Green Green - it's all so green! Can you get Green Overdose?

So we made it to Leeds, Will at the wheel, me in charge of the ipod, had a fancy pub dinner (any pub that has a tonic water menu for their g&t is fancy in my books) and went home for the night.
It was a pretty dark drive back home, plus it was a longish day, so I don't remember much. I do remember the house seemed just as big as it seemed in pics, but that's about it.
And then you wake up.
The first thing you see once you wake up and look at the window is every imaginable shade of green. It's a large property - very large actually - that just goes on and on with cute little sheep dotting it and cute little dry rock fences and peacocks and all. The house itself dates back to the 1720 or something, and really looks like it used to have an army of maids and butlers in the good old days.
OK. I was actually lying about the peacocks. We looked and looked and couldn't find them. The peacocks, as we later learned, are a bit of a sad story... Apparently they have been sashaying in peacock heaven lately. The exact circumstances are a little vague, but it is safe to say that the property is peacock-less.

Now, thanks to the fact that Yorkshire hasn't seen a real drought since the last ice age, it is all VERY VERY green and very lush and absolutely stunning. As you can see from the pics.








My choice of weekend was not really that great though. Will's parents were hosting a fundraising bbq for the local parish that night (if that's not quintessential English, I don't know what is) and the place was buzzing with nice middle ages English ladies debating whether they needed more cheese, or whether there is sufficient pudding for the crowd. Outdoors it was salt-of-the-earth Yorkshire men, erecting marquees and setting up bbqs (to be operated by the young butcher boy). The day's motto (like most bbqs i guess) was something along the lines of "we better have TOO MUCH food than not enough".
And they did. Have too much food that is. My sources do tell me it was phenomenal success, so if you ever drive past the local church and wonder how they paid for recent works - now you know who to thank!
Will and I chose not to join the crowds (it was the age group usually referred to as "59 and above") and have dinner at the local pub with his mate.