A Day At Stowe Landscape Gardens.

The gardens are owned by The National Trust although the house is still owned by the family. At the time that the gardens were first laid, the family was reputed to be wealthier than the king. It really shows in the follies and buildings in the gardens. You need a good day to really get around and see everything, there are some astonishing sights. Entering via the shop, the first thing you see as you wonder down the path is a Greek Temple and this sets the expectations up for the day. The people we talked to were not disappointed. Although I took my usual range of photos, I have included three of the major follies here, if that is the word for what are a lot more than what the word is usually used to describe. Here I show the Greek Temple, The Palladian Bridge and the Gothic Manor. All Astounding properties but the latter actually takes paying guests - one to thing about!

OK, a little food for thought. No clever photos this time ( if ever???) just a couple of great sights to see if you ever get to visit this wonderful place near Milton Keynes.

A day out, visiting an NGS garden

Last Sunday week, we visited a village near Alvechurch which opened a number of gardens on the NGS, National Gardens Scheme. Volunteers open their gardens to the public for a day and donate money raised to charity. Our visit just happened to coincide with this years summer here in the sunny UK.

We were pleased to see a heron on a short walk down the near-by canal whilst waiting for the official opening time.

here's a very much blown-up shot, in case you didn't believe me. Unfortunately I do not have an optical zoom on my cheapo camera, this is the sort of time when I wish I had not been so tight.

This is me on the canal bridge, showing the crowds gathering in the village. And of course every English village has a pub!

One very large garden had a stream running thru it and a path alongside the stream. The above photos show the path both ways from where I was standing.

This was a lawn which was very much to my liking, the garden was on a hillside and shaded all round by mature trees. It was such a quiet spot, even in this village miles from anywhere. Even the visitors did not find it whilst I was there. I loved it.

There were many other gardens but most were quite small, in keeping with the size of the cottages. they were well designed and well planted but I had been spoiled by our previous visit to pump cottage and so did not take many photos on this visit. That is not to say it was not an enjoyable day out, six gardens - all very different - made it a very interesting experience but........

My Garden in Flower

One of the things I love doing is to photograph the flowers in my garden. Not so much because I love flowers, although they do make gardening worthwhile, but because of the memories of happy and peaceful sunny (?) days at home that they represent to me. So here are a few photographs taken ths year between April and June.

 Lilac

 Pieris ( flame bush)

Viola

 Japanese Maple

 Peony

Digitalis (Foxglove)

Is there any more to say? Some of the images above are obviously not flowers but leaves, however I love colour however it arrives. I nearly didn't include the last shot, the foxglove, because it is in very poor focus but I do love these flowers. Such stately blooms and this year for some reason I have had one white flowering plant instead of the purple which I usually get. I have never planted any of these but they obviously self-seed and I always leave one or two to come to fruition for the display and to make sure that I get more the following year.

In fact, I am forever pulling up seedlings of trees and shrubs which have presumably been deposited by the birds which we have in profusion in the garden. We are not far from the countryside, being on the edge of a very rural setting and see lots of animals as well as the birds birds. Bats, moles, foxes, frogs are all to be seen in our garden. I keep a small pool which has become home to the frogs and have a pile of grass and leaves behind one shrubbery which I think was built by hedgehogs, although we havae not seen them this year yet. Our garden has lots of flowers but it could well be called a wild garden. Perhaps a few shots would clarify this description, maybe the next post?

A Day out at Pump Cottage Weatheroak

Yesterday, my wife and I visited one of the gardens open to the public on the NGS scheme, Pump Cottage at Weatheroak. The first time that we have been there although it is very near to where we live. I was absolutely gobsmacked.

The owners have taken a one acre plot and made it into a wonderland. The use of the space to contain so many small areas joined by meandering paths is amazing. So many different areas, including follys, bog garden, streams, a boating lake ( not sure if that is within the one acre boundary?), formal beds and wild flower areas. It is almost possible to get lost and once you are past the first part of the garden, the cottage is almost iinvisible, you could be miles from anywhere. Definitely one to visit if you like gardens you can explore. I took more photogrpahs than I think I have ever done before at one of these open days.

A small selection of my photos follows:-

I loved the rustic nature of this old outbuilding and the texture on the door where the paint was peeling.

What a wonderful backyard! I could imagine many lazy days out on the pool in this boat.

My wife has some funny ideas of what constitutes a good picture, this is one of the many secluded seating areas around the garden.

A lovely rose, I liked the way that the numerous petals seemed to hide to the stamens, how do the insects find them to pollinate the flower?

Also lots of statuary, mostly small stuff but I do love it as you will know if you have read mnay of my previous posts.

My grateful thanks to the owners for a wonderful afternoon out. And the home-made cakes were delicious.

My new Zazzle store and blog

I have started selling products on Zazzle using photographs I have taken. Zazzle is a Print-on demand site, ie they make a product when it is ordered by the customer, they do not hold stocks. So I can design hundreds of products using my photographic images and hopefully sell a few. For example:-

camellia by artyfax
More Red Mugs

lilies by artyfax
color postcard printing by zazzle.com

Let's Rock and Roll by artyfax
Browse other Guitar Mousepads

You are also welcome at my new blog describing my experiences on Zazzle, hope I will see you there.

A short break at the Red Lion, Addebury

After my recent knee operation, a total knee replacement surgery (TKR) my wife and I were in need of a little rest and relaxation. We chose a hotel which was quite close to home so that I did not have to suffer any problems with travelling as the amount of movement in my knee was still very limited, and this was a hotel which was part of a chain we had used quite extensively, so we thought we knew what to expect.

The hotel was the Red Lion at Addebury, an old coaching inn on the main road right on the village green. A delightful spot just a little spoilt by the volume of traffic although we did not suffer any noise with the windows closed despite looking out over the green. We enjoyed a wonderful 3 day break and spent a very relaxing time there. The hotel as you would expect was a little "olde worlde" with uneven floors and winding corridors and the stairs, well something else.

 

This was the stairway from our floor to the bar and restaurant, quite an issue for me at that time. There was an alternative but I managed by taking it very carefully and slowly. The alternative route took us on a tour through the hotel's first floor and again the age of the building was very apparent. This next image was of a decoration behind a now disused fireplace, I quite literally fell in love with it. The building could make money by opening as a tourist attraction.

I have just noticed the fire extinguisher. Something that I could have claimed as a deliberate mistake to use as an example of how not to compose a photograph, but I will own up to it. After all, I am only taking photographs for fun, LOL.

We spent a little time touring the local shoppong centres ( for my wife!) and bought a load of bargains in the nearby Banbury town centre. It seemed as if everywhere was having sales with massive reductions, something I guess is attributable to the economic situation. Although, other shopping centres in the Cotswolds seemed to be doing much better with the tourist trade, which seemed to be doing quite well.

I took a few photographs but this one of a music shop window is one that I liked, because of the colours and I have to say the subject matter. The widow display seemed to me to have been well composed, no pun intended. I have actually used the photo in an article that I have posted on Squidoo, "How To Write Memorable Song Lyrics"

Thanks for getting this far and allowing me to get this off my chest, back with more "fun" images soon.

If you feel like visiting the cotswolds ( a favourite haunt of mine) then you might like to consider a tourist guide book such as this from Amazon.

A couple of fun photos taken in a garden open to the public near Bromyard, UK. The name of the garden is The Bannut, named after a walnut tree which is in the area near to the house. It used to be a commercial nursery but the owners retired and opened the garden to the public. Well worth a visit.

This is a very amusing garden sculpture which I loved. I couldn't resist a quick snap.

Another amusing little area of the garden, this one was mainly hidden by a fence and trees but if you followed a path to its conclusion you found this preposterous scene. The gardener obviously has a sense of humour.

Have you seen my article on Squidoo, Is all photography art? This obviously isn't - but it is great fun.