Perfect Christmas Hideaway

It's been a longtime ambition of mine to stay in the Hunting Tower at Chatsworth, and I nearly did recently, but the bloomin boiler broke down and we had to stay somewhere else. Can you believe it?

Booked at the beginning of the year as a birthday treat for me, I had been looking forward to it all year. But it wasn't to be...............this time. The lovely people at Chatsworth offered us the Russian Cottage instead,

which is a delightful place, a bit like a ginger bread house, especially when we had two days of haw frost. I fell in love with the chandelier in the kitchen, but I think they might have noticed if it went missing.

Chatsworth is worth a visit any day of the year but at Christmas the staff  really go to town and turn the house into a real fun palace. 

They have excelled themselves this year with a pantomime theme.

You can just see the Duke and Duchess in the picture above the big bad wolf's head, the customised wallpaper printed with the faces of the staff is typical of the tongue in cheek unstuffy attitude at Chatsworth.

This Captain Hook 'mannequin' frightened the life out of folk when he suddenly moved, just after I had decided 'it' looked a bit creepy and my friend Gina had peered into 'it's' eyes about an inch from his face. The staff obviously have a great time working at Chatsworth. Ah me, if only I lived a bit nearer it would be my dream job.

We popped over to Haddon Hall as well, the house was authentically freezing, so we huddled around the roaring fires which were in most rooms, whilst we took in the gorgeous natural seasonal decorations.

I'm orff to ice my Christmas cake now, pics tomorrow.