A little bit of mist hung in the valleys this morning as four peak district cottages got ready to leave. One has booked again for this time next year. Two cleaners up with four cottages to turn around. Six cottages due in later today of which three have been before. No problems encountered and again time to check contents and with a warm day the cottages also got a good airing. Three cottages arrived between 3 and 3.30 and then three cottages arrived between 4.30 and 5.30. Warm enough to have an ice cream on the patio. Content that guests were settled switched off office lights at 8pm and watched the Last Night of the Proms.

With a nice day forecast Chris suggested a day off from our Peak district cottages although as usual I protested that I had too much to do but having been persuaded had to decide where to go. In the end we decided to go to Chatsworth House, particularly the gardens as from next week the Sothebys ‘Beyond the Limits’ Sculpture Exhibition will be open although the sculptures are already in place so I was informed by one of the guests. So sandwiches packed and dogs in car off we went! Decided to do the gardens first and if we had time we would do a trip around the house. The gardens cover x acres and together with its water features (as seen on the recent ‘Rivers’ series) can take the best part of the day to explore. Every time we go we find something we haven’t seen before and with new features being added continually there is always something new to see. (Chatsworth has been voted one of the best ‘dog friendly’ places to visit too). The exhibition consists of two dozen or so sculptures dotted around the gardens, including one by Henry Moore, which can be purchased but we have to admit though that this year we were not as impressed with the sculptures as last year. Still I will add some photos for you to decide. http://www.bolehillfarm.co.uk/photo/chatsworth09/index.html One bonus was that we got to photograph the Duke and Duchess doing their press call for the exhibition. I had overheard when it was going to take place so apart from the press we were the only visitors to witness this take place! We found a nice sunny spot for lunch and found time to wander round the house. As usual the room guides were a source of information and humour. One of the rooms had an exhibition on recent films which had been shot at Chatsworth which includes ‘The Duchess’ and ‘Wolfman‘ which is to be released soon. We had been to Chatsworth for a tourism seminar and saw them set off the fog making machine for a scene in Wolfman which was quite strange as it was a bright sunny spring day! Home via the Chatsworth Farm shop then catching up with phone calls and emails before dinner and for the third evening this week we saw a balloon drift by.

A couple of days with no cottage movements. Chris went to York on Tuesday and as I haven’t seen Chris’s mum for a few weeks I went too. She is still in hospital but seems to be stabilising. It turned out to be a warm day. Wednesday was a day of catch up and a trip down to Bakewell. It was still busy -perhaps the nice weather had brought more day trippers into town. Phoned a friend and after dinner picked up Joanna and went to Over Haddon village hall for the first WI meeting of the season. I was confirmed as the new treasurer and I will take up the post after the AGM. Our arranged speaker had to cancel but luckily one of the Bakewell WI members came along to give us a talk on pearls. We all enjoyed this as we did not know there were so many types of pearls around. She also hosts beading parties for girls so we also had the chance to make our our bracelets. We all had great fun with these!

Anther bright start and five cottages out of our Bakewell cottages today with four back in. Two cleaners here today and no problems encountered. Enough time to do some odd jobs around the cottages including changing some sofas over. Three of the cottages have bee here before ad they all arrived between 3 & 4 pm so time to do some jobs and sit down after dinner.