In the Rectory Garden

My friend Gari, who is s gardener, invited me over to view a garden in which she toils. It was open to the public, in aid of the Red Cross.

Quenington is a film-set type of Cotswold village, full of the sort of houses where Weekenders live.
Beautiful but strangely empty, even on a Sunday. We went first to the Rectory Garden, where I bought a geranium for Steve and snapped these white fllowers. A river runs through the garden, and a mill stream. There were many unusual sculptures, but overall the garden did not grab me as spectacular. Too flat, maybe.

'Gari's garden' was at Mawley House, also in the village. This one really was amazing: imaginative planting, many different "rooms". Slate sculptures. Come the Revolution, we shall turn it into a venue for adult education. And something else in the winter, perhaps. I could have stayed there for ever, but half of Gari's street in Stroud had turned out to see the garden, and we kept bumping into more and more people, and the sun was getting hotter, forcing us into the shade.

We returned to the Rectory Garden, where we took tea outside the summer house by the swimming pool, (as one does) and then we quickly toured the garden again, for the benefit of those who hadn't yet seen it!

All.in all, it was nearly 7 pm by the time we got home. What a beautiful way to spend an afternoon.