Design for living

I give thanks for a lovely day out with Laura at a beautiful local National Trust property offering free entry today. We thought the house and gardens would be worth a look at that price but were completely unprepared for how entranced we'd be by the Arts and Crafts influenced building, its setting and its contents, and we took so long in there that we needed a lunch break after the first floor before we tackled the downstairs rooms... Simple and beautiful and warm, both from the fine central heating and the general ambience, I for one would happily have moved in straight away, so I can but give thanks for the chance to see where I so rightly belong! Carrot and chick pea soup in the cafe was good as well, plus a fine selection of pretty and unusual cards in the shop (They had other things of course but mostly I could resist those. Some of the cards had to come home with me, though!) 

We decided to leave the gardens for another, maybe sunnier and drier, day when more was in bloom and daylight in greater abundance, and as we couldn't take photos inside the house and didn't go far into the grounds this photo of a strange nearby tree will have to suffice. 

I'm grateful to be home again, enjoying my solitude and a break in the social schedule. Who wouldn't be with a pile of books to be started or finished, a bundle of yarn to be crafted into various things, a variety of fragrant products to put in bathwater, hours of recorded programmes to watch and a mountain of profiteroles in liqueur sauce to be eaten whilst they are at their best? Requests for help with leftovers have been made but, so far, declined but I'm sure I am up to completing this part of the task unaided...will give it my best shot anyway...