A MINIATURE COTTAGE GARDEN

I'm back at Bridgemere and just taking you around. Imagine that this is a little cottage that you're holidaying in. Okay, you can only see the garden so far. The dahlias, the sunflowers, tomatoes in the greenhouse. It's all looking very nice. Just imagine that you are wandering around this little cottage garden. The apples, ooh, give them a couple of months and they will be ripe for picking. And then we've got the berries. The gooseberries, or goose gogs as my mum used to call them. Red currants, red currant jelly, black currant jam, and white currants. I've never actually used white currants. And planted up for the jubilee, the red, white and blue flower trough, still looking beautiful. Look at the size of that rhubarb. How many crumbles could you make with that? Rhubarb crumble or rhubarb pie with lots of custard or lots of ice cream. A nice size veggie plot just to keep you going. With a beehive tucked away and then behind the cottage. I've been coming here for years and years, well at least 30 years. And I've always, I can't remember if this has been here all that time, but as long as it has been here I've always spun stories around it. It's tiny but I can still use it for stories. Tucked away there is a dove coat, a dove cot, whatever you call it. All part of the traditional country cottage scene. Bench to sit on. Watch the bees buzzing in and out of the hive. And the purples, pinks and blues. Delphiniums! As we saw at Lady Hayes, not Lady Hayes, Dorothy Clive. Those that I still can't grow. But all looking lovely, lovely, lovely. Bees buzzing around. A gentle breeze so the plants are swaying softly. And there's the dove cot. Always wanted one of those on my garage roof. No idea why, just appealed. Buddleia. I can't see any butterflies around it at present. Beautiful. And there's the front door of the little cottage. What stories I've woven around that over the years. Maybe I should have written them down. Never did. And there we have a little table where you can dine in the fresh air. Lunch al fresco. Surrounded by the beautiful flowers. Just allow yourself, in your imagination, to wander around. Bend down and smell those flowers. Especially the roses. Oh, a bird bath. Desperately in need of some water for those poor old birds. The first thing I do every morning, take a couple of big jugs of water out to make sure that the bird baths are full in this weather. Do you know, I want to go and sit down at that table and hope that somebody brings me a nice big ice cream. Chocolate and vanilla cone, please. And I will sit there and eat it. Dream on thee. Just to look back over the garden and just relax. Thank you for coming on this little walk with me along the border of the cottage garden. Hear the rustling of the leaves as I come round into the shade to bid you adieu. Speak to you tomorrow. Bye.