Cornwall

The first couple of days were spent staying with Alan's sister Anita and her husband Paul in Taunton.  We spent a pleasant day visiting Hestercombe gardens - here they are sitting in the witche's house.

 More pictures of this garden may be found in the photo album here, here and here.

This house is owned and maintained by the National Trust and of all their properties has the largest number of rooms open to the public. 

It is furnished in high Victorian style and is fascinating.

As you can see the weather was wonderful, but the flowers clashed terribly with our shirts!

We rather disappointed by the rather loud choice of colour for the planting.

Out next garden was Helligan, the famous garden rescued from the undergrowth by Tim Smitt. 

These pictures are of the vibrant rows of flowering perennials which would have furnished the vases of the 'big house' in Victorian days.

There are more pictures in the photo album of this great garden here and here.

This is my mother, Ann Collins, at Helligan in 2001.  The border in the background is filled with Japanese Anemones.  Lovely!

Next on the agenda, the Eden Project at St Austell. Here are the flags which line the pathways that lead down to the entrance building.

Here I am with Mum overlooking the enormous domes.  The giant bee is next to the path that leads to the dome entrance.

After these two huge attractions, we decided on a smaller garden for our next visit, Trerice, 

This lovely  Elizabethan manor house is a joy. This picture of the front of the house was taken from the higher level garden.

From there we visited Tintagel Old Post Office, a gem in the National Trust inventory. 

In the Photo album there is a picture of us in the back garden, here.