Horse Chestnut Leaves - Pattern

Len only had himself to blame for not going out today. He said he wanted to lie in bed. Very well, if that's what he wants...When he asked me at 2.30 pm if we were going to the Gardeners' Fair in Loughborough, I reminded him. Plus it was getting too late.

Basil and I went out with Cecily to Garendon Park. The weather might not have been bright and sunny but it had the softness of Spring about it. A good light for photography. Some massive horse chestnut trees as we entered the park beautifully in bloom with their conical flowers. And lots of Spring flowers, speedwell, red campion, ground ivy, dandelions just going over, still bluebells.

Wheat is thrusting green. We met a chap with a very small dog, who, like Basil, was also a rescue, who used to work on the Garendon Estate when it was a game farm. Shooting ceased when the land was bought by Persimmon for building and opened up to the peasantry. He told me how he'd had to clear a garden of wild garlic because the pheasants wouldn't walk through it and how it had been a German POW camp during WW2. One of the Germans had married a Shepshed girl. My informant went to school with his son.

On leaving the park my eye was taken with how these fresh young horse chestnut leaves created a pattern.