There's a Hurricane coming, let's go out for the day...

The weather forecast has been quite definite that today we would be hit by Hurricane Bertha bringing a months' worth of rain in a day. 

Let's plan a day out!

The 3 of us are all members of the National Trust and enjoy a day out at a large house with lots to look at and beautiful grounds for a walk. We decided to find somewhere that would have lots to look at indoors, due to the forecast. An hours drive would take us to Belton House, on the outskirts of Grantham. the house looked large and to have lots of rooms to walk around, along with a cafe. If we got chance to have a walk, it would be a bonus.

It rained constantly all morning, and the drive there was limited to 50mph with wipers on double speed. We expected to be the only ones daft enough to be out on the roads, but they were reasonably busy and more surprising there were plenty of cars parked at Belton House when we arrived.

First stop, the cafe...

The rain was beginning to slow down so we were hopeful that it would stop by the time we'd had a coffee. And when we came out, it had, so we deciced to take advantage and walk down to the boat house by the lake. It looked so pretty, even with the stormy sky and the sound of thunder.

We headed back towards the house and the rain continued to stay away, so we decided to visit the church and Orangery before heading inside.

The gardens were holding up surprising well in view of the deluge earlier and the dahlias looked very impressive.

The sun continued to stay with us as we wandered around the gardens

Although the sky looked better in one direction than the other.

We even took a risk on trying our hand at the maze. It didn't look high enough to get stuck, but we did make a wrong turn or two before finding our way to the centre where we found this little chap, Bertie Brownlow.

The greyhound was a favourite of the Brownlow family and can be spotted throughout Belton, represented in guilded plasterwork, sculpture, floor painting, wrought ironwork and now in willow. Bertie Brownlow was created for Belton by local weaver Alison Walling.

Finally, we decided to head to the house and had a wonderful walk around a very impressive house, fabulous rooms and well worth a visit.

They have a special exhibition of silverware, and while I am not a fan of silver I have to admit that some of the pieces were truly fabulous.

The rain even stayed away for our drive home, so I am really pleased we took the risk to go rather than stay indoors. 

For further information on Belton House see

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/belton-house/