Forde Abbey with George

Well, it seems like an eternity since I last saw a computer and wrote a post. Why? We've been to Paris for a week! We boarded the Eurostar and headed for the Gare du Nord on Wednesday morning last week. There is so much to tell you about as the day before we visited London and stayed at the Marriott. We went to Little Venice and Camden Lock - anyhow, more on all this later. First I will finish off with our trip to Forde Abbey which is where we found ourselves a few days after we'd been to the Honiton Show - see previous posting.

The sweet peas were at their very best. Such beautiful, delicate flowers with a heavenly smell.

There were numerous colours - you couldn't choose which colour was best as they were all just fantastic!

We sat down on one of the outdoor tables for lunch - we had the two dogs with us and so couldn't sit inside but who would want to sit inside on a lovely Summers day. They do some lovely paninis here and the wild birds clearly knew that if they hung around there was likely to be some crumbs on offer!

Second bird to first bird "Don't make it look so obvious that you're after their dinner!"

Here's George - on his very first trip with us to Forde Abbey. He hadn't walked very far but his tongue was hanging out as if he'd been walking for miles!

At this time of the year the gardens are full of colour and some of the flowers are at their best.

"Go on, mum, take another photo - he's posing really!"

Oh, the indignities of it all!

A more relaxed pose! Tongue still hanging out though or is he surreptitiously poking his tongue at me, the photographer!

I can hear that guy who does the voiceover in "Through the Keyhole" saying "Who lives in a house like this?"

I would love to think its fairies, imps and goblins a la Enid Blyton.

George espies some water and before you could say stop he was in it!

There were many yellow flowers in the garden - a colour normally associated more with Spring and not the height of Summer.

More yellow flowers.

There were some beautiful burnt orange coloured flowers.

And some orange and rust day lilies.

There were some beautiful spiked heads.

Can you see the little spider gripping on to this one?

Playing roly poly down the grass bank.

I used to love doing this as a youngster. Oh, to be young again! If I did this now I'd be complaining of aches and pains!

That was great! I'm going to do it again!

And again, and again!

Some more luscious sweet peas! I hadn't seen any two tone ones before!

The smell was wonderful - just what you want from an English country garden.

Forde Abbey and the flower arrangers garden - there were many hundreds of dahlias here of all shades, shape and size! This is also the vegetable garden.

It clouded over and looked as if it was going to rain so it was time to leave this happy place and head back for our base in Devon.

On the Saturday the local village held its annual terrier racing event to raise funds for the Church.

Although I took my camera with me - I didn't take any photos!

We met up with our neighbours and after the races made our way to The Bath House Hotel in Chard for our fix of Chinese food. All too soon we had to pack our bags and get back onto the A303 back to Hampshire - but not for long as we were going to be heading for Paris!

Until next time,

June.