Roses, Roses All The Way

I was surprised to see these roses still blooming outside Vogrie House in the middle of November.

It took us a while to get there; having decided to go we remembered that to exit the carpark we needed £3 in coin but had none - in fact we had no cash at all. So we called in to Tesco on the way for shopping and planned to obtain change by Cashback at the checkout. However, we were told that Tesco no longer do cashback, there's an ATM outside. 'But they only give notes', we cried and approached Customer Services to ask if they could help. No, sorry, they couldn't, you have to go to a bank. Tesco's has a bank, hasn't it? Not for us, apparently .

So we collected our notes from the ATM (all £20's, no £10's) and made a stop in Dalkeith to change some into £1 coins.

Eventually we did enjoy our walk, examining a recently-felled huge beech tree and chatting to a gentleman who explained that the wood was available to anyone who could carry it - but no chain saws allowed! We pottered past the pond to find the cafe open so went in for a welcome cuppa before taking in the rest of the park (having taken my photos for Blip). And, just for fun, we returned to the big beech tree and carried off a couple of modest branches for Miss Flum's wood burning stove.

When we left we discovered that it is possible to pay the car park by card but the signal is poor and the process may take some time, so maybe it was worth fussing about for coins - we now have £7 in hand for church coffees and the like.