Yesterday Joe and I visited another of those occasionally open country houses, Hovingham Hall north of York.

We drove up by-passing Beverley and through Malton arriving just as it was about to open, but we did not go in straight away as we had arranged to meet my cousin Susan who lives in York; she was working in the morning and didn't arrive for about half-an-hour. While we were waiting we ate our picnic in the car park - which is not as sad as it sounds since the car park was a rather nice green space in the middle of the village. Here is a picture showing the entrance to the house from the car park.
Hovingham Hall (1)
After Susan arrived and we had established that she didn't want to eat, we went in. It is the most extraordinary entrance as you go in from the village through what looks like a gatehouse, but it takes you not to a drive or into a courtyard, but into a huge covered riding school two storeys high and looking as though it had escaped from Vienna. Here Sue paid her entrance and Joe and I flashed our HHA cards. It was by now about ten-to-two and the next tour began at 2.15 so we went out into the grounds for a quarter-of-an-hour to catch up on a bit of family news and ask after everyone's health.

The lady who did the guided tour was very thorough and friendly, but she was not really a natural for the job. She was good on the pictures (some of which are excellent), but warned us at the beginning that the family had no consistent records of the furniture. The builder of the house (one of many Thomas Worsleys) was both his own architect and a horse fanatic. he built a house which in its original form was said to be 'impossible in which to live', having been build around the stables and the riding school with the human accomodation being both less grand and of secondary importance. His grandson and subsequent generations did to an extent sort out this problem, but it is still a distinctly odd design.

After the guided tour we went out for a walk around the garden which takes second place to the cricket pitch. Here is the house viewed from the road across the cricket pitch.
Hovingham Hall (2)
The herbaceous borders, which I somehow neglected to photograph, were very pretty and the old roses were at their best and most fragrant.

We then went to the bakery in the village where we had a very nice afternoon tea sitting by the beck until - to use a cricketing term - rain stopped play with a storm that threatened more than it delivered, but sent us skittering into the church both from interest and as a place to shelter from the rain which was quite heavy for about half-an-hour.

Driving home we took a somewhat circuitous but beautiful route through Thixendale and avoiding Malton which at certain times of day grinds to a halt with a continuous traffic jam through its centre, and called in at Thompson's in Wetwang for some of their excellent chips which in Joe's case were covered in a curry sauce which I am told by conisseurs of such things is the best anywhere (and believe me, my brother-in-law and nephews have sampled a lot of curry sauces over the years).

Today my father's cousin Bill called in. I found myself thinking back to a day about fifteen years ago when Susan and her older children were here, together with Bill's two and, of course, Helen's boys. Then they raced round the garden, splashed in the pool, climbed the trees and swung from the swing. Now James (the greater) is well on his way, via Durham University and graduate recruitment, to being a captain of industry; Joe is busy getting ready to move into a house of his own, Adam is in a similar case to James (the greater) by the same route although a couple of years behind being that much younger; Jacob is running his own business, and James (the less) is at Cambridge, while Charlotte, the only girl among those over school age, is working as an occupational therapist at Grimsby Hospital. It doesn't take many years to make so much difference.