So last weekend (Sunday 6^th of August to be precise) I was fast asleep dreaming about, (food probably lets be honest) when I heard my husband abruptly turn over and say, ‘Babe shall we  go to visit Chatsworth house today?’

At this point my eyes opened and I looked at him in shock.

‘You, want to, go to Chatsworth?’ I was in absolute amazement. ‘Erm ok then, lets go come on get up!’ I screeched! (My husband by his own admission is quite hard to convince to go on days out).

On to the post…

I shot out of bed, picked a simple outfit to wear, because I knew a lot of walking would be involved, ironed it and ran to the shower before he could change his mind.

Before he knew it I was dressed and ready, waiting at the front door with a picnic blanket, a small satchel type bag, and obviously my camera dangling around my neck ready to start snapping away.

‘Ready?’ he asked.

‘Yeeeeeaaaah of course I am.’

Now I’ve been to Chatsworth before, it’s in the Peak District in England, for any of you wondering what on earth I’m babbling on about.

Hubby hasn’t been before despite me going on and on about how beautiful it is.

How many of you have visited Chatsworth house before? So picture perfect isn’t it?

Once we arrived there, we were directed to a parking space, because it was quite busy. One thing I would suggest is to try and get there quite early. Obviously not 8am because I don’t even think they’re open at that time, but around 11am is a nice time to find parking and make your way to the area you want to visit.

On this particular day there was a Jaguar car show-taking place. This was rather exciting because I particularly loved the old classics on show.

We opted to visit the beautiful garden, as it stands there is a charge to access this area of Chatsworth, but believe me when I say its totally worth it for a day in serene surroundings and beautiful views. You can get some pretty decent snaps there too.

Who doesn’t want some amazing pictures eh? I certainly wanted some! Credit goes to my amazing husband who followed me around snapping shots every 2 minutes of anything I thought would make a nice backdrop, which lets face it was everything. I did some snapping of pictures too but he did quite the load this time.

First we walked down a beautiful path which led us straight in to the gardens on our right there was the most amazing view of Chatsworth House, and to the left there was a carefully sculptured water feature, which was called the ‘Cascade’.

After trying all sorts of positions on the floor and on my tiptoes to get the perfect picture without invading other peoples privacy, I gave up. Had a small tantrum about how I wanted the best pictures but people were getting in the way and walked off.

But my husband being the most patient soul he is took some for me. He of course also tried different positions, but didn’t throw a strop like I did. In fact he got some amazing shots of the cascade.

Next we passed the ‘Rock garden’ that was essentially a rockery which appeared to have a small waterfall flowing down it.

Let me just stop you right there, just to set the scene, the deeper in to the garden I got the more surreal it felt. It was like I had been transported in to a fairy tale setting  in an ‘English Country Garden’ with a lavish mansion built for a king and queen in the Victorian era. I felt like I was in Pride and Prejudice.

We were most excited about venturing in to the ‘Maze’, yes you read it right, they have a maze, and I ran round it like a over excited big kid trying to beat my husband to the centre.

I won. Obviously!

Finally we found the ‘Coal tunnel’. I wasn’t too sure about going in there, but my husband was beaming with excitement at the thought of getting me in there and scaring the life out of me.

After much convincing, and seeing even small children eager to go in I decided to just go with the flow. The closer I got the entrance the more I asked myself, ‘Kiran are you absolutely sure you want to do this?’

My husband had already gone in so I closed one eye took a step forward and ran, shouting his name. He came back to walk with me, and then started saying things like… ‘Can you see that spiders web?’ ‘Oh look there’s a bat?’

Don’t worry guys there was no spider and certainly no bats for goodness sake, he just got sheer enjoyment out of making me squeal.

There were so many more areas of the garden I wanted to visit, but as we arrived quite late in the day we didn’t have that much time. Like I said earlier the earlier you go the more you can explore.

I would certainly recommend going to Chatsworth house. It’s suitable for anyone in my opinion and I can’t see how you would not enjoy it?!

On our next visit we’ve agreed to do the house tour also. Obviously I’ll write about that too.

Love

The Five Minute edit x