Trip to MALVERN ~ #3 Hampton Court Castle

Sunday saw a beautiful blue sky greet my streaming sneezy eyes. The cold had most diffinatley turned into a Flu on the Saturday and I was a mess today, sad now that the weather had finally decided to co-operate. Breakfast with Ella and the other guests was a subdued affair, I couldn't eat much of the lovely organic food due to my sore thoart and we all felt a little sad that it was home time for all of us.

Our flight wasn't until 8pm so the trip to Hampton Court Castle Gardens I had been hoping for was fulfilled and indeed turned out better than I wished. The difference a visit to a garden in the sunshine to one's spirits is amazing. Yes I was still coughing and sneezing, I should have been in bed somewhere taking meds but boy, my soul was singing.

You walk into the walled gardens through an arched gate and *bang* you are hit with the most fabulous kitchen garden complete with ingenious plant supports and ohh, more tulips! A kitchen garden about the size of 2 allotments and oh so stylish with a small wild meadow section too. Oh just look at the photos - you'll wish you had been there too.

lavender hedges around the herbs - so much more orginial and fragant than box

Then we were into more formal gardens and check out the wonderful pavillions surrounded by moving water, moats around the 2 pavilions, rills and a thicker shallow canal. These areas also had many trees and more permanent structures for things to grow up and around.

An amazing (haha) Maze with a tower in the centre which you can climb to the top of and watch other people struggle and giggle below you trying to get where you are (evil grin). But when you walk down those stairs again there is another set of steps going down...ohh....you end up underneath the maze and come out at a sunken garden complete with waterfall! Oh my goodness - is this Heaven???!!

Well to me it was and after walking up through the ferns on the step stones up the stream we walked out into a parkland area with a superb borrowed landscape of tree covered hills. AND a cafe serving mainly home (castle) cooked cakes. Yippeee.

We could have visited inside the Castle as well but #1 we hadn't the change and #2 we wanted to go all around the gardens again :) And there were more to be found, including the Dutch Garden - MORE tulips and a long pond with carp in it.

Check out the website. I took 94 photos and could merrily share them all but your computer would explode I fear. xx

Anyway, that's the end of the Malvern trip though we did visit some other towns etc but really I want to get back my lottie blogging. For instance, we had an asparagus spear each with our dinner last night - HOORAH!

Trip to MALVERN ~ #2 Ella's farm

Welcome to my 444th post! Yipppeee, I reckon that is some sort of mile stone and even though I sit here in bed with the flu I am going to celebrate (just not sure how..) And our new house has a roof!!

*******

Anyway, I have to tell you about the absolutely fantastic B&B Andrew and I stayed at whilst over for the show. Really it has become a major highlight of the trip and I shall remember the Old Country House and Ella with much fondness. It is a magical place where I felt completely at ease and though ill at the time and wanting my own bed, I did find it hard to leave. The website shows it off beautifully but of course I had to take a few pictures of my own.

 The kitchen garden

Ella's parents bought this amazing 220 acre farm and farmhouse in the 30's. It was very run down and sounds utterly romantic (that feeling for romance still lingers round every corner). Ella grew up there and helped to make the sparkling perry her father became so well known for in the county, there were also pigs and her mother was a talented plantswoman - hybridising hellebores amongst other things!

The orchards aren't really viable anymore - as with all small farms it costs a bomb to produce anything now that would be worth the effort. It is so sad. However the trees are still there looking beautiful at this time of year in blossom, the land has sheep on it from another farm, Ella has a very rare bronze age herd of sheep herself and wildlife is everywhere! Andrew and I saw our first Woodpecker, just doing it's thing in the garden all day. There are bats, squirrels, owls and foxes (which of course have a taste for the lovely free range chickens, sadly) and all sorts of rare plants and trees from a life time of adventure overseas. There are many tumble down outhouses, a pond the size of a small lake and to top it all off -  oast houses!

Inside the house is no less electic and jam packed of interest. Books are everywhere, pottery, mis matching old pieces of beautiful wooden furniture, a huge fireplace, wooden planks and trusses (some 100s of years old)  lots of cosy cushions and throws, paintings and arty bits of this and that. You can be quite happy on a terrible grey and cold day just looking around the kitchen!

Anyway, I just loved it so much and Ella was such an interesting and friendly person that I had to share the secret of our happiness in England with you.

Trip to MALVERN ~ #1 The Show itself

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed myself but it would seem it's just me, I didn't get it, I didn't think the show was terribly wonderful and full of inspiration. I'm telling it here as it was for me, as with everything you are free and indeed encouraged to find out for yourself.....

Pros -
** The parking was free and super easy, really the whole event was organised to a T and really couldn't be faulted at all. Although there were a heck of a lot of people there, it never felt too crowded and that's saying something coming from me (one who hates crowds).

One of the greenhouses Andrew needs in his life.

** The main show tent was fabulous. We were there on Friday, arriving at 11.30 and leaving at 5.30. We watched a good few shows and bits of others. The lady compère was fun and could talk for Britain - she was lovely. The Three Men Went to Mow painting skit for charity was brilliant! I kept realising I was grinning inanely AND the best man won (James, with is masterpiece of fingerpainting - bold, colourful and innovative; I voted twice for his piece). I also witnessed Cleve holding a chicken that much to everyone's surprise laid an egg straight into his hand. The 3 of them (James Alexander-Sinclair, Cleve West and Joe Swift) really are utterly lovely and instantly likeable.

** The Recovery and Wellbeing Garden  (by the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust) won a Gold Medal and was People's Choice on Friday. Here's some pics; there's chickens in the black shed and the tiles were handmade by the clients of the programme but nowhere did it mention how incredibly beneficial to mental health such an activity as their allotment programme is - it was just infered by the title, which most people hadn't bothered to read, they just knew it as the 'tile one'....

 ECOTHERAPY ROCKS!  I was so desperate for Ecotherapy to be shown off at the show (a lot of exhibitors and sellers had no idea what it is!! = I must work harder!)

** Oh, the craft and food halls - yummmy. It was very lucky that we didn't bring much money with us and that the ATM machines were empty. Plus there was the issue of us flying home and all those silly restrictions; so many things were too fragile, too big, too expensive or indeed smelly  (cheeses and meat products etc) to put in our suitcase. But the talent of those in the 3 counties is amazing and boy can they make great sloe gin and damson gin (I was given lots to try - for medicinal reasons of course).

** Everyone was super duper friendly, even before the tipsy fruit drinks.

** Exquisite flowers and plants were everywhere in the main floral tent. Oh you couldn't move without falling in love with something else. Of course the tulips and acers were stunning the socks off me. We really couldn't bring any plants home so looking at seeds was the next best option. What we desparately wanted had sold out but we got contact details :) Plus I now have a love for alpines.

** Food prices were a little steep but was of excellent quality and that kind of makes up for it. Everything organic and locally made, so even that big chocolate brownie Andrew and I shared must have been healthy - right??

** The Meet@Malvern bloggers - were polite and friendly. I got big hugs from the lovely VP, Helen and Karen. It was funny to see fellow bloggers as it is hard to put a face to names such as Happy Mouffetard or VP for example. Though many (and I was told this myself) looked just like the photos of themselves, hahaha. Plus James was wonderful - hugs galore and we shared a biscuit moment; that man could charm a snake!

The setting - oh my goodness the Malvern hills are hypnotic, the trees and the constant play of light across them - just heaven......

Now the Cons-

** Something I will not dwell upon of course, but as with everything, where there are ups, there will also be downs. And the biggest one, the most glaringly obvious one was....a severe lack of show gardens! I know, it sounds daft but there really was a shortage and more than that I found many of the ones there to be uninspiring, terribly cluttered with too many uncomplimentary hard lanscaping materials and sorry Mr Beardshaw but, stupid and clumsy in a few cases.

** Andrew and I were pretty much the youngest people there, bar those being dragged around by their parents, crying! Plus the overall demographic didn't seem to fit us - we are not super rich, large acreage owning people with a desire to dress like the Royal family on a day out at Balmoral and to grow our seedlings or house our chickens in buildings more expensive than the average new posh car (no matter how well made and designed they were). Though on  the other side to that were the many cheap and nasty market stalls at the entrance, these were equally as depressing.

*****

Don't want to end on a sour note though. I'm glad we went, glad to see one of the 'big RHS shows' and very glad to have (albeit, briefly) met some fellow blogger friends. Special thanks to VP and Helen, James and Wiggly Wigglers.

More on our travels tomorrow, with better photos xx

Bloomin' Monday/ Bloomin' Malvern!

After a mixed bag of a weekend, here I find myself back at another Monday - where is the time going? It's nearly April but I'm having trouble believing we are out of Feburary yet. The weather was gloriously spring-like on Saturday and today we're being warned about snow again, possibly for the whole week ahead I feel very mixed up. Really I ought to migrate every year, just follow the sun; birds may have small brains but I think they've got to be the most savvy little creatures out there.

Here are my most beautiful 'Bloomin Monday' flowers yet (in my opinion). A deep firey red Tulip with a cream/yellow, slighty ruffled edge and the darkest purple stamens - Fab. This photo doesn't do them justice, I'll maybe change it later...

Plus......

Check me out - Guest post on Meet at Malvern today! *blushes with pride* I did tell you I'm going to the Malvern Spring Show didn't I!??? I can't wait, you can check it all out at above site, beautifully run by VP and The Patient Gardener.

And thank you for all the comments on the last bloggette, I'll get back to you later on xxx (and I went to the Zoo - yippeee)