I never promised you a rose garden..

Who sang that silly song?  It's not true, anyway, I did promise you a rose garden.  Back on 10th May I promised I would return to Mottisfont Abbey when the roses were in full flood (it holds the national collection of old-fashioned roses and many of you I'm sure know the garden, at least by reputation).  So today I went back with my sis and we had a wonderful couple of hours talking to one of the gardeners, absorbing the incredible sights and smells on display, drinking cups of tea and tripping over the thousands of other lovely folk doing the same thing.  Honestly, I never thought we'd get to see anything for the people.  The overflow car park was the size of Runway One at Heathrow - and full when we arrived - and there were coaches from all over.  But we did, amazingly, and had a wonderful afternoon.

However, I do now see the point of buying a photographer's ticket and going to a special early morning session when you get to see the garden in its pristine state.  But today it was obvious there were going to be visitors in any picture I took, so here is my sis in her new NT ladies' hat.  Middle-class or wot?

Okay, that's enough from me, now I'm off to look at what you've been up to today..  xx