RHS Rosemoor

Today we are in Devon at the RHS garden called Rosemoor. It is a lovely spring day and the magnolia are looking glorious.

There weren't too many plants in bloom yet, and the gunnera which will be enormous by summer was only just starting to burst upwards.

We then got to the fruit garden and the time, effort and skill that went in to the pruning was incredible. "This is the best pruning that I have ever seen!" I muttered excitedly to Darren. 

Unfortunately it was obvious that he was very underwhelmed, and even I can see that he does have a point. 

All too soon we had walked around the whole garden, although much too long for Darren I think.

Hopefully this holiday will improve for him tomorrow.

Extreme gardening

 Yesterday we caught the train from Birmingham to Bristol and then set off from the station on to the Sustrans cycle route. It goes along a disused train line almost straight to our cottage.

This is the very start of the route as it leaves the station, and at this exact moment I am very happy and totally convinced that we are about to have an easy journey.

Fifty metres later we turned right instead of going straight on, lost the route completely and cycled in the wrong direction with occasional stops for me to try and find the right way on my phone. At length we do find it and have a rather subdued journey here.

This morning we are tackling the worrying issue of how to cut down the overgrown plants that are cascading into the river at the bottom of the garden.

Surprisingly, Darren has brought a harness and he had the amazing idea of attaching it to next doors fence.

He then was able to lean out over the river and cut the branches off. It was my job to haul them up on to the bank behind us.

This worked well for a while until it became obvious that I wasn't very good at dragging branches up the bank and Darren wasn't so flexible to lean down and cut the lower branches off.

So we swapped jobs. I ended up right down at river level desperately swinging on the harness, while Darren took on my job.

No photos of this, but an interesting comment from Darren as I kept getting tangled up in the harness. At one time I had twisted 360 degrees and was in more danger of strangling myself than falling in. Anyway, he remarked that if I was a dog on a lead then I would be one of those that runs rings round their owners and trips them up. Not sure if this is very complimentary.

Ps, we did manage to get nearly all of it done though.

Nitin Sawhney

We caught the train to Birmingham and are staying at the Easy Hotel. Not sure how much it cost but it is definitely a room with a view.

Quite cosy, but my bike looks very happy and we are right above Turtle Bay cocktail bar, so it might get a bit rowdy later.

We had a pre dinner Belgium cherry beer at the bar behind the red and white striped barriers that we can see from our window.

And then on for a lovely Indian around the corner at Tamatanga. Also mango and chilli cocktails with the emphasis on the chilli.

Then on to the show. I wasn't really looking forward much to this part of the evening as we had standing tickets, but when we arrived they had actually put out seats, and we found the best two.

It was a great show - Nitin is on the left - and he played all of his greatest hits so I actually knew most of the songs. Difficult to sing along to though, and you will know what I mean if you have heard them.

The concert was held at the Town Hall building. We had never been to this part of Birmingham before, so went for a walk this morning in the lovely spring sunshine to appreciate it all.

Off back to the station soon for the train to Bristol.

Ps, no noise in the room overnight, but woke up early and looking forward to today.

Southampton views

I opened the curtains onto our balcony this morning to a beautiful sunrise.

What a marvelous view of the sunrise over the car parks of Southampton and the ferry to the Isle of Wight.

We had packed yesterday and left our suitcases outside of the cabin, and by about 8am they would be on their way ashore. We went for a final walk around the decks and then for a last breakfast.

By 9.30 we were reunited with our cases and on our way to the train station for our ride home.

We had a lovely holiday, but disappointing to find that the weather over here was better than the weather over there.

Lisbon

It's still cold, but no rain today and the sky still has a strange orangey tint to it.

Today we are in Lisbon and we are out exploring. We bought a bus and tram day pass and set off first to the Belem Tower

This was very apt because it was built in 1519 as the ceremonial gate to Lisbon in the Renaissance, and the embarkation point for Portuguese explorers.

We then sat by a little outdoor coffee shop in a van and bought a very poor cappuccino and a fantastic Portuguese custard tart.

Just a short walk along the waterfront is the Monument of the Discoveries dating from 1960 which features famous explorers, kings, queens and various others, all staring out across the water.

Then we passed an incredible building which is the the Archeological Museum and Jeronimo Monastery.

We then followed a tip off we were given on the bus about the cafe Pasteis de Belem. This is where Portuguese tarts were invented and apparently they make the best ones in the world.

We joined a queue and eventually got two tarts to take away. They were beautifully wrapped and we just needed to find the right place to eat them.

Within a couple of minutes we passed the Botanical Gardens that were featuring an Alice in Wonderland display, so we went in.

It was totally amazing and we followed the route with quotes from the book and 20 Alice based scenes.

The gardens themselves were full of huge old trees and lots of very overgrown but lovely areas.

There was hardly anyone else around and we could hear peacocks calling to each other, but at first couldn't find them. Eventually in an overgrown courtyard we found one who was putting on a good show for three lady peacocks although they didn't seem that interested.

Right at the end we found a strange sight.

After all that excitement we walked quite a way, took another bus and arrived at the tram stop number 28E. This was our original plan this morning and we tried to get on it in the centre of town but the queue was enormous. We changed tack and decided that it probably wouldn't be as busy in the opposite direction and we easily got a seat.

It ended up being quite a long ride on a noisy old tram along narrow streets and tight bends. We thought that it would be the highlight of the day, but although good it ended up at the bottom of a great list.

Finally, we ate the tart from Pastries de Belem and it was lovely, but we both thought that first prize went to the tart from the little coffee cart.

Cadiz in the rain

This is the view from our balcony in Cadiz when I opened the curtains this morning.

There are two points to talk about in the photo, firstly the weather and secondly the boat.

Starting with the weather, it is cold, wet and raining. This is very disappointing as I have been checking the weather in Cadiz daily since the beginning of February and every day has been warm and sunny. It is also due to be dry again from tomorrow for the foreseeable future!

Yesterday the weather was even stranger as the sky turned orange and when the sun tried to peep through it was blue. Why didn't I take a photo? Because I was so surprised that I just stared instead, and I am very disappointed in myself.

The captain made an announcement over the tannoy later to explain that storms in north Africa had blown sand into the air, and then the Scirocco winds from Spain had created this amazing phenomenon which I have no picture of.

Anyway, getting back to the view from the balcony. The boat is actually the 11th largest super yacht in the world, called the Yas and it is owned by a prince from the UAE.

Two days ago we were admiring another huge yacht in Barcelona harbour, and that one is on the news today. It is called Valerie is owned by a Russian oligarch, and it was seized by the Spanish authorities this morning.

Getting back to more mundane subjects, we went for a walk in the rain in Cadiz to admire the fortifications and gardens.