Today we spent the whole day at Chatsworth, arriving just before they opened at 10am. Chatsworth is one of the grandest houses in England, with a garden to match. It is more than just its association with Pride and Prejudice but that is about all I knew about it before our visit.

After wandering around the garden for a little bit, we arrived at the Cascade, a 350yo man-made set of rapids that would have been impressive had they been working. However, the water has been diverted as they begin a £7 million restoration project. It is still impressive, just not so much.

We continued walking with multiple stops for photo opportunities, particularly for those of us who are enamoured by flowers.

Turning a corner, we happened upon what would be the highlight of the day - the rock garden. But this was not your average Grandpa's rock garden, no, this was a couple of acres of huge rocks moved by hand, water features and the obligatory plants and flowers.

It was amazing and I actually could have spent longer there.

However, we had a time booked for touring the house so we made our way back to that.

A large proportion of the house was open to view and every room was stuffed with artwork, sculptures and period furniture. Even the ceilings were painted.

We passed through a courtyard and a room panelled in oak bought from a defunct German monastery.

Eventually, we arrived at my favourite room, the library.

There was a piano there and the guide kindly allowed Mat to play a piece.

He could have made a fortune in tips if he hadn't been honest enough to admit that he wasn't part of the prearranged entertainment.

The last room was the dining room, still in frequent use by the Duke and his family, apparently.

As is traditional, the exit was into the gift shop and by the time we had finished there it was well and truly lunchtime. We ate in the cafe; they were selling my beetroot and hummus rolls for £6.50 each.

After lunch we emerged from the cafe to discover that the rain had arrived. A lesser group of people might have given up at that point and headed home for an afternoon snooze but not us - we are made of sterner stuff and so donned raincoats and headed back into the garden.

Over the next couple of hours we discovered a number of different aspects of the garden.

There was the maze, which we eventually solved - not having the same advantage as the two seven year old girls who joined us in the centre thanks to being small enough to crawl through gaps in the hedge.

After the maze we climbed the "hundred steps" which actually consisted of 104 steps in direct contravention of the Trade Descriptions Act.

And all the time, there were more flowers for Linda to photograph.

Eventually we made our way to the end of the Canal Pool where we could look back to the house and the fountain (or "whoosher" as it is sometimes colloquially known.

But the time we had wandered back to the house we had been on site over seven hours.

It hadn't seemed that long and I would strongly recommend Chatsworth as a stop for anyone visiting the UK. Despite the blue sky in the photo above, it was raining again as we left Chatsworth 15 minutes later. That didn't stop me getting one last photo across the park as we left.

Over dinner we tried out two local ciders - an Elderflower Cider and a Bakewell Tart Cider.

I mention that here as a public service. We took one for the team here so that you never have to have the misfortune of trying them yourselves. I suspect this is what you get when the marketing team drives the product range and ignores the brewers advice.

After dinner, Liz and I went for another walk through the village and along the River Bradford. For some reason, no one else was interested in going with us. We discovered the Bankside Wildlife Garden.

We walked up the Limestone Way on one side of the river, across an overgrown bridge and back the other side on an overgrown path.