June 4 cont.

While the Reids relaxed at the cottage we drove to a favorite near by small garden named Stagshaw Garden. The garden's main attraction is its azaleas and rhodies with a few camellia and magnolia bushes. After a colorful time there we returned to Troutbeck. Since the day was a photographer's delight I had Bill drop me at the far end of our village to wander the two mile stretch back to our cottage. My trek began at Townend House and garden, home of the Browne family for more than 400 years. It's filled with intricately carved pieces of furniture, some of which were built in the house. In the kitchen today the oven was on for the first time in some years and a recipe for "jumbles" a kind of biscuit (cookie) flavored with caraway and fennel and some sugar were baking. Also on display were a variety of other dishes from the 1699 cook book of Elizabeth Birkett written by hand in her teeny-tiny handwriting. Ingredients like sugar, almonds, lemon and gold leaf were available way back then. There was another biscuit (bean cakes) on display with flecks of gold leaf. Not very good for the digestive system!