Lovely walk and lovely garden

 We went for a little drive this morning, to visit a village we've not been to before, we took Betty.  Well, it was like stepping back in time about 100 years, beautiful little place with old very pretty thatched cottages with their walls painted in lovely pastel shades, and gorgeous cottagey front gardens.  The whole place is very well maintained, clearly the residents are proud of their village and look after it.  There's a National Trust estate adjacent, we didn't go into it as we're not members, although we had a little walk in part of the grounds, along a path beside a stream - Betty had a paddle in the shallow water.  There's a tea garden in the village - we didn't go in there either as Betty was becoming restless and whiny by then, but a quick glance showed a large and pretty garden.  We've decided to go there for lunch one day this week.  I've noticed as Betty has got older that she doesn't enjoy walks as much as she used to, she gets a bit anxious and whimpers after a while, short walks are all she can manage now.  I didn't take any photos but will the next time we go.

On the way back we stopped to get fuel in Morrisons supermarket, it's actually come down in price a little.  Whilst husband was fuelling up, I had a look at their plants, they do a lovely range of plants there, very reasonable prices and the plants are well maintained by an enthusiastic and knowledgeable lady. Unlike the other supermarkets in our town whose plants look terrible, no dedicated member of staff to look after them so they very quickly look dried out and half dead.  I bought a couple of dahlias and a pelargonium, I shall go out and put them in pots this afternoon.  Our garden is rapidly becoming the sort of garden I've always wanted - lots of flowers and colour and beds full of vegetables:-

Several of the rose bushes (which were already here, albeit very overgrown and desperately in need of pruning and training, which I did) are loaded with buds, some of which are already starting to open.  There's a large white climber which had tons of flowers last year, a tall gorgeous postbox red one, a yellow one and 2 or 3 peachy coloured ones.  You can see the white climber beside the purple tulips in the photo above, I have it trained up an obelisk....the red one is in the background on the right beside the wall, it's taller than the wall already, and that's this year's growth.  It's looking like it'll be a good year for the garden, both for veggies and flowers.