Snowdrop time at The Hermitage

The Hermitage is a small Manor House just outside of Bedale in North Yorkshire. Its privately own and rarely opened to the public so we were lucky a member of the U3A was a friend of the owner. We all met at the house and were given coffee and biscuits and allowed to wander round the downstairs rooms. In the Sitting Room on one of the many small tables was a book signed by Queen Victoria from Ashbourne House in 1862. The house was lovely and I've picked out which room I'll have as a sewing room if the owners ever decide to give it to me. Apparently they used to live in the castle just down the road but wanted something a little smaller. I didn't take a photo of the house but it looks a bit like oneof those houses children draw, square with windows in each corner and a door in the middle.

From the house you can see Snape Castle where Catherin Parr (one of Henry VIII's wives) lived as a child. The gardens are quite small, one knot garden, one herb garden, one vegetable garden, one rose garden with assorted fruiting trees and outside privies for the gentry and staff, no inside toilets when this house was built!! It was the woods around the house where the snowdrops and aconites bloomed. Apparently Aconites are a protected flower nowadays. The snow may have been bad for us but they have been really good for the snowdrops as this year they are taller and there are more of them due to their warm snow blanket.

Aconites and snowdrops wherever you look.

When we left the Hermitage we went to Masham for lunch at The White Bear, all 31 of us. It was a very merry party who left there some time later and headed for home.

Called in to see Jan my mil on the way home but she's not too well at the moment and didn't know who we were. I also gave her a small cream filled easter egg knowing she loved these. Again she didn't know what it was, I took off the wrapper for her and from the expression on her face when I put this small brown object into her hand I think she thought it was something nasty. Also bought a couple of pots of snowdrops from the Hermitage and took them to my Mum, again on the way back. You would have thought we'd given her a pot of gold she was so delighted with the small white blooms.

I was going to spend the day yesterday sewing but I'd been to the diabetic clinic the day before and been given instructions to test my blood at 2am. For this I had to set the alarm, I was very popular!! Once I'd woken up though I couldn't get back to sleep and felt exhausted all day yesterday. Hence I got nothing done and went to bed early. Going to reset the alarm again tonight and hope this time I can get back to sleep. I have to do this for a couple of weeks then hopefully the hospital will have a better idea of why I'm having hypos in my sleep.