A private view

I often joke that we regard Benmore Gardens as our own domain - we're there so often - but this evening/late afternoon (about 6pm: what do you call that?) I felt we were utterly privileged to be entirely alone in this beautiful place. The sun was almost gone from the upper garden, slanting down through the trees before vanishing behind the sheltering hill, but it was still shining on the ornamental pond and its reviving colours that until a couple of weeks ago were still just a memory.

Shortly after I took this, I crept along the path to the squirrel hide. It's locked when the gardens close, but I realised as I arrived that there was indeed a red squirrel perched on one of the feeding boxes. Hard to get close enough to capture a good still with the phone, but my extra photo is as good as I could manage.