Winnall Moors

We took the train to Winchester recently with the intention to go to the City Mill. I packed some sarnies and decided to take Albie for a picnic at the city nature reserve. We spent ages there and never made it to the mill. It was such a great place to explore and strange too hearing the busy city operating in the background.

I've taken lots of photos of the wild flowers and consulted my book to see what it was I was snapping. If you would like to correct me or fill me in on the ones I can't figure out please do - it's really hard comparing my pics with hand drawn pics in the book! 

Hemp-Agrimony

Hemp-Agrimony

Welted Thistle

My little man enjoyed climbing trees which I enjoyed because it meant we could dive for cover from the rain that decided to arrive 2 hours earlier than forecast!!

 

Leckford Estate

Leckford Estate, the home of the national Buddleja collection was treated to a visit by me and my family last month.

The Hampshire food festival occurs over the month of July and a small event was taking place at the Leckford Estate near Stockbridge. Leckford Estate is owned by Waitrose - if you think the supermarket is pricey compared to other supermarkets you should see their farm shop! It was a field to fork version of Waitrose with higher prices - seems ironic. We came away with nothing and took a trip to a much fairer priced farm shop on the way home.

(rant over)

I thoroughly enjoyed strolling through the walled garden and nursery based here and will happily visit there again for some garden inspiration and plants. Unfortunately I'm not taken with Buddlejas...here is what I did enjoy!

Beautiful arches of Clematis and Pears

Walled garden

Nursery

Stourhead

One Saturday morning recently we got up early and headed over to Wiltshire to see family - in particular to meet our new nephew.

As we sailed down the A303 we had a message saying we couldn't go over anymore! 

With two kids ready, and only money for the petrol we had in the car I quickly opened up the National Trust website and searched the nearest place we could get into with our orange plastic cards.

A quick stop at a shop to grab some picnic bits we headed over to the walled garden at Stourhead for lunch.

We took a walk around the huge Stourhead estate which included cottages and a pub. It was like being swept away to another country...Italy in fact, there was just this feeling about the place.

We had fun exploring the grounds. Albie enjoyed climbing the trees and I enjoyed oohing and aahing at the really tall red trees.

RHS Hampton Court - the floral marquee (2)

Here are some more photos from our trip to Hampton Court to gawp at beautiful flowers. The displays shown in this gallery were my favourite. They probably aren't the favourite for the majority of folk visiting the flower show but for me they are more wild and rustic - no roses or rhododendrons in sight!