Hey Blog! On Wednesday I visited Chatsworth estate and saw the sculpture exhibition that is currently on in the grounds!
Both Mum and one of my best friend’s mum had their birthdays this week, so we all chose to celebrate by going out for the day. There is a very nice café, restaurant and bar all rolled into one on the A6, called Bridge House, which does the most superb food, so we decided to meet there and have breakfast. Dad had got the day off so he came along too. We drove up to the entrance to the restaurant as our friends were driving in, so no one had to wait and we all went in together. We ate outside, and one waitress even said serving us would help her with her 10,000 steps!
I chose a ‘Full English’ which is basically a lot of everything there is for a cooked breakfast. It comes on a huge plate! After breakfast, we drove separately to Rowsley, where we met to continue in convoy. It turned out there were roadworks in Rowsley, and it took us around 30 minutes to get through. However, when we came over to Chatsworth, it was relatively clear and we could really get going! I had never been in the house grounds before Wednesday, but that was even better, as it was all new for me to discover. We were coming along the driveway when we saw three of the sculptures, but after we had parked, we went to an information centre, where you could pick up a map of the sculptures. Then we set off to find them all.
I first went to Chatsworth when some other friends took us wild swimming in the river. That was the first and only time that I have ever been wild swimming in the UK – maybe because the only other place I’ve been wild swimming was in Barbados, where the water is 20°! Chatsworth was one of the seats of the sixteenth century countess Bess of Hardwick, who lived at Hardwick Hall, “more glass than wall” as it was known. Chatsworth has a giant water fountain, which we didn’t visit, but I have seen it going from the main road – it is MASSIVE, and shoots water a whopping 60 metres into the air! This year the grounds are the site of an exhibit of sculptures called Radical Horizons, and it is these we went to see.
The first sculpture we found was two bears made out of copper coins – expensive! The Mummy Bear had a Baby Bear climbing on it, and I had some fun making bear noises behind it: Rarrrrarrrrrrr! Next was Mermaid rising out of a pond, then a kind of plane-banana-jellyfish thing, and a spiral of stones which you could climb on. There also a sculpture of three moths, which looked a bit like bees and a bit like butterflies, and another of five pillars made out of gin bottles. The best one was a turning pair of wings, with a ring in the middle so you could hold on and ‘fly’ with them. We walked all the way along the river to a winged, spiked, sabre-toothed dragon-like thing, then over the road to a rust-coloured head, and after that back up to the moving winged horse.
Inside the house gardens was a group of crow statues. We each found ‘our’ statue: as they were all different, we found the one the most similar to our personality. Here is mine:
The day ended with a picnic, which we all contributed to. Actually, it was one of the best Wednesdays we’ve had together, I think!
