Abbey House Gardens, Malmesbury

In our quest to see as many historic houses/gardens before they start closing for the season, we chose the Abbey House Gardens at Malmesbury for our trip today. The sun was out, and the birds singing...


CleanSteve has written about our trip, to save me doing so. What I really, really wanted to see was the mediaeval stone coffin that was uncovered in 1997 while the garden was being re-created, but it was situated on the top lawn where the wedding party was assembled, so I decided to leave it for another day. We shall return. If I lived in Malmesbury, I'd probably pop in every day to sit in the serenity of the refreshment area, surrounded by foliage and the sounds of running water.

The Olympus Tough is not great at wide shots, so I took but a few, and concentrated more on close shots. I sort of wish I could remember to take out the 50D a bit more often! It's much better at colour repro. I've chosen this clematis as my blip because I have a soft spot for them, and I greatly admired the colour of this one.

After we'd got home and I was cooking supper, my neighbour T came round to ask if we'd seen Molly, their cat, whom I once blipped. T hasn't seen her for a week, and she hasn't been back for food, which she usually does every day. She's feral, about 23 years old according to T, and sleeps in our bottom shed. Unfortunately for a feral cat, she's long haired and usually rather matted. We had a look around our garden, and the other neighbour's, but saw no sign of her. I came back and spoke to CleanSteve, who said he'd seen her more recently, eating food out by T"s front door. That's encouraging, sort of.

Later still, we tried to watch Strictly because I want to know what is so gripping about it, but we got a bit fed up of all the introductions, so kept changing over. I doubt if it'll ever be my watercooler topic of conversation. It might be time to join a book group....