Danger!

These birds at Iffley Lock laugh in the face of danger. I took lovely lodger Carmen to Iffley Village open gardens where for a fiver you get to nose around some pretty spectacular gardens and there’s the added bonus of home baked cakes in the village hall.

The (quintessentially English) village charmed Carmen, but it was the gardens that really impressed. A door in a stone wall led us into a seemingly never-ending paradise of formal Italianate gardens, ponds, climbing roses weaving through impressive pergolas, a lake and a wild garden finishing at the river (where these birds were spotted). We ended the day with a cool drink at Tanya and Thermos’s place - who were sacked from open gardens 12 years ago for not being up to scratch and have happily enjoyed their garden ever since.