Erddig Hall, Wrexham.

We had a lovely few hours at Erddig a few weeks ago. It is an early 18th century country house near Wrexham with magnificent gardens, well, I say that, it is set in a 1,200 acre country park so we selected one of Husb's walks and set off round the grounds. And then promptly went the wrong way. 

We did eventually find the Cup and Saucer.

Being a PGTips fan, I liked the sound of that.

The Cup and Saucer is what is left of a hydro-electric system which powered the Erddig Hall mansion, and is now a system of elevating water 90ft up to the gardens.

And then we abandoned Husb's walk and made up our own route, walking round the back of the house and then back through the outbuildings.

We liked the sound of the Yorke family who lived at Erddig. They were big hoarders, and made the most of what they had. The play rooms looked great fun and there were poems everywhere. Poems about the servants and the gardeners...they sounded such a fun family.

Not only  did they sound fun, they wrote beautiful letters, they went on bike rides in the Wirral and they liked 3 of my favourite animals, turtles, elephants and horses.

The turtle on the table.

The elephant in the buggy,

and Dom Samourai the rocking horse.

The chapel was nice.

There were only 4 members of the Yorke family (looking out of the window in the photo below) but look how many servants they had. Crazy. But I still liked the sound of them. AND it was a lovely house. AND they grew FIGS in their gardens.

AND I liked Philip's quotes.

Kirkstone Pass and Grasmere.

We had to go to Grasmere. We couldn't come all this way to the Lakes and not buy some gingerbread. So we headed the car in the direction of Grasmere and it took us over the Kirkstone Pass where we had numerous photo stops and a perfect plank opportunity.

                                  
                                          We just kept stopping to take photographs...

The scenery was just so lovely it had to be selfied.

I selfie, you selfie, he, she, it selfies,

we selfie, you selfie, THEY SELFIED!

Even the walls are beautiful.

Parking in Grasmere was a mare but the little gingerbread shop wasn't. It was sooooo cute. I had seen it on Country File on the BBC so I've seen how tiny it is inside. The others were amused that you couldn't actually get more than 2 people inside and once in, the choice was a packet of 6 or a packet of 12 or an individual piece or in my case.....

ALL THREE!!!

And if you eat it when it is fresh it is so soft (better for the teeth) I LOVE IT.

Meanwhile Mrs H was doing a great plank before they set off for home ....

and Ed and Rach had more fun in the Lake.

What a great 3 days.

 Thankyou for having us Flat 5, Ullswater Court, we would love to come back. 

Pie and a Pint with a beautiful sunset ... what a brilliant end to a brilliant few days.

Aira Force, Ullswater.

The next day, it was still raining, (well, it WAS July in the Lake District) (for goodness sake) so

we made a plan to meet at AIRA FORCE, about 2.5 miles from Glenridding, to visit the waterfall there.

Quite a few of us caught the ULLSWATER STEAMER...Ben and Ed seemed very happy about this....

...others walked....

...and they looked even happier!

The lake looked beautiful,

and Ross chose this moment to reveal his woopwoop CCFC shirt.

The HennieBellyHollie crowd walked and skimmed stones in the Lake along the way, although Pixen tried to skim a brick because she has always been "original",

...and they reached the waterfall first.

The newlyweds shared a hat.

After all, they had been Hubby and Wifey since 27-7-15.

At the top we modelled for our catalogues,

 Ed had a photoshoot for his new album cover,

and Mr and Mrs Hennaholliehaneydale had their CONFETTI moment.

Cub made a late entrance for the group photo...

but made sure he was in time for this one.

It's fair to say we got a bit soaked on our walk back but when you walk and talk you don't notice these things.