The first time we've grown spuds!

The kids had such fun this evening digging through the dirt to unearth our home-grown potatoes. They have such lovely white skins! I'm thinking of turning them into a Summer potato salad, seeing as Summer is here this week.

Hidcot Manor Garden

Clare and Jen invited us all to Hidcot Manor Gardens and we had a LOVELY day.  Hidcot was designed by Major Lawrence Johnston, and is a great English garden as he combined the more formal French style with the English ‘cottage’ garden style.

Although the weather was threatening we didn’t get any rain (which was fortunate as it was St Swithian’s day (a British weather lore proverb says that if it rains on Saint Swithun's day, 15 July, it will rain for 40 days).

 Sophie needed some reminding about some of the rules when visiting gardens: ie don’t pick anything!

There was a tennis court there for anyone to use – Andrew and I lost 2 sets to Clare and Jen, even though the umpire and ball girl were meant to be on our side.

Although some people tried to pretend that they didn’t enjoy themselves, we all had a really nice day out, away from Oxford, with friends we don’t see often enough.