The sun was shining on Saturday and I managed to persuade Anth to leave his studies (he's doing the beginnings of a Social Work degree with the Open University. This is proving helpful with his job but he has to find an extra 16 hours a week to devote to it on top of his demanding full-time job.) and come with me on my first trip of the year to Hill House Nursery. Now regular readers will probably remember my usual jaunts to this wonderful place, here, here, and here. Looking at these posts over the last 3 years (yes, I've been blogging for 3 years now. 3 years!) I noticed that the photos are all rather samey, so do forgive me. My eye obviously just seeks out the best bits and the best bits are the best bits to look at, right?
This is my favourite house on the drive to Hill House. I have favourite houses on all our regular journeys. I love this one because of the lawn leading right up to the front door and the sweet little porch. It looks even better in the summer.
Our first visit was a little earlier this year but it was still warm enough to sit out in the garden and have lunch. It felt good to be sitting outside and reading the papers. Well, Anth was reading and I was crying silently into my tea and as I had just read the most touching article (which I will share with you this week) in the colour supplement.
Don't let the above picture fool you into thinking we were the only ones there. Oh no. The sunshine had brought out many and we were lucky to find a table in the garden. The wide angle makes it look much bigger and further away than it is.
I bought some plants and we headed to our next appointment - tea in Totnes with Amanda. What could be nicer.
On the way there we passed the beautifully old-fashioned steam railway station, Staverton; and we were in luck as we were able to catch the steam train entering the station.
There were no photos of the tea as I totally forgot to take some. But needless to say, Amanda was wonderful and it was good to have the chance to catch up and get some more bunting supplies (please email me if you would like to buy some.)
Then it was home and I did my best to take some more photos out of the car window.
We have very red sand and soil in this part of Devon which makes our sheep have slightly orange fleeces!
Poor things. I think I've told you before about my aversion to orange. So that was our Saturday afternoon. Lovely.
Thank you for all your marvelous recipes. I'm hoping to put them into action in the next week or two. I'll let you know how I go. See you tomorrow xx
