The Beginning of August

August 1st - 8th.

My family stayed with us until the 3rd of August, and this proved to be the start of a 'bed and breakfast season' for us, since our house was scarcely empty during the whole month, and coping with the sheets and towels has been quite trying.

After all the family left, we went with a friend on a visit to Sheffield Park Gardens, the first this year though we have been a couple of times before. Although it was a very dull day, we quite enjoyed the visit, as the trees and shrubs are quite magnificent.



Even though it was such a dull day, there was no wind so the reflections in the water were wonderful, as you see. After a morning spent wandering through the trees and shrubs and a swift lunch, we crossed to the other side of the road to see the parkland area which we had never visited before.

This area was completely different, just open fields grazed by animals and sloping down to the river Ouse and we did not find it as interesting as the gardens. I think another time we'll just concentrate on the gardens.

The friend pointed out to us that another friend was likely to have a stall at a fair in Wadhurst in a few days time, so on Saturday we dropped in to see her before going on to Pashley Manor Gardens which are reasonably nearby.

Mr and Mrs James Sellick are the owners and current inhabitants of Pashley Manor, a Grade I listed timber-framed house, dating from 1550. They opened their gardens to the public in 1992. They and the team of gardeners pride themselves on the magnificent herbaceous borders, elegant rose garden and historic walled gardens, the productive kitchen garden, the woodland paths and the tranquil vistas that form this garden, not all of which I seem to have photographed, sadly.

I did manage a few photos of the magnificent herbaceous borders, though in August they are not at their best.




The roses were also past their best, but I did photograph the entry to one of the walled gardens, which must be spectacular when everything is in bloom.



As for the tranquil vistas, you would find the one below difficult to beat.


The strange figure to the left of the trees is a statue. This seems to be one of the many gardens where sculptures are on display, and you can buy any you really like - always supposing you have a few thousand pounds to spare!

The sculptures are less abstract than those in Riverhill, and I liked many of them. A particular favourite was the badger, which was really lifelike.



I think he would really need a wooded area though, and we lack a suitable one - not to mention being unwilling to pay the price asked!

Many of the sculptures were very realistic, like the little boy below.


I could just picture him sitting somewhere in the garden here.

I was particularly taken with the swimming pool, especially since it was such a hot day. I did wonder if it was difficult to keep the garden visitors from jumping in, it looked so inviting.



As you can see, there are further realistic sculptures at each corner of the pool, and a particularly lovely group which you can't quite see at the far side of the pool just behind one of the two chairs. There's a girl sitting on a bench with her face turned up to the sun, obviously enjoying the wonderful sunny weather, and a dog with a long feathery tail which looks rather like a red setter looking up at her and obviously hoping she will come and play. I can't remember the exact cost of each, but I seem to remember the group cost in the region of £20,000, so you'd need quite deep pockets if you wanted them!

I really enjoyed this garden, and regretted not having a bit longer there, especially since it was such a lovely day. Next year, we'll go again somewhat earlier in the year and stay a bit longer.

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July

July 2015

My calendar shows me that July was too busy for us to do much visiting, so this posting is likely to be shorter than the last.

I was delighted to be home again, and we enjoyed the lovely weather. Even the High Street in Oxted looked good in the sunshine.



By mid-July we had more or less finished unpacking, organising and putting away all the things we had taken to Manchester, and we found a little time for a day out to Riverhill Himalayan Gardens, which are not far from Oxted, along the A25.

As befits something called a Himalayan Garden, the hillside on which it is situated is very steep and necessitates a lot of climbing. It was originally bought In1840 by John Rogers, a scientist and classics scholar who was a friend of Charles Darwin, also one of the first members of the Royal Horticultural Society and a patron of the plant collectors of the day. He chose Riverhill because its sheltered situation offered an ideal lime free hillside where he could hope to establish newly introduced trees and shrubs.

Until the beginning of the 2nd World War, eight full time gardeners were employed at Riverhill. Since then, however, lack of money has meant that the garden was allowed to deteriorate, with many parts of the original planting lost.
The estate is now owned by the great-great-great grandson of the original owner; he and his family live in the adjoining house, and have been working to restore the gardens, which they re-launched in 2010.

As part of the re-launch, a partnership was set up with a local gallery and various pieces of British sculpture can now be viewed in the gardens.



I'm not sure whether the sculpture above is a permanent piece or whether it's for sale, but I suspect the former, since it seems to fit in here so well. The summer house you can see beyond is a popular place for sitting admiring the view.

There are even more spectacular sculptures in other parts of the garden, and you can see from my photo below that this is not one of the best maintained areas of the garden.


These particular statues are for sale, though I recall they were extremely expensive. This was the first time I had encountered sculptures being displayed for sale in a garden, though not the last. The ones in this garden were all very modern, and I was far from sure about some of them.

There were few flowers in bloom, but interesting shrubs and trees, and we climbed steadily until finally we climbed up to what is known as the 'Little Everest Viewpoint'. The view was certainly spectacular, though you probably can't really appreciate it from my photo.




The garden literature describes it as ‘one of the finest views in Kent’, and claims you can see up for to 20 miles across the Weald of Kent. It was a reasonably clear day, and we could certainly see for quite a distance.

Before you climb up to the viewpoint, you can see the Himalayan hedge maze, planted with horn beams in an intricate design based on the patterns found in Tibetan wood.




When we visited, it was full of families trying to find the centre, though, with the hedges less than three feet high, at least there would be no chance of them getting hopelessly lost.

After the school term ended, my daughter-in-law and children went off for a few days in France, and we drove up to Manchester to collect the rest of our belongings and give my son some help with his DIY. By the 27th we were home again, and getting ready to receive them all at our house for a week. My sister came as well, so we had a very busy end of July and beginning of August.

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Late June at Knowsley Safari Park

Late June

As a change from all the packing, cleaning and rushing around, my daughter-in-law thought it would be nice for us all to have a family outing before we left, so she chose Knowsley Safari Park, as our grandson was quite excited by the idea of seeing some lions.

We were not particularly early, so we went immediately to the safari area which you drive through in your car. It was not difficult to spot the lions when we reached their area because of the great queue of cars watching them sleep peacefully.



This scene is not unlike many I witnessed in the Nairobi Game Park where we often went in my childhood, the main difference being the colour of the vegetation. I've lost count of the many times I watched a pride of lions there lie sleeping peacefully during the heat of the day. It was rare to see them on their feet, though we did once when I was about 5 or 6. The whole pride were walking along the road beside the cars, and we were travelling in an old open car with a cloth roof and no windows (this was 1948 or possibly 1949). We were terrified, especially when one of the lionesses decided the front mudguard of our car was a great place to have a good scratch! We couldn't drive away because we were on a very narrow dirt road, completely hemmed in by other cars. And we didn't have a camera with us, so we couldn't take a photo! Mind you, all we had then was an old box brownie which wasn't great at taking photographs and hardly ever got used, and anyway I think we were all too terrified and concentrating on trying hard not to catch the lioness' eye; she was quite interested in us, looking into the car and we supposed she might be speculating as to whether we might be something that would constitute an acceptable dinner!

One animal I never saw during my childhood in Kenya was a rhino, so I was quite delighted to see these.



There are quite a few rhino in this safari park, so I think you have a good chance of seeing some. There are also supposed to be tigers, but we didn't manage to spot any in spite of looking very hard. My grandson was quite disappointed!

You can be fortunate and get very close to the animals.


This rather smug looking animal is an eland, another animal with which I am familiar through living in Kenya. I never got quite this close to one there though, they are usually more timid and nervous of people in the wild, which I suppose is natural if you have to beware, not only of predators with sharp teeth, but humans with sharp spears or else guns. Eland are very large and and consequently an attractive dinner proposition. Come to think of it, he's probably looking so smug because he knows he can look forward to eating dinner, rather than being dinner!

If you really want to get up close and personal with the animals, you can drive through the baboon enclosure. Paul and I elected not to do this, having lost both of our windscreen wipers to baboons on a drive through a safari park in Scotland about 40 years ago. However, my son was put under pressure by my grandson to get up close and personal with the baboons, so they drove through, and the car was soon completely covered with baboons, to my grandson's great delight. Fortunately they emerged later with windscreen wipers intact, perhaps because they elected to drive in my daughter-in-law's extremely elderly VW rather than my son's smarter car. I imagine the baboons are used to quality and expect a rather more expensive make of windscreen wiper, so they probably scorned something so decrepit!

The unusual animals below are Kiang, a wild horse from Tibet.



Apparently they are fairly new to the park and are said to have settled in well - I imagine the climate here is somewhat less testing than that in Tibet. They have been put into the area which also has bactrian camels and Père David's deer - I don't know if this makes them feel at home or not.

There's an area of the park you can walk round, and one of the great attractions as you go in are the meerkats.



They seem quite oblivious to the people, concentrating on the sky to see of there are any birds of prey. I wonder what they make of aeroplanes.

As we were so late, there wasn't time to see everything. The giraffes had already gone to bed, but at least we managed to see the elephants.



There were quite a few of them, but I think they were tired of people because they looked to me as if they just wished we would all go away and take our cameras with us.

I was glad to get a view of the capybara, an animal which I had never seen and always wanted to, ever since I read about it in a book by Gerald Durrell about 50 years ago. It's a big rodent, rather like a sort of chunky hamster, but the size of a large dog. It was so far away that I'm afraid my photo was rather disappointing, but at least I saw it.

My photographs of the sea lions were also quite disappointing, they swim so fast it's really hard to photograph the whole animal; I've got a lot of photos of just the tail, and when I did manage to capture the whole animal it was moving so fast it was usually out of focus.

I'd really like to go back on another occasion and spend the whole day there, instead of having to rush around so quickly, but anybody who reads this blog will know I really enjoy looking at animals; no doubt my grandson might get bored.

That was how we spent Saturday 27th. On Sunday we finished most of our packing, and on Monday we completed the cleaning of the flat and handed in the keys. We had intended to drive back to Oxted in the afternoon, but I suffered another kidney stone and we had to stay the night at my son's. Fortunately, it passed before I had to go back to hospital, and though I had another the next day, it was nothing like as bad and we drove home.

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June 2015

Early June

June was a very busy month for us. The beginning of June brought a visit from my daughter-in-law's mother, and though she didn't stay with us, we were busy helping to take her around Manchester. A few days after her arrival, we were off to drive down to Oxted again as we both had medical appointments and I had a Board Meeting to attend. This trip gave us the opportunity to fill the car with things I thought I could do without like spare bedding and clothes. We had taken several car loads of belongings up to Manchester when we arrived, and I was anxious not to have to make too many trips back when we left. As soon as we drove back to Manchester on June 12th, we had to make a serious attempt to pack up as we were due to vacate the flat on the 29th.

Consequently, there was very little time for visits. However, we did manage a quick visit to Reddish Vale Country Park, where we had a walk of several miles.

Reddish Vale, which straddles the border between Lancashire and Cheshire, was not originally designed as a country park, it more or less evolved. This seems to have been because the steep sides and boggy floor of the valley meant it was not heavily used for agriculture, manufacture or quarrying, though each of these activities has left some marks on the landscape. During the 19th century, the area was already a much loved place for a day out, and was apparently noted as a source of rare and interesting wild flowers.

It became a managed space in the early 1980s and paths were improved and vegetation managed. The whole area has now become very important for conservation, and is especially noted for water birds. There are five ponds as well as boggy areas, so habitat is provided for many species. We walked right round the five ponds, though for some reason I don't seem to have taken any photos of the many waterbirds.

Next, we the set off for the woods, first crossing the wide flat open valley. The railway line crosses the valley here on a viaduct which is quite monumental. The tiny people at the picnic table on the far right might give you an idea of the size.



This part of the park, being so flat, is not so interesting, (none of the wild flowers seemed to be in bloom) but we soon approached the river Tame, which is very pretty.


The river meanders slowly through this flat area, but as we climbed into the woods we could hear the increase in its flow through the trees beyond the path. On this part of the walk, there were woods on both sides, though occasionally there was a more open view on our left and we could see a housing estate in the distance at one time. It was very quiet, with not a soul in sight.


To our right the trees seemed impenetrable and the valley sloped down to the river. Apart from initial steep climb, the path seemed level but eventually we became aware that the river was well below us. We could hear the weir before we saw it, and Paul went down to look at it, but by that time my back was hurting and I sat on a convenient seat while he went to look at it. It's always a complete mystery to me why Paul can never take a photograph worth looking at. I found a good photo on the web, but I'm afraid it's rather small, and loses focus if you try to enlarge it.



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Dunham Massey

The end of May

One of the highlights of my sister's visit with us over half term was a trip to Dunham Massey. During the First World War, Lady Stamford, the owner of this huge Georgian house, offered it to the Red Cross and it was transformed into a military hospital. To mark the centenary of the First World War, the National Trust, who now own the house, restored the hospital’s main ward, the recreation room, the operating theatre and the nurses’ station. They used items left in the house from the time as well as contemporary photos and letters, so it was a very evocative visit, made more so by the presence of actors who move around you and act out part of their lives. This is part of the ward.



You can see the two actors in position. The patient in the bed is very depressed and the nurse is comforting him. He is lying in a bed which is a replica of the original beds, many of which were still stored in the house, as were the lockers, lamps and other equipment. (Original beds and chairs were displayed but roped off, but you could handle most of the other things) You could see items from the time displayed on the lockers, and you could read the patients charts which are displayed on the ends of the beds. If the beds weren't occupied, you could sit on them to rest or to read the newspapers and magazines of the time, or descriptions of the treatment given to the patients. Various medical items were also on display, like the standard plaster cast used on a broken leg and the method used to keep it elevated.

The conditions in the hospital were somewhat different from those in a hospital today.



I hope you can read these rules, they are quite revealing. Of course, this was a convalescent hospital, so many of these patients were recovering from their wounds and today would probably have been sent home to get on with things by themselves.

The recreation area was also used as the canteen. I can remember seeing enamel plates and mugs just like these as a child, in fact my father used a mug just like that one as his shaving mug.


Because it was a recreation area as well as a canteen, actors dressed as patients came in and read or played chess or wrote letters for one another - this was a hospital for the men, not the officers, so some couldn't read or write. There was also a piano for community singing. I can remember living for six months in a boarding house in Nakura in Kenya where there was a piano, and both of my parents played popular songs of both wars so everybody could have a sing song. My father couldn't read music, but he played by ear, a talent neither of his children inherited, I am sad to say.

The operating theatre for the hospital was in the hall at the foot of the main stairs, and the operation taking place there (with life sized figures and a spoken commentary) was brain surgery!

One of the reasons for the choice of this area for the operations was the nearby sink under the stairs which helped a bit towards the hygiene I suppose.


As the patients recovered, they were encouraged to get out into the fresh air and make use of the extensive grounds.



This was a part of the garden nearer to the house, though those who were fitter would be able to walk for miles.

Those who weren't well enough to walk could could at least sit out in the courtyards in the sun.


These steamer chair were originals, in use at the time.

After we had seen round the hospital, we walked round the house, which Paul and I had seen several times before. My sister unfortunately wasn't able to see the whole of the house because she is finding walking very difficult at the moment.

We enjoyed our two visits here very much, and were sorry my daughter-in-law hadn't managed to bring her sister round the house during her visit the previous month. We had originally intended to bring my daughter-in-law and grandson on this second occasion, looking after my grandson and playing with him in the garden while my sister and my daughter-in-law saw round the house and hospital.

However, we had to let my sister out of the car at the entrance as she couldn't manage the walk from the car park, and my grandson, who is devoted to her, insisted on getting out as well. By the time we got back from parking the car, my grandson had squeezed under a fence and run off to have an adventure all by himself in the little wood adjoining the house. There was no sign of him at all, and my sister, being unable to follow him, was distraught. That was nothing to the frantic state of his mother when she turned up, and she and Paul and several passers by all rushed into the wood shouting my grandson's name, while I went off to alert the people at the front desk who prepared to initiate an emergency search. Fortunately, Paul found him trotting along a path all by himself before we had turned out the whole place to search for him, but his mother was not at all pleased with him for giving us all such a nasty shock and he was taken home immediately in disgrace. So the visit, while we enjoyed it very much, not not go quite as planned!


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May half-term

The end of May

We didn't visit to far during Half Term, as my sister isn't able to walk anywhere, but it couldn't resist some photos of one walk we did while she was elsewhere. Paul and I have often been to Fletcher Moss Botanical Gardens which we usually enjoy, but this time took a walk of several miles by detouring first around Stenner Woods.

This is the beginning of the walk, looking like a painting by Monet or Cezanne.




There are even echoes of one of my favourites, Klimt.

It being May, there was plenty of Hawthorne blossom. Some of the trees seemed to be almost dripping with it.




I paused to take a photo of these amazing and flowers. I'm not sure what they are - lilac I presume - but I've never seen anything like them before or since.


In the Botanical Gardens themselves there were also some beautiful trees.


I thought these maples were particularly spectacular.

It was also the right season for rhododendrons, which reminded me how much I am missing by not being at home in this season






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Beginning of May

First 3 weeks of May

Good grief, five months behind! The truth is that I've been so busy I've had very little time; I'm dreadfully behind with emails as well as with this blog, so I need to catch up quickly.

After our French visitors left at the beginning of May, we had about a week's breathing space, then we went back home to Oxted for a week to do various things there and to attend various medical appointments.

We were fortunate that the azaleas were in bloom in the garden - I always enjoy the blaze of flowers from the azaleas and rhododendrons at this time of year.



Above is one of the azaleas in full bloom and below is a rhododendron in the front garden.


I'm afraid I didn't quite manage it without a bit of a car in the photo - visitors' cars park on the forecourt, so it's hard to get a photo there without a car in it.

After a very busy week, we drove back to Manchester on May 16th, but not for long! We managed to squeeze in a few excursions with my grandson in the next few days - one was to Marie Louise Gardens. Marie Louise Gardens are often described as a hidden gem, because so many residents are unaware of their existence until they stumble across them by accident, as we did. The garden was given to the citizens of Manchester in 1903 by Josephine Silkens, in memory of her daughter, Marie Louise, who died young in 1891, aged 26. It is small and very peaceful, with some lovely shrubs and huge specimen trees. However, the reason for taking my grandson there was the very tame squirrels. We took peanuts.



My grandson was fascinated by the squirrels, who come right up to you as soon as they see you, in the hope of a tasty treat. He was happy to throw them peanuts, I let them eat from my hand, until one of the bolder ones mistook my finger for a peanut. He had sharp teeth! It's probably not a good idea to hand feed them, but it gave my grandson the opportunity to see them up close, and he was quite fascinated.

On May 21st I caught a train back down to London for the retirement party of a friend and ex-colleague. It was very nice to catch up with all my old colleagues. I spent the night with my sister, and caught the train back to Manchester with her next day. It was her birthday, so there was a cake when we arrived.


The cake was designed by my grandson, so it features various pictures of Thomas the Tank Engine - the little soul is so fond of Thomas he is certain everybody else in the family must be similarly smitten!

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