Sunny times at Red Lion Lane

*Sighs* The grass was getting pretty long, weeds were everywhere and it rained and it rained for most of the last month.  I also had a tough trip with work on the horizon and so shut myself away for a bit.  Thankfully I went away for the work trip last week and came back to beautiful weather "Hello Summer!!".

This weekend we've thrown ourselves into the British summer.  We took two trips to the garden centre, sorting ourselves out with tools and a hosepipe and set about weeding.  It's a long garden so rather than get all overwhelmed we made it a challenge to tidy up the decking so we could sit and eat barbecued food in some sort of comfort.  And we didn't just have one barbecue oh no we had too, you never know when you're going to get this sunny period again!

Lovely Dahlias and a plant reminding me of childhood Fuschia

It may not look a lot but in this heat I'm pretty proud of persevering!

Day one

Day two

A bit worn out after the long weekend

Forde Abbey and gardens

After going to Beer we decided to head back home and see if we could stop off somewhere else on the way.  I suggested that if we were heading past Axminster that we could go to the River Cottage canteen and  enjoy the buzz that the day before had provided.  It was a totally silly suggestion as it was a Sunday and if that wasn't the reason it would be packed out, the fact that people had travelled to the event the day before and thought the exact same thing as me did.  

Instead we bought a couple of bottles of Stinger (we shared a bottle I work in road safety after all) and two amazingly chunky leek and potato pies and decided to head somewhere for a picnic.

We drove a bit further and then followed some signs to Forde Abbey and gardens in the hope it would provide a nice setting on such a beautiful day.  It was a pretty pricey decision but since we still had the rest of the day we figured we could spend a while there, do some reading and wander around as the photos show.

Our holiday cottage

We made our way down the twisting narrow streets to an old fisherman's cottage which very much had all the original features and wasn't built for a couple of tall people!

Beyond the impractical features of the cottage was a lovely place with stunning views.

Here are a few snaps of the cottage and one sunny breakfast we had while we were there.

  

An afternoon at Petersham Nurseries

On our way back from London we took a detour to Richmond and walked down the river to Petersham Nurseries.  

It is a really pretty garden centre with (in addition to plants) a greenhouse where you can have food and drink from the teahouse and a greenhouse where you can buy pottery and suchlike and eat a set menu.  

We personally prefered the teahouse as having a three course meal at a garden centre seems a bit formal to me!

The greenhouse looked like a great place to wile away an afternoon but was a bit busy so we took our tea and cake outside.  I loved the style of this garden centre, adding all the furniture to my mental wishlist and wishing I had a big garden to put it in.