The Largest Camellia Maze in the World!

It was our Women Who  Walk trip to Tregothnan- a Tea Plantation with a historic house built in 1652 and renovated by William Wilkins in the 1820's - Humphry Repton drew plans but died before he could implement them! Old Wilkins apparently built the national Gallery in Trafalgar Square!
The place was literally heaving with people as it was open for a carers Charity and it is not  normally open to the public. As well as chimneys, oh so many chimneys on a house, there was a prehistoric Wollemi Pine  in a cage that was thought to be extinct until 1994 when it was found in a remote Australian valley! Also Manuka trees from which the estate makes manuka tea and is the only honey of its kind outside of Australia!
Well we saw it all! I took many photos but stupidly in playing with the settings as I had discovered a quicker way of   altering aperture, I discovered I was altering the exposure compensation as I was conditioned to press this button when turning the other dial and being a creature of habit I didn't realise my mistake till the end of the day - so it's taken me along time to process the photos!
We all had a great catch up over lunch, with tea of course! I had an illuminating talk about retirement with Nellie of the Woods who retires in May. She, like I did and still am, is just going to see what unfolds over the first year - open to whatever may happen and however she might feel. We both agreed that already having interests outside of work meant the transition was perhaps not as difficult as it was for those who neither the time nor energy to pursue or discover any. I had a whole list of things I thought I would do that I wrote in a book, things I had tried in the past but found work overwhelmed me and left me no time or energy to sustain. I realised I had not looked in the book since I first retired as I had been too busy! Blip was not on the list!!! Photography was! The one thing I had not accounted for in changing my rhythm was waking during the night and becoming an early riser! Up to this development I was a late to bed and late to rise apart from on a chicken duty morning! But apart from the disturbed sleep I'm rather liking this change! 
I realised that for me retirement was an exciting leap into the unknown, and at no point had I missed any aspect of my working life - it was a book put on the shelf and only occasionally opened  when relating good or bad times to others in a conversation. Nellie recalled a client of hers who was 102, saying the past was behind you, the future unknown so the only thing that mattered was the present - now. We both agreed she was a mindful woman!
So what to blip? I loved the chimneys and the Lime Avenue with Bluebells, but it's the maze which we did as a group, each of us taking the lead into they took us to a dead end.  I got us into the middle to see the cow! Shame it wasn't a chicken!