Stourhead

By shendyNo Comments
Mother came to stay for a few days, and while SWMBO entertained her for most of the time (Tyntesfield and Concorde [only open until the end of September]), I felt morally obliged to take a day off work and take her somewhere. We ended up going to Stourhead, somewhere she'd not been before, and one of the best known landscaped gardens. Fortunately, we managed to avoid the rain - the heavens opened just as we got back to the shop & tea room, which was a perfect excuse for a slice of cake. I think this is one of the nicest views there is - it looks completely natural, but you just know that a landowner with a firm opinion of his place in history combined with a egomaniacal landscape gardener probably uprooted several small villages and converted a small hill into a substantial lake. He probably then decided that he didn't like the colour of the water and had the landscaper...
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Welsh Wales

By shendyNo Comments
We've been spending a few days in Welsh Wales - the weather has been pretty good, but it's been damn cold. It's bloody May - it shouldn't be this flamin' cold! First up was Manorbier in Pembrokeshire. We've heard how lovely it is - it wasn't. Might have been something to do with the Arctic gale blowing, but we didn't hang around for very long. There's a surprisingly pristine castle, but it's not National Trust so we were buggered if we were going to pay to get in... After that, we went to Colby Woodland Garden, which *is* National Trust. Quite nice, with a reasonable walled garden, but nothing desperately exciting. When we were in Wales in September, SWMBO was trying to find a beach on the Cardigan Bay coast that she visited as a child. We've been to about half a dozen of the damn things now, and we still haven't found it. I suspect that the passage of 30 years has...
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Tomatoes

By shendyNo Comments
We cleared down the last of our tomatoes at the weekend, to get them in before any frosts. A lot were still green, but realistically there's no chance that they will ripen now. We picked the small matter of 28lbs of the things! This is what 28lbs of tomatoes looks like SWMBO has made a tomato sauce out of the ripe ones, but the rest are going into chutney - and that many tomatoes need a lot of vinegar, apples, onions and sugar! The brother has suggested that this beast, 1lb in weight, should be made into an individual batch of chutney - much like a single-cask whisky... A 1lb tomato...
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Llanerchaeron

By shendyNo Comments
The final stop on our Welsh trip was to Llanerchaeron, near Aberaeron - a John Nash house with an enormous pair of walled gardens. These were full of more fruit and vegetable plants than you could imagine.   Panasonic FX-37, 26mm equivalent, 1/500 @ f3.5, ISO 100 There is also a working farm, with some particularly inquisitive pigs!   Panasonic FX-37, 26mm equivalent, 1/500 @ f3.5, ISO 100 Some of the plants in the walled garden were covered with more bees than I've ever seen - I assume they've got a hive or two somewhere. There were also plenty of butterflies - I seem to have hardly seen any since I was a child (and that's going back some way now...). I was surprised by just how close I could get to it with the macro turned on on the compact camera.     Panasonic FX-37, 26mm equivalent, 1/500 @ f3.5, ISO 100 Having mentioned on a previous post about the fogged infra-red film at Dyrham...
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Bosherston

By shendyNo Comments
We also visited Bosherston in Pembrokeshire, where three small valleys were flooded in the 1800s to form a large series of lakes. These are full of water lillies, and look fantastic. Panasonic FX-37, 26mm equivalent, 1/800 @ f5.6, ISO 100 Having walked for a mile or so along the valley, you suddenly come out at Broad Haven beach - completely unexpected and very picturesque. Without wanting to sound rude, you wouldn't guess it was Wales, would you? Panasonic FX-37, 26mm equivalent, 1/800 @ f4.4, ISO 100 And on the walk back, we came across this cormorant, which happily sat there for ages while I took photos. Panasonic FX-37, 130mm equivalent, 1/125 @ f5.9, ISO 200 ...
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