Nigella Damascena

or Love-in-a-mist https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigella_damascena

I thought I'd be blipping something more grand today, but it's familiar plants that I love come back to. Besides, the building we went to see was under wraps, big time.

To explain: today is CleanSteve's birthday. We'd planned to go to a National Trust property south of Bristol, and to the beach at Clevedon, Somerset, but the weather was not propitious, and it wasn't very long since we'd been on the M5, which can be clogged up at times. So we decided to hang loose for a while, and head off to a nearer NT property mid-afternoon.

Dyrham Park, 8 miles from Bath, is an imposing house of the 18th century, built over a former Tudor manor (Sacre Bleu!), set in several hundred acres of parkland and formal gardens. Deer roam free in the deer park, and can be glimpsed on CleanSteve's blip. The house itself is having its roof re-leaded and tiled. There's still a long way to go. Meanwhile, visitors can don hi-vis jackets and take the lift or stairs 75 ft up to a parapet overlooking the roof works. There are also viewing platforms for gazing out over the garden which is being re-created in a formal Italianate style.

After we'd done the rooftop tour, we descended to the courtyard and tea room, and from there to the gardens with their various ponds. The sun had obligingly come out at 3.30 pm, so the bees were buzzing and the butterflies flapping, but the Nigella caught my eye more than anything else. This plant used to grow in a little shady bed behind a wall, at my first solo flat in Stroud, 20 years ago. I used to see it growing everywhere, but it must be unfashionable now, for I rarely glimpse it.

From the gardens we went to the deer park, and then home. I cooked an enormous dinner of salmon, new potatoes and organic runner beans from Tintagel (they've lasted well)! We are now so full that we haven't even touched the plum and almond cake I made and blipped yesterday.