Winter ILD at Tatton Park

You know what’s the best way to visit places you’ve wanted to see for a while that are not quite as easily accessible? Throw a meet around them! Now that I live a bit closer to it, I wanted to visit Tatton Park, but getting there by public transport is still fairly bothersome. So instead I organised a Winter ILD visit there, which allowed me to book a minibus to take us there and back.

| Haenuli Lovely Memories JSK | Atelier Boz Roand jacket | Millefleurs georgette blouse | Red Maria tights | offbrand boots and boot toppers | Cutie Creator headbow | Sweet Dolly House brooch | vintage brooch | offbrand earrings and necklace | Peacockalorum muff |

My initial plans involved wearing a wig, but when I did the try on, my own hair like this worked so well that I decided to keep it. I was trying to have as few things to do in the morning as possible, which worked well.

And here you can see my hand muff. I threaded a sky blue velveteen ribbon through it for the day to hand on my neck from.

All of my blues (bar the brooch) taken indoors with a flash. Look how different they are - and yet they still worked well together.

My coord goal for this occasion was to use my Roland jacket somehow. Truth be told, it’s not warm enough for the chilly weather we’ve been having here, but with some layers underneath it worked well enough for most of the day. With this Haenuli JSK, pumped out as much as I could with a Malco Modes A-line petticoat on top of my F+F hoop, I was giving some strong Elsa vibes and had to add all of my snowflake shaped stuff. This coord is also proof that exact matching of your colours is for newbs because literally NONE of the blues here match. And not just by a little –the tights are A LOT darker than any of the other blues, as you can see on the photo below. But you don’t need exact colour matches for pieces to COORDINATE well, as some shades look different when worn and the rest are separated from each other with other colours. And THAT is how you make non-matching shades work. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

A bit of background: Tatton Park is a historic estate in the county of Cheshire and is currently owned by National Trust, a charity which, amongst other things, focuses on heritage conservation in England. The estate is really big, good 2000 acres of it, which includes an XVIIIth century mansion (which is where we went), a medieval hall, a farm and a deer park – can you really blame this classic lolita for wanting to visit? And just like with any old state home, visiting there just makes you want to hire the entire thing out for the most lavish of lolita balls. Shame that’s probably not an option.

Tatton Hall mansion from the side our admission ticket didn't cover (and during a completely different season). Picture is under a Creative Commons Licence.

Our group was split roughly in half, with some going on the minibus and some making their own way. And while I wish that the Frilly Minibus crew took a photo together, there really was no opportunity for that. At Manchester Piccadilly station we had to board as quickly as possible and when we alighted, our driver had another job he had to do while we frolicked at Tatton Park. Suffice to say that the atmosphere of the Frilly Minibus was really great fun and I would happily organise further events that meant lolitas travelling together like this.

Although it was ILD, the plan for the day was literally that there was no plan. We purchased admission into the mansion, but everyone was free to roam the grounds (and the mansion) at their own pace and however they preferred. I know some people did go off to try to hang out with the deer afterwards, even though on an estate this big the deer park was a long way off. And others had a break from the crowds, hanging out in a quieter space for a bit. That was the beauty of the day: being able to choose your activity and pace of doing them, whilst being guaranteed you’re somewhere aesthetic enough for your ILD outfit.

A group photo before we all went in. Everyone looked super lovely.

Along with a few friends, we stuck to visiting the mansion first – which was all decorated with each room being themed around a different fairytale. When purchasing our tickets, we were warned to be wary of the Wicked Witch and to look out for the Fairy Godmother. We met both of them, as well as Cinderella, and I must say, the Wicked Witch was pretty nice. Both her and the Fairy Godmother insisted we take photos with them and they were really fun to interact with, just like you would with characters at Disneyland or something. And while I’m a little sorry to some of the kids who suddenly saw the characters disappear and ignore them for the sake of some frilly adults, it was fun that we got to interact with them like this.

The fairies (from fairy tales) adorned the branches above the entrance.

Someone else took a closeup picture of that wolf - trust me, you do not want to see that.

A very convenient gap in the ceiling for a massive tree. Not designed for trees originally though, but for balls where the musicians would play above and people would dance on the wooden floor.

All of the fairytale and Christmas decorations were done without moving the original decor.

Rapunzel's braid. Shame we couldn't visit the upper floors.

There was dark, eerie music playing in this room and I fully expected Beast to come out. But he didn't. Shame.

I loved all the Christmas decorations mixed in with the treasures in Aladdin's cave, very clever!

Magic lamp and magic carpet.

In Aladdin's cave we had a chance to make three wishes. But as we were a group of 12, we made more, which were:
No more men (meaning mostly sissies and fetishists), 80% off sales, free shipping and no customs.
Photo by Emma.

We actually had to give the password before we were allowed to go through to the cave.

Turns out, Cinderella's carriage matched my outfit PERFECTLY.

I thought I was channelling Elsa, but this was all a cover up. It's actually me, Cinderella!
Photo by Ruiling Zhang.

I don't recall Sleeping Beauty's part having any beds, they only focused on the spinning wheel. Which was pretty clever, I like when things aren't too obvious.

Had we had more sweet lolitas (and had this been better lit), this wouldve been the perfect backdrop.

In case you ever wondered what the recipe was - here it is. Enjoy responsibly.

And speaking of non-obvious fairytales, at first I thought that this was just an autumnal kitchen...

... Only when I saw this behind me I realised what it was. And then noticed the three chairs in the picture below, as well as three scarves not pictured. The attention to detail was absolutely spot on!

We met Fairy Godmother, as well as Cinderella, at the end of our trip. They were both really lovely and excited to see us.
Photo by Ruiling Zhang.

The Wicked Witch was much nicer than people give her credit for. Sadly, as it was a member of public taking our picture with her, they aren't very clear, so have this one instead.
Photo by Ruiling Zhang.

From the end of the decorated mansion we were able to go straight into the Christmas Fair. I’d read about it on the website, so made sure to bring some change with me. The vendors there all seemed like local artisans and they sold edible things (chocolates, cheese and gin being the most common ones), decorative things (floral arrangements, candles, house décor) or accessories and gifts of various kinds (jewellery, wooden watches, gift baskets etc.). Although truth be told, we were all rather distracted by the room, or rather hall, being full of taxidermy. I’m sure I’ve seen places with similar number of taxidermy (and now that I think about it, I believe one of those was like a very oldschool wildlife museum?), nonetheless the collection was impressive, if slightly disturbing. I enjoyed the gigantic fish more than the severed heads, let’s put it this way.

I would've loved to take one of these with me, they were gorgeous.

I did end up buying a candle from this stall. I picked up the smalles one which is lavender, rosewood and jasmine scented. It has a very relaxing smell and I was told that the scent lingers even long afterwards, so I'm excited about that.

All this festive decor makes me super excited!

"Too jazzy?"

Such rustic aesthetic, I love it!

Big tuna (?) bois.

That was just part of one wall. Now imagine a big hall, like in Harry Potter, and that every wall is covered with them.

Even bigger tarpon boi (weight listed on the glass says 101 pounds, which is just under 46kg!).

After a quick stop for some mulled apple juice (because I find wine yucky, even in mulled form) and crepes for others, we went back to the places we walked past before. Mainly to take some outfit photos, but also to ride the carousels. There were two: a traditional one and a small ride with vintage cars, so of course we tried both. The cars one was fun, although very short, it seemed over after only a couple of (tiny) laps. But the cars honked, which made up for it ever so slightly. But the traditional carousel did not disappoint and was just the right duration. Big thank you to Emma, who snapped this photo of pure joy.

Looks like tea, tastes like delicious spiced apple-y goodness. I gotta learn to make my own, it can't be that hard.

The perfect aesthetic carousel.

My view from our car.

Enjoying the ride.
Photo by Ruiling Zhang.

Because joy is riding a carousel in a pretty dress.
Photo by Emma.

Honestly, I could ride carousels endlessly, they're so much fun!
Photo by Ruiling Zhang.

Trying to grab a break before it was time to go back, we quickly stopped at the café for something to eat. It’s a shame that we’d missed most of the savoury food, as I could’ve done with a proper meal, but the sweets were delicious (that plain shortbread in particular) and did the job of keeping me going. Over our cakes we confirmed that already 2020 looks to be a year packed with lolita events, so although the Leeds comm will be celebrating its 10^th anniversary, it will probably be much better to stick to a casual outing to a pub instead of trying to do anything big and fancy. There will be enough of those anyway and I’m starting to worry if we’ll have enough people coming forward with casual meet ideas to have something on offer each month.

I picked up a slice of milionnaire's shortbreat, regular shortbreat and a glass bottle of Coke. Not a lot for the 6 quid I was charged, though the regular shortbread was absolutely 10/10.

Sadly, partly due to my mistake in planning, the café shut at 4pm, whilst our minibus wasn’t due to arrive back until 5pm. Pretty much everywhere was shutting down and as darkness approached very fast, it wasn’t the most fun place for long strolls (besides, we were all a bit tired). So we waited at a bench for a bit, but when it got to 4:55pm and our minibus driver said he’d be another 15mins, we decided to risk going over to a big closed off tent nearby. And actually lucked out – there was supposed to be some sort of a party there later on, but the staff were happy to let us wait inside in the entrance hall part, away from the cold. This was very sweet of them, I hope their party (whatever it was) went well. And we didn’t wait much longer after that anyway, so all was good. What topped that day off was that despite there being a massive football game on in Manchester (which usually means awful public transport disruptions), we arrived back shortly after the match had started and avoided all of that bother. At the end of a long day, when my feet hurt and I just wanna get home, the last thing I need is to be dealing with the football crowd whilst I’m wearing my monster poof.

And so another year has gone and another Winter ILD has passed. I must say, as fun as tea parties and fancy things are, something more laid back like this is a good change of pace every now and then. I enjoyed being fancy and visiting fancy places without necessarily having to sit down for afternoon tea. Yes, the downside to that was much more interaction with the public, but most of it was very polite bar a small handful of wannabe paparazzi. Although it seems like next year Sheffield has some big hush-hush plans for Winter ILD, so I don’t have to worry about organising anything – which will also be nice.

Truth be told, I sat in my coord minus boots and Roland for maybe half an hour after getting home? It was pretty comfortable overall, which is always great when you're wearing lolita all day.

Have you done anything for this ILD, whether alone or with others? Or planning to, if there’s a belated celebration going on? If you were on a Frilly Minibus, would you make a beeline for the back seats or get something near the front – and why?