Shopping & Lunch

Hi there everyone 😀

In between our July/August stay at the lodge and our stay in Cornwall and Devon I managed to squeeze in a day of shopping and lunching in Birmingham with Lesley and ‘the girls’. 

As my friends’ kids are all now pretty much grown up and either married or left home it gets harder and harder to find dates when we are all available at the same time so the regular catch ups are getting further apart as the years go by. 

We were all surprised that this time it was easy to find a date that suited us all and we decided that a girls only lunch in Brum would be a real treat. 

Lesley, Jess and I caught a very full train from Tamworth into the city, where we got chance to have a good look at Ozzy in his new home …

Before we caught up with Lauren we had time for a bit of a dash round the shops on the hunt for a new handbag for me to go with the dress I would be wearing to Rachel’s wedding. We had no luck whatsoever, though we did have more luck in my hunt for some new foundation … of which Jess managed to wangle me a week’s sample for free 😂😂😂

We also managed to find Ozzy’s camp cousin …

Partially successful shopping expedition finished we met up with Lauren and headed for Bar Estilo where we were having a tapas lunch … the first time trying tapas for a long long time for me and I was definitely ready for food and a sit down …

Lunch was a real treat and it was lovely to get to spend some quality time together catching up …

After lunch we decided to head for Marco Pierre White’s rooftop bar … well I say we decided … the girls thought we’d like it …

They were right. The views across the city were fabulous … though looking over the edge did make for some very wobbly legs …

It was soon time to head back to the station where we waved off Lauren and caught our, far less, crowded train home. 

It had been a lovely day, a real treat. Hopefully it won’t be too long before we can manage to synchronise the calendars again 😊

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Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens in the Autumn

Hi there everyone 😀

In the few weeks we were home in between our Isle of Wight and Peak District holidays we managed to grab a sneaky day out for a local garden visit and afternoon tea.

Managing to use our Gardeners' World 2 for 1 card and an afternoon tea gift voucher, that we'd had for a couple of years and was very close to expiring, we headed for Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens, which was about a half an hour's drive for us. Neither of us had ever visited before and other than seeing other friends' photos on Facebook, we had no idea what to expect.

The gardens are not in the usual kind of spot where we would expect to find a pretty 18th century walled garden to visit ... tucked away on the edge of a residential area, within spitting distance of the M6 and just under the flight path for Birmingham airport.

Saying all that, we were pleasantly surprised to find a charming walled garden, with plenty to see in spite of the time of year and feeling quite peaceful, apart from the hum of planes overhead as they were coming in to land.

We entered the garden via a small cafe and courtyard ...
We decided that we walk round the garden in an anti-clockwise direction and headed through a gate into the courtyard bringing us into a pretty small walled area, with plenty of interesting bits to catch the eye ...

We headed for the orangery ... the red brick of the old walls of garden were really popping against the blue sky, which was more than we had been hoping for from a weather point of view. It was a glorious Autumn day ...
Of course, we had to have a peak inside ...

Back out into the Autumn chill and we carried on following the old red brick wall ...
... until we reached the archway leading outside the garden walls ...

We decided to head through the archway and explore the areas outside of the garden walls, which have been cultivated to encourage wildlife, with ponds, flower meadows and an orchard ...

There were also signs of Halloween shenanigans to come ...
We came back into the garden not far from the summer house and headed to the West Lookout where we were surrounded by vibrant Autumn colour ...

Having taken it all we headed into the maze ...

... where we got a few steps in meandering through the holly ...

We finally found our way back to the gate for a fabulous view looking right down the garden ...

From the maze we made our way to the vegetable garden, where there wasn't a lot to see but this sight  did give us both a quiet chuckle ...

... as did this little fella ...

We were now by the Summer House, so about half way round the garden ...

I think I caught some of favourite shots of our visit in this half of the garden ... vibrant pink cosmos, still with plenty of life ...
... and some seed heads which looked striking silhouetted against the blue sky ...

We were now on the last side of the garden which brought us back up past the Hall, which is the hotel where we were to be taking our afternoon tea ...
... and our last views of the garden ...

We were a bit early for our afternoon tea so called into the cafe for a warm up before making the short drive round to the hotel, for what ended up being a very eventful visit 😲
Who would have thought that this little flower bed ...
... could cause quite so much damage 😧 ...
All I can say is ... I am glad I wasn't driving, as I would never had heard the last of it.

It did take the shine off our afternoon a bit, but we did still manage to enjoy our afternoon tea treat ...

We'd really enjoyed our visit to the gardens and I'm sure it's somewhere that we will visit again at another time of year ... not sure that we would go back to the hotel though ... not through any fault of their own.

As a footnote ... DirectLine Insurance were absolutely fantastic at getting us all sorted and back on the road. I literally had to make one phone call to register the claim and that was it. Car collected, hire car provided, car repaired and returned, with the absolute least of fuss and no chasing required at all ... we were both very impressed 😁

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Birmingham Botanical Gardens

Hi there everyone 😀

After the loveliest morning ever at Winterbourne House & Gardens on the University of Birmingham site, we were heading literally just down the road to spend the afternoon at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

We started with a very nice lunch in The Pavilion Tea Room where we decided on our route round the gardens to make sure that we got to see everything we wanted to see ... and there did seem to be plenty.

Straight away we could see how different it was to Winterbourne ... far more open, teeming with families and feeling more like a traditional municipal park, than a 'garden'.
We decided to make our way round the outside of the gardens in an anti-clockwise direction heading past the 'Half Moon Bed' ...

and down to the 'Herbaceous Border', which was bursting with late summer colour ...

We then headed through the children's playground and into the 'Cottage Garden' of 'Teulon Cottage', which was a real treat ...

We continued on our way down to the bottom of the garden, wandering through the 'Rock Garden & Memory Pool', understanding completely why it was all fenced off and gated as the footpath led to a spot where one foot wrong and we would have ended up very wet ...

The next stop was the 'Scarecrow Garden' and I was really looking forward to seeing this, following our fab day out a few weeks ago at the Elford Scarecrow Festival. I couldn't have been more disappointed ... just one scarecrow ... and not even really a proper scarecrow at that, though he did have a certain charm ...

We were now pretty much at the bottom of the garden and Jackie, Martin and I had a sit in the sunshine, whilst Phil braved the 'Butterfly House'.

We started to head back up the other side of the garden passing lots of vibrant colour along the way ...

We went through the avaries and into the 'Rose Garden', where Jackie was keen to avoid the local residents who were roaming free, though wouldn't stand still for long enough to get a decent shot ...

By the time we were making our way back up towards the terrace the peacocks had had quite enough of visitors and retreated up a nearby tree ... something that we were quite fascinated with ...

We were now pretty much back where we started ...

We took in a quick look back over the 'Main Lawn' to the 'Lawn Aviary' ...

... and the 'Bandstand' ...

... before having a last look in the glasshouses ...

We had spent the loveliest of days together, plenty of sunshine, a fair bit of exercise and got to see two brand new gardens.

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Would I visit the Botanical Gardens again? To be fair I probably wouldn't. I much preferred the intimacy, calm and tranquility of somewhere like Winterbourne ... if you've got kids though, the Botanical Gardens is fab ... loads of open space to run around and picnic, plenty of play areas and lots of nooks and crannies to explore and plenty of interesting things for little people to enjoy 😀

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