Last burst of summer?

Richard's older sister Diana is with us again briefly, en route to a trip to Penzance (and then the Isles of Scilly) tomorrow.  She'll be visiting the Scillies with another sister & family.

With today's stunning hot weather, we decided on an outing to Haddon Hall, just outside Bakewell - somewhere Diana has never visited.  I put on a light summer dress and a pair of sandals that have barely seen the light of day for months.

Dating back (in parts) 900 years, Haddon is a fortified country house, with many surviving medieval and Elizabethan features.  It also has lovely walled gardens. None of this is on an overwhelmingly huge scale; instead, it's the details and the traces of human effort, over the centuries, that I find moving.  One part I always love visiting is the kitchens, with their array of softly-worn wooden chopping and working surfaces, and their stone steps shaped into curves and dips by the passing feet of countless cooks and maids.  There is also a beautiful small chapel, with extensive frescoes on the walls (despite the cover-ups and partial destruction brought about in the Reformation).

There a  few more images in the extras, and many more details here for anyone who would like a more in-depth browse:

https://www.haddonhall.co.uk/why-visit-2/

The main image shows Richard and Diana in the Long Gallery.  I found something very poignant in this glimpse of brother and sister, still so close as they get older, having weathered some major family troubles together in their early life.  The 'getting older' part was brought home to me and to Richard today really, as we noticed Diana sometimes finding it difficult to navigate the uneven flagstones and the various staircases at Haddon. Since the death of Jim - her husband - last December, she's become noticeably more fragile.