Cusworth Hall

A visit to Cusworth Hall today happened more by chance than by design. We'd intended to visit Brodsworth Hall, which is a Victorian country house, looked after by English Heritage but when we got there we discovered that we were still on winter time and the house was closed on a Friday. So we headed for the nearest alternative which was Cusworth Hall. This is a museum, owned by Doncaster Council and looked after by a host of volunteers who clearly discovered the `big society' long before it became a twinkle in David Cameron's eye.

We were really pleased that we'd ended up at Cusworth, the lakes and grounds are stunning and have recently been re-landscaped with funding from the Heritage Lottery. (Unfortunately the museum still leaves a lot to be desired.)

It was such a wonderful day that I took lots of photos and the choice of what to blip was really difficult. So in the end I settled for a view of the house, though I have a few other images I also liked, including one of the pink flowers on a larch tree, which I don't think I've ever seen before. And this tufted duck.

We even had two hours at the allotment when we got home and have now got a new bed dug from the patch that was covered with black weed suppressant material last April. Hopefully the perennial weeds will not sprout again - though time will tell!

Just got to finish off sorting what we're going to grow where this year.

I've changed the photograph of the house for one that A took.