The Monastery Garden

The monastery garden was taken care of by Brother Anthony when I was assistant manager at the gift shop at Prinknash Abbey, almost twenty years ago. He retired from gardening shortly afterwards, and the garden fell into disrepair. Now there are fewer monks (but we saw a young one today!) and they’ve moved back to the Tudor building, St Peter’s grange. The garden is managed by secular wildlife gardeners and maybe some community service volunteers. The shop and cafe are more homely and appropriate in tone than when I worked there.

We popped in on the way back from Cheltenham, where we had attempted to shop for funeral trousers for Steve. That had not been a great success, so we went to John Lewis and looked at Mac Minis instead. Thence to the Abbey, where although the cafe had just stopped serving hot food, they kindly made an egg and bacon bao for Steve. He said it was very good.

In the garden, all was lovely, as above, and we sat there awhile. In the garden at home, some washing had dried on the line! I hung out some more, then it was back to booking more nights at B and B’s, and more train tickets.

I had home made meatballs again for supper, and then started repairing a scarf from the glam-rock era that my mother had used to dress a plaster cast on her leg in 1972! It was badly torn, so I had to cut off a section and reattach the fringe to the new end. It still has a couple of small holes, but it will be ok for wearing to my. Mother’s funeral, to lighten the somber look. Some older family members may even remember it.