The Blue Garden

One of the small gardens within the Walled Gardens of Cannington is the Blue Garden and that's a challenging choice, as 'true blue' is a relatively rare colour among flowers.  You might immediately think of cornflowers, irises and periwinkles, and maybe even the more purple blues of lavenders and pansies.  And I'm sure there's more, but they don't roll of the tongue easily, do they?

WHAT OTHER COLOUR BENCH WOULD YOU EXPECT?

The cobalt blue benches were striking on the wet and grey day we visited.  With more blue flowers in the garden I'm sure it would be a fantastic space.

You forget that rosemary has small blue flowers, but it does, and they were starting to make themselves known.  I bet the garden is also one of most fragrant spots what with the rosemary and lavender.

BLUE FLOWERS STARTING TO SHOW ON THE ROSEMARY

The water feature, which somehow I've cut the top off in my photo, was designed by a student and creates a modern interpretation of a conifer tree.  It's been modified though as it seems that the design also soaked visitors.  As you'd expect the stone wall that it sits around it matches the theme of the garden - blue lias stone - and was quarried in Somerset.

THE BLUE GARDEN WATER FEATURE

THE SILVER BLUE LEAVES OF LAVENDER

There's a lot of rosemary in the central part of the garden, and it was a good reminder of how it can be used sculpturally, adding shape and height.  It also gives me hope for my future rosemary hedges over on the plot.

ROSEMARY USED IN SWATHES OF BEDS

Given that our visit was the middle of March we did well to see the blue flowers we did, especially given the cold weather.  The irises were starting to make themselves known and yet again reminded me that I need to add some to my garden.

DWARF IRISES ADDING A PURPLE BLUE TO THE GARDEN

The board in the garden says it's been designed for year round interest, and it'd be great to see it throughout the year, wouldn't it?

Progress at Castle Drogo

They're having quite a bit of work done at Castle Drogo near Exeter. And they have been for quite a while.  We visited again to see what was going on when we were in Devon last weekend, and before that our last visit was in October 2016. For us the progress was noticeable, and as I haven't shared the photos from when we were there before I thought it'd be interesting to look at both sets of photos in parallel. 

But first a bit about the work that's underway, and now hoped to finish by the end of this year. A year later than expected as the contractor ran into difficulties and folded part-way through the project, not what anyone needs.  Talking to the room guides on this visit about the cost of the project we were surprised to learn it's only costing thirteen million.  I know that thirteen million is a lot, and not an amount many of us will ever have, let alone spend, but they're doing a lot with it.

The castle has had problems for a long time, ever since it was completed they've had "major leakage problems" - it's only about a hundred years old, but a hundred years of leaks isn't a good thing, and so a six year project to make the castle watertight is underway.  But it's not just the roof that leaks, the windows do too. 

All of the windows are being replaced, there's 913 windows containing over 13,000 individual panes of glass - and of course, not all the windows are easily accessible.  The castle also needs repointing, as at some point it has been repointed using cement mortar which becomes brittle and cracks over time, which as you've guessed allows water into the core of the wall.  So the blocks of granite are being repointed with lime mortar to allow it to breathe.  This has resulted in granite blocks being carefully dismantled, numbered and stored safely before being replaced. It's almost as if the castle is being rebuilt block by granite block.

A STORE OF CASTLE WALLS

So that's the scene setting done, what does it look like?  Well the most obvious change to us was in the Drawing room, mainly because in 2018 it's starting to look like a Drawing room again.

2018: THE DRAWING ROOM

When we visited in 2016, it was being used as a store room - albeit a rather fabulous one. 

2016: THE DRAWING ROOM AS A STORE ROOM

It was fascinating to see the items displayed in this way, and while they were still curated - see the trunks above and the picture below - it really brought home the quantities of items the National Trust has to deal with, let alone during a project like this.

One thing - or rather two - that were constant were the glorious chandeliers, which we learnt on our visit in 2018 the Drewes brought back from their honeymoon in Venice. I'm not sure we managed to bring back anything quite so grand from our honeymoon, the sentiment is there though. But can you imagine bringing these in through customs, perhaps opting to go through the "Nothing to declare other than two rather ornate chandeliers" channel!  

I'm already looking forward to seeing it when it's done and I'm hoping that it will be almost complete when we head back to Devon much later in the year.

What also struck me looking through photos from two visits is that I have captured very similar photos on each visit - in fact, there's a couple that are exactly the same, but still I don't think they're good enough to share here, so I'll have to try harder on my next visit.

The rest of the photos in this post are from the most recent visit, and all from the same room.  The wooden sinks, with sparkling taps, three this time - I also have a photo of the sink with just two taps, it seems you can never have too many taps, or pictures of taps.

I did managed to snap a new picture on this visit, and that's of this glassware. They're in a glass fronted cabinet so there are reflections, but just look at the detail, not just the etching but also on the base of the stem.

While I'd like to think I'd be living upstairs, in reality it's the downstairs area that fascinates me more. Maybe it's the "technology" or maybe it's because it bears no, or little, resemblance to our own domestic homes, and I'm not sure I'd like to be on the end of the calls from this either, but there you go.

So back to that thirteen million, yes it's a lot but there's a lot of work underway and I think it's worth saving Castle Drogo, don't you?

More than we bargained for

I'm the sort of trip planner that plans ahead but doesn't quite get around to booking, and then when I'm sure we're going I'll go back to the plans and realise the place I wanted is fully booked, so it all starts again. But not this time - I'd done half the research while we had that sneaky weekend away in February, and I'd even remembered to book the hotel too.

As quite often happens there was a luxury room available, but here it was only an extra twenty pounds. So seduced by the luxury tag I opted for that, quite unprepared for what that might bring. I knew there'd be a bedroom and bathroom, and wasn't disappointed, and there were some nice touches.

White bedlinen, squishy beds, velour dressing gowns and great accessories and in the bathroom full size toiletries.  Everything you could want in a bedroom billed as luxury.

The more than we bargained for bit, was apparent as soon as we walked into the room. And that was a kitchenette and living room, which we were totally not expecting. In fact so not expecting that I was soon on the website checking that I hadn't clicked on the wrong option, or that I'd missed all this information.

Turns out I didn't mess up or miss it, it wasn't there. But after a longer drive than we thought, courtesy of bad weather and too many cars on the road, it was just what was needed. I've said before that self catering is our preferred style for holidays, and that's partly because you get somewhere normal to sit, and don't end up camped out on the bed just for somewhere to sit.

We didn't make much use of the kitchenette - bar for making quite a few cups of tea, and with a good restaurant downstairs in the pub and breakfast included in the cost, I'm not sure you'd need to make much use of it at all.  My only criticism is that with a proper fridge it would have been nice to have proper milk and if we'd been there for longer we would have done. 

Isn't it surprising where crochet turns up?  What surprised me though was the granny square front had been attached to a more glitzy and existing cushion cover.  MOH was rolling his eyes at the inspection of the "knitting" and I'm not sure he got the explanation of why they're different.

The verdict though on our stay at the Bower Inn was definitely a thumbs up - and if we're nearby, we'd stay there again. I've a feeling that it's a busy and buzzing place as the weather warms up. So if you're looking for somewhere to stay in Bridgwater, this could be just the place.