The Last Day of June

The last two weeks have flown by in a haze of not coping very well with the heat, mostly due to my medication and not walking very far because of painful and swollen knees and ankles but also popping out now and again here and there for treats and visits for Paul's birthday.

This lunchtime Woody visited, he landed on the tree in front of the kitchen window.  Luckily my camera was handy on the kitchen table where I'd left it when we came in from our morning walk - how wonderful to walk in cooler weather.

Isn't he handsome?

Over the last couple of weeks we have visited the Trentham Monkey Park, the RAF Museum at Cosford, taken a late evening Beaver Safari at Trentham and on the actual day a music event at the Dorothy Clive gardens where various performers sang songs from the musicals from each decade 1920s to 2020s, folk music and sea shanties.  Thank goodness it was cooler and the morning rain cleared.  Later we popped up to Bridgemere Garden World, where we visited the Food Festival and the show gardens.  One more treat to come is lunch with friends in Nottingham later this week.

Our Beaver Safari bus took us to the ranger station for a talk and presentation and then around the lake.

 Barry, the only beaver I saw that evening even though one was spotted on the lake and several people saw it.  Paul did manage to capture a photo of it.  I had binoculars but couldn't see it. I'll write more about the Beaver family group later.  The ranger in the purple top below was an excellent guide and so enthusiastic.

I thought with it being a Sunday Bridgemere would be crowded but it wasn't too bad at all.

We had the Octavia Hill show garden to ourselves.

See you in July.

Birthday, Fox and the last two Wallabies

 A lovely day on Thursday with two cousins, a second cousin various spouses and a dog.  Lots of happy chatter and a house full of flowers and cake.  Where have all the years gone?

Such beautiful flowers, the living room has been taken over by the delicate scent of lilies.

The larger bouquet above has been split into two vases,  I'm hoping they last a while.

We'd told everyone about our fox and badger visitors and right on cue Mr Fox appeared much to everyone's delight.  He looks a bit concerned because he's not used to there being a dog in this house.

As promised in my last post here are the last two of the ten wallabies on the Where's Wallaby trail I first mentioned  here.  Not necessarily in the order we found them.

Above is Wojtek illustrated by Joanna Dawidowska in collaboration with the Leek Polish Connection.  This one is at Tittesworth Reservoir, Meerbrook.

Above is Woody on the woodland walk in Dimmingsdale near Alton.  He's painted by Jim Mcshee in collaboration with Tean Youth Club.

Next week we are having a new conservatory roof fitted.  We had booked this in before we had the problem with the main house roof which I described in an earlier post.  So more noise and dust for the next week or two.  Thankfully no scaffolding!

Is anyone else having soaring views on their posts?  I've gone from usually no more than a hundred views to more than two thousand five hundred on my last post.  I've been told it's 'AI bots.'  All a bit worrying.  What to do?  For the moment keep calm and carry on.  

See you in September.

A Garden Visit

 On Friday we met up with friends at Wollerton Old Hall Garden which is near Market Drayton in Shropshire.  It's about a forty minute journey from home.  We'd visited a couple of times before but not recently.  

It was a birthday celebration for one of our friends so as we arrived close to noon it was time for refreshment before the small tea room got too crowded.  Lunch was lovely.  We had Hummus and pitta bread with a couple of different salads. Friends had Gardener's platter.  All very fresh and well presented.  Sorry no photos as we were too busy chatting and catching up on news.

After lunch we had a wander around the gardens. 

 'When Lesley Jenkins moved back to her former childhood home of Wollerton Old Hall in 1983 with her husband John, she quickly discovered that the great age of the site demanded formality in the gardens design. She created three north-south and three east-west vistas. The resulting linearity of these vistas together with the hedges, walls and paths resulted in a collection of separate gardens, with each one having its own style and ethos.'

I've copied the above from the website (link at the top) to explain the history and layout of the garden.  It was very sunny so I didn't take too many photos as the light was too bright in places.  Just few photos below of those I did manage to take with my little camera.

The scents and sounds were wonderful - especially the Wisteria.  In the wilder area at the bottom of the garden there were butterflies and damselflies flitting around under the trees amongst the cow parsley.

There were plenty of seating areas in quiet places.

After that it was time for tea and cake before heading home.

Under My Umbrella

No, not me but two dear friends, Robert and Susan, under my umbrella!  It wasn't raining but there was a special reason for them wanting their photo taken in this way.  I took the photo on Wednesday near the Lakeside Pavillion on the Nottingham University Campus where we'd gone to look at a wonderful exhibition in the Djanogly Art Gallery.

It was our friend Robert's birthday recently and we'd sent him a birthday card which I'd spotted at Bridgemere and which I thought he would like.  Inside the card as well as the normal greetings I wrote - 'I'm sure you can weave a magical story around the picture on the front and the little poem on the back of this card.  I look forward to reading it' - Robert has been attending a creative writing class over the last year or two and has written some super stories and poems.  When we visited on Wednesday, he asked if we could take a photograph of him and Susan which would recreate the scene on the birthday card as he wanted to put the story on his blog but couldn't use the illustration on the card for copyright reasons.  I was the only one with an umbrella so that was the reason mine was used.   

Here is a  link  to Robert's blog where the story he wrote can be found - it is different to what I had expected but quite poignantly atmospheric.  I was moved by it.

Here is a  link  to the original print by Gary Bunt that the card was taken from.

Lovely Day

Yesterday was my birthday and what could be nicer than to spend your birthday

in a lovely historic town with gorgeous shops

Wandering around some historic ruins and

visiting an interesting museum?

That's  exactly what I did yesterday  - I'll be back to tell you more later.
In the meantime thank you everyone for my lovely cards, letters, e-mails, presents, flowers, food and 'phone calls - and a special thank-you to the sun for shining for most of the day!

A Special Day

'tis my birthday today and I love flowers and cards more than anything on my birthday; I'm being taken out for the day but as yet we don't know where - of course it is going to rain- so that will have some influence on where we go but when we get to the end of the road which direction will the car go in? Your guess is as good as mine! I have my camera ready!

Birthday at The Follies.....

...or, the 'two-for-one' voucher strikes again. The answer to 'what do you want to do on your birthday?' was 'what, if anything, can we afford to do?' which doesn't give many options but remembering our voucher book, used earlier in the year at the Dorothy Clive Garden, I delved in to see what there was and found a 'two- for- one' voucher for the Hawkstone Park and Follies. So this morning, after opening cards and presents, answering phone calls and logging-on to read birthday e-mails we set off with Paul's specially prepared picnic, towards our destination. We'd visitied before at least ten years ago and knew that we should wear sturdy footwear and that the route was quite arduous in places and little had changed on that score. So here we are at the entrance. When we first visited there was a sign saying something along the lines of if you found it difficult to walk up to the entrance you may not be able to walk around the site. That had gone but it does still apply although there are easy routes added in some areas.

Created in the 18th century by the Hill family, the park is now recognised, according to the leaflet, as 'a masterpeice of the School of Naturalistic Landscape' and is Grade I listed by English Heritage.

It embodies all the eccentricities of both the Gothic and Romantic ideals of the age; and even though it is very strenuous it is great fun. When Samuel Johnson visited Hawkstone in 1774 he described the follies as having 'striking scenes and terrifick grandeur'.

Above, along Reynard's walk, you can see the recess in the red sandstone rock called Reynard's Banqueting House. There were steep pathways and steps and hidden nooks.....

places to hide, amongst branches.....

.....and roots in the Dragon Wood whose paths led to

the Monument, which Paul climbed but this time, I declined and sat amongst the trees whilst he surveyed the landscape. The monument was erected in 1785 by Sir Richard Hill to comemorate his ancestor Sir Rowland Hill, first protestant Lord Mayor of London. It is 100ft high and from the top there is a panoramic view of all the surrounding counties.

We clambered over the Swiss bridge, trying not to look down........

then under the Swiss bridge, were we really up there? ...

and into the grotto. You need a torch! We didn't have a torch! If you go, take one, you won't regret it.

In the grotto you will meet, Arthur King of the Britions and read the tale of the silver chalice found in the 1920s. Grotto Hill was thought to be a 5th century copper mine which was turned into a place of wonder by Sir Richard Hill with shell decoration and false stalactites.

Once you are in the grotto there are windows to light your way

to the outside where you will find the Raven's Shelf up above

the awful precipice, but the most spectacular feature for me was on the way up to the grotto.

The Cleft runs under the Swiss bridge and is a deep chasm between two rocks which is the stuff of both dreams and nightmares. Damp, mossy green and lichen coated walls and slippery steps.

It was like a living illustration from the fairy tale books I read as a child, or the ideal venue for the start of an adventure for The Famous Five or The Secret Seven.

Did I have a good birthday? Yes, it was magical, but now it is back to reality and work next week - oh, and my knee didn't start to hurt until the very last bit of the walk.