Eryngium Equilibrium

My brother managed to get a day off work today so we decided another micro trip was in order. We didn't feel like going very far at all so we headed back to Great Comp Garden which is only about 20 minutes away from home by car. There were dark clouds when we left but by the time we arrived the sun had broken through and it was gloriously sunny.
It's a lovely seven acre garden set around a Georgian farmhouse in the tiny hamlet of Comp. It's not that far from a very busy main road but you feel like you're in a completely different world and it's a fantastically tranquil place to go to restore your sense of equilibrium with beautiful planting and fabulous vistas.
Today's shot is of a wonderfully striking plant called Eryngium in one of the flowerbeds. One of its colloquial names is Sea Holly, although strangely it is not actually a member of the holly family but is in fact a herb. It can be used as food or for medicinal purposes. In Iran it is used in a herbal tea to lower blood sugar, in Jordan it is used in a remedy to treat scorpion stings and in tropical parts of America and Asia it has a culinary use with a tase similar to coriander or cilantro. Sorry went a bit overboard with the plant facts there!
After enjoying our sublimely calming walk around the garden we felt we 'deserved' a pub lunch so we stopped at The Kings Arms, which dates back to the 17th Century, in the nearby village of Offham. The food was good and our pints even better. I love a bit of people watching in a pub too - there was a member of staff taking their slightly over eager new puppy out for a walk and a neighbour who'd come in for his usual pint having recently fallen off a ladder (he had a huge plaster on the back of his head). I hope he wasn't heading back up that ladder any time soon!