The lodge with a gateway to the garden

Much earlier in the year while looking for a place to holiday in the UK during school holidays we stumbled across The Gatehouse Lodge at Easton Walled Gardens, and it looked idyllic. It was also very reasonably priced, and available on dates that suited us, so we snapped it up. Lincolnshire may not be on everyone’s holiday list, but it’s a beautiful county. The walled gardens are close to Grantham which has great transport links, and also less than quarter of an hour from my brother’s house as it turned out.

One of the attractions for me was the private entrance to the walled gardens, which holiday cottage guests could make use of when the gardens were closed. That meant we often had the beautiful gardens to ourselves and could pretend they were our own - the garden to holiday cottage was heavily skewed to the garden side here!

The homely and yet quirky interior was also a plus - not many holiday cottages come with their own chandelier and library, but this one did.

And this was how close to the gardens we were - I’ll share pictures from the garden another day.

Back in the living room we spent the evenings enjoying the view out towards the garden, and of the interior decor. Unfortunately the August weather meant we didn’t get a chance to make use of the small patio area, which was a shame.

It was great that the kitchen was well equipped, and the welcome package was very much welcomed by us. We now have a rule of checking out what holiday cottages have in the way of utensils and such before deciding what we might cook while we’re there - we didn’t need to here. In fact the only thing that was probably missing was some espresso cups - and you can live without them (or I can anyway!).

There were some great additions to the decor, this clock was one.

And I am rather partial to a fish shaped plate - we carried one around Dublin when we visited many years ago, and just about got it home safely.

It was a compact and bijou lodge, which we knew and were perfectly fine with. The bathroom was larger than ours, and tranquil - with some great tiles.

And the bedding, I could quite happily have taken this home - I didn’t of course.

I fell in love with these coasters, and I’m still on the lookout for some - a good holiday momento - but I think eBay is going to be my best chance!

So a great place to stay, and you haven’t even seen the garden yet - you will soon.

Repurposing an empty or two

For a while now we’ve been members of the Craft Gin Club, a subscription service which provides a bottle of gin, mixers and nibbles every month. It means we have a fair few bottles of gin, with several on the go at once. But here’s the thing, they’re all generally really pretty bottles and so I was keen to find a way to repurpose them.

I’d seen lights in bottles, and how pretty they were and I bought a box or two much earlier in the summer. They’re easy to fit and use, but that wasn’t my concern. My concern was the slugs and snails slithering over the labels and leaving a trail of destruction. And so, I’ve tried a layer of PVA Glue over them and I’m hoping that will protect the labels for at least a little while.

It’s only now though, that the warmer weather is making a brief return that I’ve been able to try them out. And I’m really pleased with how they’ve worked out, and how much light they give out. Don’t they look great?

I’ve used them in groups of three, some on the table but also on the edge of the grass and on the patio. I never expected them to turn out quite so well.

What do you think?

A jam packed week off

I said last week was a quiet week on my blog as we were away, well this week has been quiet too and we’ve been back at work. I’ll admit to enjoying time away from my laptop in my week off and so while this week I’ve been back on the laptop during the day, I’ve stayed away during the evenings too, picking up my crochet instead.

And also knowing where to start, and what to post from the many, many photos I’ve taken. So many photos, so many gardens and historic houses - and such a good time - and so, this post has a bit of everything. A kind of whistle stop tour of what I’ve been up to.

We started in Norfolk visiting some of my favourite places, including the shops at Creake Abbey and the historic Georgian town of Holt - it made a lovely change to wander around shops, though still wearing masks.

A great day in Holt ended with a bit of a downer when a stone thrown up by a passing van hit the windscreen with an almighty crack. And it was quite a crack, no chip in sight and quite a shock. On reflection a crack is way better than a chip, as that meant a new windscreen rather than a repaired one. Thankfully the crack kept outside of my vision for driving, and the insurance and replacement were easy to navigate with all the necessary recalibrating done in a single visit once we were back home. Even there they realised that after having the car for less than a month, I probably didn’t need to replace the wipers!

It was definitely a night to opt for fish and chips and we headed off to Eric’s for the first time. We ended up with double fish and chips each, and more than we could eat - and we couldn’t resist trying the black pudding fritter, which is exactly what you’re thinking - black pudding in batter. I’d eat it again - obviously - but probably not as a side order to cod and chips.

Up next was our holiday cottage in Lincolnshire, part of the Walled Gardens on the Easton Estate - and it’s the first holiday cottage we had with its own library - a small space with a chandelier, but a library no less.

It also had one of the best equipped kitchens we’ve experienced, and best of all it provided direct access to the walled gardens which were available for us to visit outside of their usual opening hours, and it was really special to have such a lovely space to ourselves.

This was a sign that I wasn’t expecting to see - thankfully the giraffes were statues.

We got out and about a lot in the few days we were in Lincolnshire and first on my list was Barnsdale Gardens, which was the Gardener’s World home of legendary presenter Geoff Hamilton. There were 38 gardens there, so plenty of inspiration - and while I wasn’t a Gardener’s World viewer when he was a presenter it was a great place to visit. I’ll be sharing some of the gardens here, but somehow I’ve lost some of the photos I took, but even so there’s still plenty to share.

What is always special is the chance to look around the nursery and growing spaces, and this is the heucheras at Barnsdale - not lettuces as MOH first thought (though they do look a little lettuce-like from a distance).

That evening we headed back out into the Walled Gardens this time exploring the Cottage Garden and the Pickery - great name isn’t it? - and discovered this most amazing bark, I promise you it’s a real, living tree and not a sculpture.

Another of the places I was keen to visit was Belvoir Castle - a few years ago when we cycled between Grantham, Melton Mowbray and Newark we spied it on the hill top in the distance, and had it marked as a future place to visit. It didn’t disappoint, the interiors were stunning - from the displays of rifles and swords as you entered, the vibrancy of the wall coverings and the grandiose rooms - I was ready to move in.

We also spent some time walking around the gardens, including the formal rose garden, which considering the gardens are on many levels was a lot of up and down, but definitely worth it.

But we weren’t done with visiting historic houses just yet - our next stop was the National Trust’s Belton House, where it was easy to pick up on a greyhound theme, including on the door plate and on the weather vane on the roof.

The orangery in the grounds was just as spectacular, and I think I’ll need to add an orangery as a requirement to my next house! (Some chance, I know).

With our week almost at an end we managed to squeeze in a visit to nearby Stamford, another Georgian town - no prizes for guessing the type of architecture that MOH and I are drawn to.

I told you we packed a lot in, and now you know why it was so hard to choose just one part of an action-packed week away from home.