Goodbye June!

 

The last day of June and we both wanted to do something......but I felt terrible after an evening on an uncomfortable bar stool had done something unpleasant to my back.....and there wasn't anything to do.

 

 

We went to Virginia Water but it was closed.

 

 

So we parked next to The Saville Gardens (which I knew would be closed) and we took a walk down to the Obelisk Pond.

 

 

The Sun was low and at the end of a really hot day everything was very still.

 

 

We walked to one end of the pond and watched the Sun set while quiet bubbles popped in the water.

 

 

Except that some of them were flies landing on the surface and some were fish bouncing up to wallow for a moment in the Sun. 

 

Just occasionally you could catch sight of a fin.

 

We just stood there fixed, taking it in. The ducks started to come over in the hope that we'd brought them some bread - we hadn't thought there would be any.

 

 

 

 

It's been an amazing June and a painful one.

 

I'm not back to any kind of normal and probably never will be but we went to Stonehenge and spent the night there waiting for a stone age dawn to break.

 

Absolutely amazing.

 

I'm sad it's over - my favourite month of the year.

 

Long nights and crisp sunny days.

 

Neil Harris

(a don't stop till you drop production)

 

Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

 

 

In the Gardens.

My trip round Saville Gardens wasn't really my kind of thing - I'm not a plantsman and I prefer wild places.

The gardens are fairly formal and we only got in for free because at this time of year the plants are hiding from the weather.

The Camellias were in flower despite the rain and the cold;

And every so often you caught a gleam from the Witch hazel which is one of the few plants to flower at this time of year;

There were some exotic scents from plants flowering when they would have done at their home on the other side of the world.

There's also a small greenhouse and this is a Tree Fern from New Zealand....this is a tender one;

 

 

 There is one variety that can almost survive our winters if it's protected and there were a few outside. They are a protected species now; they take a long time to grow.

 

There was some clever modern planting...here are snow drops amongst an almost black grass. 

 

 

 

 

 

I wasn't convinced by it; as I said I prefer the wild places. I was glad I saw it though and we had a really nice day. Not sure I'd want to pay £9-50p each to see it.

 

Neil Harris

(a don't stop till you drop production)

 

Home:  helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

 

Contact me:  neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Neil Harris



Saville Gardens.

Saturday morning and the sun shone long enough for us to decide to go out.....and then it went back to being cold and wet. Winter is just never going to end.

We meant to go for a long walk around Windsor Great Park but as we got near to the Saville Gardens we went in to the entrance building. I hadn't meant to as it was a place my parents went to a lot and it has memories for me.

But it is amazing architecture.

 

I remember it being built - it seemed to take forever. There are gardens that are quite expensive to see. You would really want to be a plant person to get something out of them - but the entrance building is free, there's a car park and you can get a coffee or look at the shop.

The building is ecological - on one side the earth is piled up against the walls for insulation and it is made entirely out of wood. While it is very modern it's also very traditional - they used 'Green Oak'; oak before it is seasoned so that there is inbuilt shrinkage.

The techniques were developed on medieval oak barns and continue to this day.

Except this is something that could only have been built in the age of computer aided design; take a look at the inside of the roof;

 

 

 

There a massive structural steel framework but the roof is self supporting and is just a network of interlocking oak beams. Built in the green, as the oak dried out it shrank, giving the structure it's strength. It's all about inner tensions.

 

It's also very beautiful.

 

And then we discovered that as it's still winter and no self respecting plant would be putting it's nose from out of it's warm comfy duvet; the gardens were free for the day.

 

So we took a look!

 

That's for tomorrow.

 

 

Neil Harris

(a don't stop till you drop production)

 

 

Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

 

Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com