Monday 20th August

Bit of a sleepin & had breakfast with the family, Linda, Paul & daughter Hannah. Mum & Hannah with northern accents , Dad not so much, they seemed like a nice family. I had to get to a hairdresser to have hair attended to & Hannah helped with this, being a beauty therapist, so into a gritty Northern town close by, Pontefract. Got an appointment for this arvo with Hair by Neil, plenty of time to get up to Castle Howard & back.

Now Castle Howard, remember Bridsehead Revisited, well it was filmed there.  This place is a huge baroque pile of 145 rooms, still privately owned..... not National Trust, so I had to pay 13 GBP, along with the multitudes of other punters there today.  It is big business & certainly the family has been for many centuries, in fact the family supplied two heads to roll just in the reign of Henry 8th, Anne Boleyn & Katherine Howard. Only the west wing is open to the public & apparently it is only for show & always has been, some royals have slept there I think.

Castle Howard. Brideshead Revisited

It was a lovely drive to get there, through James Herriot country & the approach is a long straight rollercoaster with at various times a large obelisque or the central dome of the house in view, stunning entrance.

Home to B&B after hair done, thank god. Chatted with family over tea & Linda unloaded about the recently dead Ma-in-law who apparently left a vicious letter re her (Linda) with the will as evidence of why her son would only get a small share of the estate, obviously still hurting about it, as you would, & hard to see what ma-in-law had against her, they have been married 28 years, have 2 kids, lovely home, seems a successful union & I don't think they would open their house a b&b if they had "issues" Maybe Linda did not have the right accent, not posh enough.   The letter had been written 6 years ago.