If only I could live like this

Over the last few weeks, after a shaky start, which led me to dismiss it as ‘Too ITV’ (a pretty damning assessment in my eyes), I really got into Lost in Austen, where a modern woman went back through a time portal into the fictional world of Pride and Prejudice*, swapping places with Lizzie Bennet just at the start of the novel.

I think it hooked me at the point where the plot began to deviate from the story, and Jane ended up married to the odious Mr Collins. Darcy was insufferable as he is in the early parts of the novel, but Wickham turned out to be a good guy, and Lydia ran off with Bingley, who’d turned to drink when Jane married another. As in all good fairy tales, it all ended happily, however, and Amanda, our modern heroine, stayed with Darcy, whilst Lizzie found a new life in modern Hammersmith.

So, when I went to Middlethorpe Hall for lunch on Friday, all this was still in my head, as I’d watched the final episode the night before.


I love Middlethorpe. It’s a beautiful 17th Century house, set in glorious grounds, and is now a hotel and restaurant. It’s usually a treat for special occasions, but this time we went for lunch as it was the York Food and Drink Festival, and also to celebrate C’s official appointment as my assistant.

Before lunch, as we sat in the lounge, C declared that she could happily live there, as it was ‘managable’. Well, yes, it is, but you’d still need an army of staff. One of the things I love is that the service is superb, but unobtrusive.

Lunch was lovely, and, fortified by two glasses of wine, we went for a stroll round the grounds. It was one of those mellow autumn days that Keats wrote about, with a hint of mist in the air, but still some warmth in the sun. We walked down the lawn to the haha, and ventured further into the orchard and wilderness, discovering the lake. All I needed was a regency dress, and Mr Darcy. The setting was all there.














* Mr Darcy, time travel, how could I not end up loving it?