Out to lunch.

We met friends for lunch today, just a walk up the road to our nearest eatery. It's a slight uphill pull, which makes us feel virtuous, the thought of a bit of exercise providing the excuse to eat with abandon - and it's downhill all the way home once our stomachs are full!

 

I've posted this venue before because it has a 25 mile food policy and a fabulous vegetable garden. It's always a pleasure to stroll around after the meal and identify the crops that we have eaten.

Local chargrilled pork loin with new season tomatoes, sprouting broccoli and olives.

The desserts are attractively decorated with edible flowers.

We ate in the conservatory

and sat outside for coffee

before wandering around the vegetable garden.

It's an impressive sight.

I love the teeshirt scarecrow

and I'm going to pinch the idea!

Some of the vegetables were cut to come again.

And everything neatly labeled.

Lots of chillies in the greenhouse

and, for a change, 

someone other than me grubbing about in the soil!

Summer at last!

We have sunshine and unaccustomed heat. It's high summer and I love it. Rugs and blankets have been washed and put out to dry, we are gorging on soft fruit, eating outside under the shade of the walnut tree. Everything is romping in the garden (or has romped and is being cut back for a second flowering.) Today I walked around the house in the cool of early morning with my camera.

There's plenty of promise in the vegetable garden.

Pounds of gooseberries to pick,

and sweet peas to scent the house.

Life is good!

At Wee One's

We went for the weekend to Wee One and Roman's new home and the weather was so good that we spent all our time in the garden. It's quite a jungle!

There was lots of discussion about what to grow where while we sat in the sunshine with cooling drinks doing nothing more strenuous than enjoying each others company.

Then Roman and Himself set to work and soon an old shed was demolished. 

Ah, that's more like it!

Yorkshire garden

We've been in Yorkshire for a few days, only our second visit this year. I feared that the small front garden might have been choked by weeds and put a few pots of plants from home in the car to fill any barren patches. I needn't have worried, there wasn't a patch of bare earth to be seen, and the path to the front door seemed to have disappeared!

It's here somewhere.

Ah, eventually found under a great deal of vegetation!

The Rosa Mundi has obviously loved all the rainfall.

Sticks were cut and used to prop up plants and restore some order to the everlasting sweet pea. It's such a pretty, delicate-looking plant, but it gets everywhere.

But not everything was thriving. The snowball viburnum is in a very sorry state. It needs spraying with either insecticide or fungal treatment, possibly both. 

The leaves are badly distorted with some sort of blight.

But for now I'll forget the problems and concentrate

on how much pleasure a garden gives.

Spindle Cottage Open Garden

Today our friends Angela and Alban opened their garden for charity. If you have seen the 'Shed of the Year' programmes on television then Alban may be familiar to you. His 'sheds' are fabulous and the BBC have quite rightly presented him with a lifetime achievement award.

There is a special building in the garden for each of their grandchildren and lots more besides. Charlotte's post office proved very popular with all the visiting children.

And although I'm rather out of scale 

I had a lovely time as well!

It's all the little details that delight.

The sun shone

lots of people came

we met up with friends

ate cream teas

listened to music

 explored the lovely structures

a shepherd's hut

the tool shed

with an Alban cut-out!

Here is his workshop where all the magic takes shape.

What a lovely way to spend a summer afternoon.