Visiting Cathy

Yesterday we went up to see Cathy, who lives in Sandiacre, near Nottingham. It's 100 miles (16 mil) from here and took around 2 hours to drive. The schools broke up on Friday so traffic was quite busy. Cathy lives in a really cool apartment block, an old lace mill that's been converted to apartments:
http://www.springfield-mill.co.uk/
We had some luch and then went for a walk along the river. We went for a couple of drinks in the beer garden of a local pub, which was lovely as summer has finally arrived! Vera was exploring the surroundings and befriended a friendly dog.

Today we went to Calke Abbey http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/calke-abbey/, which is a cool old stately home, which was home to an eccentric family of collectors so is full of stuff. The house was left to ruin, so certain rooms are shown in the decline that they were left.
We had some lovely fika (coffee & scones) in the cafe outside the old stables, followed by a walk around the gardens, which included  a walled garden full of palm trees. Then we visited the house and Vera was ever so good, despite having to be carried around the whole house when I bet she wanted nothing more than to touch everything in there! Vera's favourite room was a room full of stuffed birds, she yelled with excitement and used her latest exclamation "wow"!

Cool place & a lovely day in the sun!

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 By the canal

 Quality time in the pub

 Calke Abbey

 Around the gardens

 Checking out the hay! relaxing after visiting the house