Exciting Christmas Present!

For Christmas my wonderful SO and my parents got together to pay for a trip to Maryland at the end of March for the ISSO Awards Banquet & Clinic. I couldn't have been more excited!!! I've been looking through the AAA Travel Book since Christmas and having so much fun looking at all of the neat things to do & see down there. I've really always wanted to travel to that part of the country. I'll also get to meet a LOT of people that I've only every talked with on the phone or via email. And I've even been invited to go foxhunting! I'm aiming to be there for just over a week and planning to cram as much in as possible!!!

I know a few of my blog followers are from that area, so hopefully we'll get to meet!

Looks like I've started yet another collection

How does that song go? Something about being excited about whips?? Well you bet I am! But I only get excited about antique whips, especially hunt whips!

On our holiday to British Columbia we did a fairly obscene amount of antique shopping. Whenever I'm parusing the piles of interesting old stuff, I've always got that "holy grail" in mind. You guys know what I mean... Anything sidesaddle related, an actual sidesaddle itself is especially exciting, photos, boots, hats etc. It seems up here hunt whips are few and far between but every once in awhile you can strike it rich and come across one. Most are in pretty terrible shape, likely because a lot of people have no idea what they are and just toss them aside.

A few years ago while antique shopping with some friends, I found this lovely little whip at a shop that specializes in military antiques. It's fairly large so I'm assuming it's a man's hunt whip.

On our holidays we came across a shop that had a GORGEOUS ladies whip, lash & all still intact. I gasped when I saw it and knew it HAD to come home with me. (think little girly squeals on the way out of the store with it in hand! lol) The little silver collar has the initials "E.A." on it. I wonder who E.A. was? I believe the shaft is covered in braided/woven linen. The leather was really dry and I feared that the lash might break right off so I carefully oiled it and I think it will hold a bit better now.

We stopped by another antique shop that specializes in movie props and all kinds of interesting stuff and you guessed it! I found ANOTHER one! This one with braided leather on the shaft and in almost perfect condition! It is MUCH more stout, so it's definitely a man's whip. The guys at the store had no idea what it was (to my advantage) so I got it for a song! On the collar are tiny letters "ZK", maybe it's a whip made by Zair? I'm not sure!

And all three together to show the size & color differences!

I think I can safely say, I've got a collection of whips now too! I want to build a little "whip rack" to put in the living room to show them off. Maybe that'll be a winter project though!

Back from holidays! On to the saddle search!!

We had a good time, did WAY too much running around trying to visit as many people as possible but that's ok! I'm actually quite happy to be at work today and "relax" at my desk and not be in a car!
We had a great visit with a lot of our relatives and ended off our trip with a wedding on Saturday. We had a GREAT time and I got to wear a fun new dress I ordered online.

This week I'm going to focus my attention on a search for a new sidesaddle. Brigit has put on some weight through her back and my sidesaddle is not fitting well anymore. Likely this has been a bit of an issue all along but now that she's a bit chubbier, I'm thinking it has gotten worse. The point on the nearside of the saddle is too curved and is digging into her side. I noticed a sore spot on her side after our last show and ran my hand down under the saddle and what do you know.... Ouch! I always think to check how the top portion of the saddle is fitting but I suppose I didn't think of that. I will know now!

So now I'm on the hunt to find something different. Going to do multiple wither tracings tonight and send them off to various people and see what we can dig up! I've seen some lovely saddles around! Unfortunately it will mean that I have to begrudingly give up one of my sidesaddles to pay for it. I would love to keep them all and just hoard them! But they might as well be enjoyed by someone else. The Great West saddle I will NEVER sell but my Champion & Wilton I probably will. I'm torn on selling my Aulton & Butler, I love that saddle and it was my very first one.... So I'm humming & hawing about it! I guess I'll cross that bridge when I find one that's suitable!

Getting lost in Chatsworth's gardens

The gardens are why I would have liked to have had an entire day to spend just at Chatsworth. After touring the house we went exploring and we walked & walked & walked and didn't come close to seeing all of the gardens. It was AMAZING.
It was raining/misting lightly but it was nice after how hot London & Windsor had been. Plus there was hardly anyone else there and it made for some great photos.

Chatsworth has it's own orangery. A place to keep valuable plants during the winter. All of the "fashionable" houses had one.

Up the hill from the house is this fountain. It has 24 steps, each one slightly different in height and texture from the other, which results in a slightly different sound from each step as the water falls. It was originally built in the 1600's.

At the top (why of course we walked up to the top!) is the cascade house. It actually turns into a fountain itself. Apparently one of the Duke's was quite the jokester as inside the house there are holes in the floor, water can be turned on to spout water from them and suprise unknowing guests.

My attempt at being artsy. The view down from the cascade house was worth the walk up.

I have to mention how all of the fountains are able to spray water. Up on the hill a man-made pond was built to act as a resevoir. All of the fountains are gravity fed from that pond. It creates enough pressure to send water shooting into the air. Quite the engineering feat considering when it was built.

On to the Japanese garden.

Around every corner was something different, where will this lead us to?

A gorgeous patch of lupines in full bloom and a hedge maze. What stately property would be complete without a maze! (I did make it to the middle of the maze and it took me considerably longer than I thought it would!)

A view of the "Grotto Pond" from the Grotto itself. This used to be a fish pond that supplied the table of Chatsworth with fish.

These hedges must go back to almost Georgiana's time.

Another pond, this one more man-made but still beautiful. There was a family of ducks swimming around, what a perfect home for them!

Statues were everywhere throughout the gardens as well. I'm sure no expense was spared when the gardens were built.

Another view of the house from the canal pond.

This is the "Canal Pond". The fountains in the pond were quite spectacular but unfortunately it was nearing closing time and they had shut off the water.

Walking through the gardens it was amazing to think of how old the gardens were and who walked through them. A note, many of the original gardens were re-done by Lancelot (Capability) Brown, a famous landscape architech of the time. His signature was natural looking parks in comparison to the formal english gardens.

We did see a lot but in fact, we missed a lot as well. We never made it inside the orangery or the greenhouses, we missed the hunting tower, carriage house, kitchen garden and Queen Mary's Bower (Did you know that Queen Mary was held prisoner at Chatsworth for a time?). There's probably more too if a person were to explore. Chatsworth is definitely on my list of places to visit again.

By this time we were practically running back to the entrance to meet our taxi driver, whom we worried would leave if we didn't get there on time. We were sad to have to leave Chatsworth.

Our plan was to go to a small pub in a nearby town for dinner. The taxi driver thought we were nuts for wanting to go "so far" just for dinner. It was only about 10 miles. When we told him how far we travelled for work each day at home, he was shocked! But it was getting late and we decided we would instead eat dinner in Bakewell.
We had "Ploughman's lunch" for dinner, which consists of cold cuts, bread, cheese and some vegetables. It was good and filling after all the walking we had done. And for dessert we had "Bakewell Pudding". It's like a baked custard tart with raspberry jam. Really good! (I attempted to make one when we got home and it just wasn't the same.)

The one & only Chatsworth House

If I ever go back to England (which I hope to!) I must, without a doubt, go back to Chatsworth House. It had to be my absolute favorite palace we visited. I love history to begin with but this place absolutely captivated me. Everything was postcard-worthy. Chatsworth is still the home of the current Duke & Duchess of Devonshire. You might recognize it from the movies "The Duchess" and "Pride & Prejudice" and probably a few others!

We actually did Chatsworth the first day we arrived in the Peak District but I decided it really needed it's own post due to all of the photos I took.

First I have to tell you, when we first arrived in Bakewell, someone told us there was "a path" that you could walk that would take you to Chatsworth house. I think by now we'd learned our lesson and knew that it was a) probably much further than implied and b) if we walked there, we likely wouldn't make it there on time and would end up stuck there in the dark. So we took a taxi.
Our taxi driver was really quite funny. We were driving to Chatsworth and we got chatting about deer, we had said that our deer were much bigger than those in England. Then I asked if they had hedgehogs and where a good spot to see them is. His response was "Yes we do, but you usually only see them when they're "stuck" to the road".... Oooh. I was hoping to see a live one.

Upon arrival at Chatsworth we decided we were starving and needed lunch to start off with. The stables have been turned into a restaurant & gift shop. Part of them still remain as stables but not much. I can just imagine this full of horses though. I love the big open stable blocks with the fountain in the middle and the big statue. Gorgeous! The stables were actually quite a walk up the hill from the house itself.


After that we went in to tour the house. Lucky for us (and for you!) we were allowed to take photos inside the house. It is absolutely gorgeous and has many famous paintings on it's walls. Coming in to the house you're met with the grand staircase.


In every room there are fantastic sculptures and artwork.


This one was almost a little bit eerie.


I found myself wandering through the house in awe (and likely with my mouth hanging open! lol)


I got to thinking how long it would take to create a carving like this (it's all wood)

And then I thought to myself, can you imagine how many man hours went into the house and all of it's furnishings? So many people had a part in making this house what it is today.

This is the private garden of the current Duke & Duchess of Devonshire. You might recognize it from scenes in "The Duchess" if you've seen the movie.

Apparently, there used to be a town in view of Chatsworth house but the Duke at the time didn't like seeing it. So he had the town moved out of view of Chatsworth. Can you imagine, moving an entire town because you don't like to look at it???

Not only were we allowed to see the house but we got to see the D & Dss's jewels.



Yes please!


Quite the library, wouldn't you say?


It's hard to imagine anyone actually living here, it seems so much like a museum.

The current Duke & Duchess do still live here though. Not in this part though, they have a wing of the house that's private. We did however meet the Duchess as we toured the house! We had just finshed reading about the family and were walking down a hall when a lady came out of a private door with her little dog. She said hello and we said hello back but it took us a few seconds to realize who we'd just seen!

You might recognize this room from Pride & Prejudice (the new one). Chatsworth was the scene for Mr. Darcy's house.

Apparently at one point, one of the Duke's believed all of this to be worthless rubbish. He didn't like the statues at all and put them away in a basement until they were rediscovered and their value realized.
Oh and there's Meg!


These are only a few of the photos I took inside the house, it was absolutely amazing. This is also where I learned of Georgiana, the 5th Duchess of Devonshire. Her story is absolutely fascinating. To sum it up, she was married at 17 to the Duke, who was very cold, didn't pay much attention to her. His goal in life was to produce an heir. He had many, many affairs (of which Georgiana knew about). The Duchess made the mistake of introducing her best friend to her husband, which resulted in an affair between the two. A 25 year affair. The mistress moved in with them and lived there until Georgiana's death, when she jumped in and married the Duke. She was very hated my many. Right now I'm reading Georgiana's biography and it's very very interesting. I'd highly recommend it.

Tomorrow's post will be on Chatsworth's gardens.

The Peak District, My favorite!

From Oxford we took a train & then a bus to the little town of Bakewell. The Peak District had to be one of THE most scenic places on our trip. It was exactly how a person who'd never been to England, pictures England. Most likely because this is where they filmed Pride & Prejudice and various other girly films.

It took us a lot longer than we had expected to get there but we didn't entirely mind, there was so much to look at.

Rolling hills with stone fences and stone houses were everywhere here. I can picture a group of horses & hounds going across this landscape foxhunting, can't you?

Upon arrival in Bakewell, the bus dropped us off next to this stunning garden. It hadn't been as hot & dry as it was in London so everything was green and in full bloom. The whole town centre smelled nice from all of the roses.



Our original plan was to stay at the youth hostel in the town or Youlgreave but due to our trip taking longer than planned, we decided we'd stay in Bakewell instead. We went into the historic Rutland Arms Hotel to enquire about a room, at first it seemed that the rooms would be quite expensive but the wonderful lady at the front desk took pity on us and gave us a room at a really good rate!


But our room wasn't in the main hotel building pictured above, it was across the street in the old stable building! (which I of course thought was great!). They had converted the old stables into guest rooms. You could still see rings to tie the horses in the courtyard and tracks from the wagons under the archway. We had a neat view from our tiny window.

Ajoined to the stable building was a large antique shop with all kinds of amazing things including some old hunt whips and a sandwich case! I just about died when I saw the sandwich case but it was far too expensive for me to buy. I sadly had to leave it behind.

Included in the price of our room was breakfast in the hotel. We felt very posh (and slightly out of place) eating our breakfast in the fancy dining room the next morning.

We also met the proprietor of the hotel. A most interesting older gentlemen with round spectacles. He was also very accomodating to us.
The whole town was full of amazing shops from places to buy woolen garments, to bookstores and then of course there was the bakery! YUM! We bought lunch from the bakery, as well as a day old loaf of bread to take down to the river to feed to the ducks.

I had a lovely cornish pasty. We explored the town and made our way up the steep hill to the church.

The church was very old. That's one thing I was always amazed by, everything is so old compared to home. At home we consider the 1800's old but that is nothing compared to Europe. There were graves dating back to the 1500 and 1600's.


The walk down by the river was really beautiful too.


Feeding the ducks & swans was very entertaining! They would literally follow you up & down the pathway honking & quacking to be fed. They're very brave and would actually take bread right from your hand (but you had to watch those darned swans! They WILL bite your fingers!). The swans were a bit mean, they would chase the ducks away for all the food. While we were feeding the swans we noticed something else, HUGE fish in the river that were also going after the bread crumbs!


We also went to Chatsworth House but that is worthy of a post of it's very own!

Oxford, another place I'd love to go back to.

We left Windsor early in the morning and took a train to Oxford. The trains are SO FAST in the UK!
This time we were staying in a hostel....a slightly sketchy one at that. But it was a place to sleep and only for one night.
After dropping our bags we met up with a tour group that took us around to see some of the colleges. Again, it's a beautiful city but with a much different feel than Windsor. Lots of neat little shops and winding narrow lanes and beautiful architechture.


We didn't get to go inside any of the colleges but on the odd few, we were lucky enough to be able to see into their courtyard.



Sculputures and fancy adornments are everywhere in Oxford.


This is the bridge of sighs, or the Hertford Bridge.


A building called the "Radcliffe Camera". It was built in the 1700's to house the Radcliffe Science Library.


After our tour we grabbed some sandwiches at a really neat little shop and ate them on the double decker bus out to Blenheim palace. I think this was my second favorite palace of the trip. Did you know that Sir Winston Churchill was born here? They had a fantastic exhibit on his life and the things he did. The current Duke & Duchess of Marlborough still live here.

This whole wing of the palace is the stables. Can you imagine!

The fancy stables that had been turned into an exhibit for something else.


The gardens at Blenheim Palace were amazing. We really should have spent 2 days in Oxford so we could have explored the town one day and spent an entire day at Blenheim.

We did our best to see them all but we weren't even close. There's a hedge maze that we never made it to.




And the Grand Bridge. It once had 3 small streams running underneath it (all man-made) but the famous landscape designer "Capability" Brown, dammed the river and flooded the lake to make it bigger, thus putting the bridge a little further under water. Apparently there used to be some rooms the men used for gambling and such at the base of the bridge. They're now full of water.


Blenheim Palace also hosts a 3 day event. What a spectacular place for a competition!!!
http://www.blenheim-horse.co.uk/page.asp?section=000100010003
I also recall seeing some photos of a group of ladies called "The Flying Foxes" doing a sidesaddle demonstration at Blenheim palace. Wouldn't that be something to see too!

Too bad our timing was off, I would have loved to have seen either event!