Saturday 8 June 2013

Greek Cooking and Open Gardens

Tried my hand at a couple of recipes from our new Greek cook book last night - this is my first ever spinakopita. Tasted nice too:-).
 Promising sunset last night with dramatic skies.
More lovely skies.
Red sky at night - hopeful for today's weather.
Another lovely day with clear blue skies. This is a neighbour's lilac doing very well.

One white valerian stood out against the pinky red of the rest.
 Good place to put a bus top…
We went off to Doynton for the the Old Rectory Open Gardens. Passed these splendid poppies on the way.
Lovely white lilac
An infinity pond in the Old Rectory.
Mirrored at the end of the infinity pond is this heated indoor swimming pool.
Looking back at the house.
Striking statues in the walled garden.
Made our way to the end of the garden to the newly planted arboretum, where we saw this deer resting amongst the trees and wild flowers and keeping a wary eye on Bella
 After a while it took off.
  One ex-pigeon.
Right at the end of the garden a little gypsy caravan hideaway.
Looking back up the site, this obelisk commanded the line of sight up the lime tree avenue.
Stylish bench back in the garden.
An unusual bench design.
Big wisteria on the side of the house.
The front of the house.
After some delicious passion fruit and coconut cake, we  wandered around the village. Preparations were in hand for their village fete this afternoon. Spotted this car full of balloons - glad the windows were open a little otherwise I could envisage them popping as the car heated up.  Guessed it was for a "Guess how many balloons in the car" competition
 Pretty planting in this front garden…
 6 ton limit, courtesy of the Sodbury Highway Board.
 A restrained choice of trousers on display.
Came home, and sampled the second of my Greek recipes - roast vegetable terrine. Tasty as well:-)
Then it was off up to Swainswick for their village open gardens day. This was Beech House.
A fulsome montana clematis growing over the pond/ waterfall.
Lovely white blossom.
On to the next house, with a definite instruction to go with the door bell.
Tamarisk tree in full flower.
All the houses along this stretch of the village have splendid views over the Woolley valley. They will no doubt be glad about the successful planning appeal against the (over) development of the site there - the local council are actually going to enforce the demolition and removal of structures put up without planning permission.
Hill House - we were too early to see their white wisteria in flower.
Lovely border of flag irises
These small wild gladioli in amongst the grasses looked great.
Pretty clematis flowers.
 Then it was off to the church for a cream tea.
 A tombstone was our table and seat.
Lots of people sitting in the cemetery with their cream teas and beer, listening to the bells ringing (they were giving bell ringing lessons) and the dogs howling from a nearby house.
A very blowsy clematis in the last garden we visited.
Very welcoming! (This house has a right of way that goes across their garden very near to the house).
This day a year ago, Blogger wasn't happy about taking photographs.
Su's news story of the day (BBC website - click on the title for the full story):

Using your 'inner bat' to help navigate

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