So here they are…………………………two places I’ve discovered in my very own Yorkshire which until three weeks ago I never knew existed. And they are lovely little places. If you are ever in Yorkshire do visit them……………………and I’ve got a recipe for you. Then I’m planning on a quiet October so I’ll be light on the updates for a while because I’m going into hibernation for a good few weeks to just do my thing!
I hope Monday has been a good day……………….but not all days are good days and if it’s been a bumpy day I hope you have a Piglet in your life. Today has been a bit of an average day for me. There have been highs (my big boy’s birthday) and lows (a toilet incident). I know we are a ‘team’ at work……………..but with no caretaker or cleaner on site until 4pm today I think I’ve taken one for the team. I have deftly used my Business and Finance Degree to assist in the extraction of a solid object (toy no doubt) from a nursery toilet and mop the flooded floor clean from the contents of the overflowed toilet! I don’t recall that being in my job description. šWhy do small children feel the need to push things into holes that they clearly aren’t intended for?
I’m quite happy being Piglet………………..to my children, my family, my work colleagues and any of my friends………………..I’ll always be Piglet if needed. If you can choose to be anything, chose to be kind and be more Piglet!
The UK’s not a great place to be at the moment. But don’t let it get you down…………….happiness is a mindset and it’s important to be grateful for the small things and have gratitude and stay positive and true to your beliefs. Try not to focus on the hatred, the antisemitic shootings close to home at the weekend, the St George flags popping up everywhere to provoke and intimidate immigrants, refugees and anyone not born white and British. If the boot were on the other foot it’d be called radicalisation!
Instead choose to be happy, go to nice, calm, peaceful places, spend time with your sort of people, hug, be kind, stay positive and try to shut out all the ‘noise’.
Everything has changed so quickly too, or it might be because I was away for so long over summer, but I came back to quite a different country. I have a week off in less than three weeks and my finger is hovering over the escape button on the Easyjet and Ryanair websites! š¤£ Shall I press it?! We’ll see!
So here you go……………………. feel good place number one………………………….Helmsley Walled Garden and Helmsley Castle. Beautiful!š
As the name suggests, they are both in Helmsley in North Yorkshire……………..a lovely little market town where even the shop fronts and the delicatessen are pretty.
They are two separate entities but the garden sits next to the castle. The garden was built in 1759 and is a Royal Horticultural Society partner garden………………….and I never knew about it! Their aim is for everyone to feel the therapeutic benefit, not only of gardening, but also of the beautiful environment created by their volunteers.
In their leaflet it says, “The garden is run entirely by volunteers with the aim of the garden being for people to improve their mental and physical health through gardening, and spending time in a garden. The volunteers are guided by trained horticulturalists. Each volunteerās contribution, regardless of their background or abilities, plays a vital role in enhancing the gardenās beauty, and allows them to work towards a collective achievement.” It really is a magical place and important resource and outlet for so many people.
It’s a small fee to get in but it is so worth it. The planting is spectacular. And there is a pretty amazing cafe too called the Vine Tree.
I challenge you to come here and not be happy when you leave. So what did I like about it?
Flowers, flowers and more flowers………………….
They have a walled orchard bursting with apples and pears and other fruits…………
If you look closely there are the little visitors to the garden……………………the bees. The garden has been planted to attract bees and pollinators……………
There are lots of lovely paths to wander around and admire the most lovely planting, while smelling the scent of the flowers…….
There are lots of nice scuptures and places to sit too and have a quiet moment of reflection……………
And there is a Labyrinth……………………………….
I never knew that Labyrinth walking was an ancient practice to quieten the mind and keep you in the present and best done barefoot.
I can’t say it worked……………………………I’m ticklish, particularly on my feet and it just made me giggle as the grass was very prickly tickly.
Final stop was the pumpkins and squash house…………………………so many sizes colours and shapes.
And have you ever seen any of these…………………how cool. It can’t decide what it is so it’s decided to be half of each…………………………….
When you’ve finished in the walled garden you can go and have a look at the castle.
Personally, I prefer the garden to the castle. Castles can be a little wasted on me and I find them a little gloomy. However, it’s worth a quick look as it is the ruin of a very important castle which featured heavily in the Civil War. It was besieged by Sir Thomas Fairfax and its destruction was ordered by Parliament to quell the uprising of us strong headed Yorkshire folk who refused to tow the Government line (who would have thought š).
There are some lovely views over the Yorkshire countryside from the ruined windows.
I challenge you to come to Helmsley and not leave happy!
The second place, which I visited this weekend was The Yorkshire Arboretum……………………..which is home to a very special tree collection.
It would be spectacular at any time of year but at the moment with Autumn being upon us it’s amazing.
Autumn also means I can get my bobble hats out…………..which is something else to be happy about!
There are over 120 acres with over 2,500 varieties of trees from all over the world.
There are wildflower meadows, lakes, ponds and a very special conservation area which I’ll tell you about in a second.
So what is there to see at the moment? Well………………..it’s Autumn………………my favourite time of year and these were the highlights for me.
Funghi!!!! Lots of them. There were some very beautiful red and white funghi………………..like those in fairytales that have a little door on the side that the fairies and elves live in! Don’t tell me you’ve never read the ‘Magic Faraway Tree’ when you were small.
Then there are the huge toadstools…………………………….
And I just love how pretty the underside of a toadstool looks.
There are all the nuts and seeds and berries that are in abundance at the moment. Chestnuts bursting out of their shells…………………
Acorns for the squirrels.
There are also some lovely lakes there with swans and coots floating on the top, big bullrushes at the side and dragon flies flitting around just above the water.
And if you stay still enough and search hard enough you will see some pretty amazing wildlife.
This little guy was in his winter bed between two leaves of a spikey plant. You could quite easily have missed him (or it could be a she…….who knows!) But it was happy enough to pose for me. Sometimes you just have to slow down, be still and pay attention to what’s around you in the moment and you can find some amazing things.
The highlight of the day for me though was my Red Squirrel sighting. These are native to the UK but are struggling and in decline due to the introduction of the grey squirrel from North America between 1876 to 1929. It’s been illegal to release grey squirrels into the wild in the UK since 1930 and conservation efforts are in place to cull the grey squirrel and re-introduce the native red squirrel in a number of places, including here. The grey squirrel is a lot larger and completes for the same food and habitat and is a spreader of disease, so they are not good news for the red squirrel.
They have a very active conservation project here, and breed them to release in other areas of the country. They are very timid though so you will be lucky to spot one but it was my lucky day!!!! Well………………..part luck part patience. A gentleman told me he had seen one go into a squirrel box a couple of minutes before so I thought if I stand still and pretend I’m a tree it might just come out. So I held my camera up and focused on the hole and stood statue still. After 10 minutes my arm had gone dead, my nose was itching and I was freezing cold. My patience had almost run out when out he popped…………………….all fluffy, tufted ears and cheeky face……………………….a little furry ball of gorgeousness!š„° And he has a name apparently………………..Rusty! How cute is that. For a small fee towards his upkeep you can adopt him and I’m seriously thinking of adopting a squirrel. I’ve decided he’d be far less trouble than a child, less costly and far cuter.
So if you be still and quiet long enough to look, have patience and gratitude, then you will realise that the world really is an amazing place and there are lots of things to be happy about so don’t let all the noise bring you down……………………you do you and reach out to your Piglet if you need to.
And if all else fails bake Parkin………………………………sure to make you happy.
I can’t believe I’ve told you so much about Yorkshire for all this time and never shared ‘Parkin’ with you! I think I assumed that everyone knew about Parkin. It was only when I was talking to someone from a neighbouring county and they had never heard of it that I googled it and realised it was a Yorkshire thing. Your life cannot be complete until you have had Parkin ……………………………… and it’s so easy to make.
It’s a sort of ginger cake made with black treacle (sometimes called molasses depending where you are from). It also contains pinhead oatmeal…………..it’s not the same with porridge oats. Pinhead oatmeal comes in a tin and it looks like this…………………
You bake Parkin until it forms a sort of crust on top. When it’s cool you wrap it in greaseproof paper and keep it in an airtight tin for up to two weeks. And that is the secret…………..it gets stickier and more chewy the longer you leave it…………………….but I get that that’s the challenge………………..trying not to eat it all before it’s reached its height of stickiness. We eat it in Yorkshire at the end of October and beginning of November to coincide with Halloween and Bonfire Night. I just like to start eating it early so I’ve made some now! š September would be too early……..like eating Christmas cake in September…….. but once we’ve reached October and the leaves start turning you are good to go on the Parkin front in my opinion. It’s best consumed reading a book, wrapped in a blanket with a cup of Yorkshire tea.
So here is a link to the best (in my opinion) Parkin recipe …………………… courtesy of BBC Good Food:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/parkin
So there you go, visit these places if you are near…………….immerse yourself in beautiful things, slow down, breathe, appreciate the good things and choose happy………………..and if all else fails reach out to your Piglet and eat Parkin.