Your day (apart from gardening) what took place ? 2024

MRI should spell 'early days' ... no? So, all the very best!

 

I hope whatever is has been caught in time to heal it or at least control it @noisette47 . All the best from me too.

 

Thanks, @Obelix-Vendée. That's very kind.

 

@noisette47 And from me ...

 

I hope you are doing OK @noisette47 , wishing you all the best.

 

Best wishes from me too @noisette47

 

Ahhh, thanks all. That's cheered me up

 

I went to a café and asked for a late, and the lady at the till asked me if I wanted a spoon ... well of course I want a spoon, to eat the froth on top of the late, otherwise it goes on my moustache, and one can't walk around with a frothy moustache

 

Today we cut different twigs/branches from our every greens to make decorations in the house. Then cut a large branch from our blue spruce to be the "tree". Added the lights and a few "baubles" and have to admit it does look good. All in situ for our elder son coming tomorrow. Hard to do though as our younger son is no longer with us.
So hard for so many people not just this time of year but every day.

 

A lovely day out, and in the end no extremities have serious frostbites and the clothes are drying nicely over the radiators

I have some family visiting us from Finland, and today we went to see Seaton Delaval Hall where The Child volunteers in the gardens, just 20 mins by bus from our house. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/north-east/seaton-delaval-hall

On our way towards the tickets hall The Child met one of the gardeners she helps and had a chat, the gardener then got us in as her guests and we felt very special (The Child of course has a free pass anyways). Sort of middle age version to a VIP entry into a nightclub

The gardens and the views are wonderful and The Child expertly showed us around explaining what's where and what is planned and why, and even took us behind the scenes to show the scrap heaps and the works area.

They have a very interesting Rowan which is still full of pink and white berries, most attractive. Ha-has are excellent, they are one of my favourite things of English garden design. Ingenious!

Then we had a guided tour outside of the hall to hear the history, nearly froze to death but enjoyed it very much indeed. The tour was very focused on the people rather than the dates and as the Delavals were a rather colourful bunch of generations it was very entertaining

And as Aidan, the volunteer giving the tour (who used to live next door as a child and played with the groundkeeper's kids) said, it gave us a good understanding of who's who when we viewed the hall and the portraits after a lifesaving meal of hot soup in the cafe.


A wonderful place, and the insights from The Child were very interesting- such as that the Head Gardener wanted to turn one of the lawns into a wildflower meadow but National Trust said it had to be a lawn to keep the grand aesthetics of the Hall.

I learnt a few new things such as Acceptance in Lieu and how to restore a stone spiral staircase that is self-supporting so if one step fails, the whole thing will collapse. And that the Wallace&Gromit morning scene with the tilting bed machinery was actually invented by the naughty Delavals to play tricks on their guests.

Photos to follow when I manage to edit out the Selleri clan (Child Selleri, The Daughter of Mother Selleri, the Niece of Aunt Selleri, Partner Selleri, the partner of the Aunt-Sister etc Selleri...).

I just realised that the life-saving soup we had in the cafe today was a creamy celeriac soup. Very nice soup and sort of crowns the Selleriness of today's outing