loved to have throttled them or slapped them or both!  I am all for supporting the teams but they were screaming bordering on screeching!!!  As the event progressed our team and their team were neck and neck but at the end we won!!!  I know you are not supposed to be but I was very happy we did and for all their hooting and hollering they didn’t!!

Here is our Pennant for winning.

We got home at 9.30pm very tired but having had a lovely day!

How was your weekend?

Hugs, Susie xx