Father's Day at Hinton Ampner - WARNING! A Lot of Photos!!!

Hello fellow Bloggers! Thanks for your lovely comments on my last post! I am annoyed that Blogger does not update my posts - it shows dear readers that I last posted a year ago! I honestly have tried fiddling with things but not too much as knowing my luck I would end up deleting my entire blog so, rather than risk this - if you are interested in anything I have to say please bear this in mind and drop in as and when you can as I do love to hear from you! Right, I've got that off my chest!

KP came back from her school trip from France on Friday evening 6.00 ish. She looked really tired, bless her! We told her that the previous evening ten of us had been to a local Chinese Restaurant - including her grandparents and cousins! She loves Chinese food and was disappointed to have missed it!

We asked what she had missed the most from home - she said English food!

Neither I nor the OH were inclined to want to cook so we ended up at our local pub which does decent pub food. KP enjoyed sticky ribs and chips!

Saturday was spent tidying up the house and shopping for a Father's Day card - there's nothing like leaving things to the last minute, is there? But now that KP is 11 years old I felt it was important for her to choose the card rather than me buying it for her! We also went to the second hand bookshop and purchased a Hammond Innes book as a Father's Day present. I was really touched when she gave me £2.50 from her pocket money when we got into town, "To help with the purchase of the card and present," she said!

On Sunday we headed out to Hinton Ampner, a National Trust property that is quite near to us here in Hampshire. We hadn't been to the property for about two / three years.

The greenhouse had a Private sign on it but the door was open so a photo could be taken!

The garden was full of scented old roses! My favourite!

A few vintage cars were parked near by. The one on the right is a Triumph Stag. My mum had one of these! She used to drive me to school in it! She also gave a lift to four of my friends. Two of us used to sit on the passenger seat without seat belts, which of course, hardly anybody bothered with in those days!

The car was referred to by all my friends as "The James Bond Car" and we used to love playing with the electric windows! It was all so new technology back then!

Although it was a fab car it was also very temperamental and any sign of rain and it would refuse to start which meant that we were late to school and my mum late for work. In the end therefore the car had to go!

We saw some water lilies on the long pond! We also saw a koi carp jutting its head out of the water!

We saw aquilegias!

A side view of the house and the long pond!

Hinton Ampner is described in the NT brochure as the creation of Ralph Dutton, 8th and last Lord Sherborne. The house and gardens were remodelled by him when he inherited the estate in 1936.

Ralph Dutton modestly described himself as "not a very knowledgeable plantsman." For someone who describes himself thus he didn't do too bad a job!

Bloomin' lovely!

Beautiful!

I hadn't seen an aquilegia this colour before!

We saw many foxgloves!

To the back of the house there is a terraced lawn and once you descend some steps you are in the topiary garden!

The hours it must take to keep the gardens looking this good!

A look back at the house from the topiary garden. The sun had certainly come out for Father's Day!

We espied a butterfly!

And a bee!

And a big old tree! I think a tree house would be just fine here!

And what about a picnic under the shade of this one!

I liked the lichen encrusted stone banister!

Another view of the topiary! To have all those mushrooms the same size and height must be a complete nightmare!

I loved the delicate quality of this plant and the intricate yellow pattern inside!

Cornflowers, I think!

Just out of the magnolia garden and we came across this scantily clad lady!

We saw some more bees!

I'm sure I heard a report somewhere that there is a shortage of bees this year. There were hundreds in this garden!

We walked towards the Church.

Inside the Church!

The Church is near to the Orchard.

The Orchard with the Church in the background!

More topiary!

The OH said that this was a Cabbage White butterfly!

It's colour does look cabbagey!

Another lengthy post I'm afraid! On the way to Hinton Ampner we had seen a red sea of poppies in a farmers field and so you can guess what we did on the way home - we went and had a look of course!

Until next time,

June.

P.S. Hello and Welcome to a new follower lkling from the East Coast of the USA. There was no link and so I don't know how to say "Hello!" more personally than through this end message!