Having Monday off this week as a holiday and busy with work and then our German visitors on Wednesday evening and yesterday I have completely lost the plot as to what day it is!!!! 

 

Our German visitors arrived on Wednesday evening and we joined them for dinner at a local Derbyshire restaurant which was a lovely evening.  Yesterday whilst the men went off to business meetings I took the ladies, Mom who is a quilter and Daughter who is a textile artist, to some quilt shops and to see Cromford Mill.

This is where Sir Richard Arkwright was the first man to run a mill with water power and produce cotton yarn in a modern way, thus creating the first modern factory system.  He ran the mill twenty four hours a day with two twelve hour shifts the majority of the staff being woman and children.  The children were aged around ten and also received six hours a week of schooling when not working.  There were approximately two hundred people employed at the mill and as this was more than who lived in the surrounding area, Sir Richard built housing near the mill for his workers to live in.  Since the Mill closed it was bought by the Arkwright Society and returned to its former glory and now houses the museum, businesses, conference centres and of course one of our local quilt shops, Quiltessential.  It is also part of the World Heritage site which includes all sixteen mills along the River Derwent. 

Our dinner on Wednesday was at Darleys which is housed in the last of the Mills in the World Heritage Site.

Whilst we toured the Mill they have hand held devices which tell you all about the history in every language which the ladies were so pleased about.

After this I drove them through Matlock Bath and Matlock to Darley Dale where our second local quilting shop is, Heir & Graces.  They have two shops very near to each other and a few months ago they had all the quilting in one and embroidery/knitting/weaving and everything else in the other.  However they decided to mix everything up which I actually did not like but at least the ladies got to visit the two shops and they did buy some fabric and so did I!!!!!!

By then the men had finished their business meetings so we decided to take them to visit Chatsworth House.  We are very lucky where we live to have great views, walks and these places to visit.  Our visitors loved the tour of the house, again with handsets in German telling them all about the history. This is our first visit since we went at Christmas and they have changed the route around the house and you now get to see some rooms you have not seen before and they have also changed the pieces around in the house.  This is why we love visiting because things change all the time.

As you can see from the pictures we had an amazing Spring day which was a relief as the previous few days it had been heavy rain and cold. 

As you know this is my most favourite room in the whole house, The Library.

After Christmas they moved the Grand Piano into the Anti-Library next to the fire place. 

I would be quite happy to just live in this section of Chatsworth!

The State Dining Room had been set with the ceremonial silver wear and was stunning

The dining room is so large that there are two fireplaces in the room but not lit as it was, dare I say, warm outside.

A view of the dining room towards the library.

This is the new chandalier which was put in place after the Christmas trees were taken down and is made of brass and I can imagine very heavy.

I managed to drive all day with no problems and walk around but with one crutch just for some support although I did not walk around the grounds.  I stopped and had a cup of tea whilst they walked which was very nice in the sunshire.  However I am quite sore today as this is the first time I have done a lot of walking since the Op.  I have my final appointment next Wednesday with my Consultant so will see what he says.  In the evening we again went out for dinner to another lovely restaurant in Derby, near the Cathedral before our visitors left early this morning to go home. 

They bought me a lovely blanket from the company where Daughter works and I will show you a picture of that when I have changed our bedding over from winter to summer.  I also got some lovely homemade keyrings.

Today is house jobs day and again the weather is very Spring like which is great because tomorrow and Sunday it is going to be raining again all day!  However that is good as I won’t feel guilty quiling all weekend when I should be gardening!  I have two things I need to get a move on with and so I will be trying to get them done as I need one of them in two weeks time!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend whatever you are up to.

Hugs, Susie xx