Started off by being entertained by a young mum in the café with two young girls, not twins but maybe threeish. We were reminded of what hard work two small children are, even when well behaved as these two were, when there is only one of you. The young mum seemed to be speaking French and English indifferently, the English at least without any accent that I could catch, but the occasion to find out why this might be so did not arise.
Spring bulbs in the wilderness more or less over so moved on into the apprentices' garden on the far side of the north canal. The garden was looking well with the many shades of green of all the new and old growth on the various trees on offer. I was also pleased to note that the apprentices were being trained in the ancient art of broad beans, a vegetable important enough to earn several mentions in the novels of Thomas Hardy.
From thence to inspect the birds of the north and south canals and then onto take a look at the big border, illustrated. Not all that much in flower but everything was on the move and the large white irises looked very well. With an odd softness, a slight furriness to the petals.
From thence to the privy garden (to the left, over the wall of the big border), which was looking very well indeed from the eastern terrace in the bright morning sunlight. The wooden steps at the end of the terrace were out of action, being more or less rebuilt, not so many years after they were so carefully built, presumably to some design from the original garden. With hindsight, I think, a mistake and it would have been better to do something which lasted rather longer - while not doing away completely with the open design of the wooden steps which stopped them looking too massive against their grass bank. But the pile of wooden wedges in the illustration to the previous post suggests that they are going to persist with the wood. Maybe they will think of some cunning new treatment or source some cunning timber from an endangered rain forest and get a longer life this time round.
And lastly to the two sunken gardens, both looking very well. One floral, one green. For an illustration of sorts see July 7th 2012, in the other place.
Lunched in the Pizza Express opposite the railway station. A meal as pleasant as expected, despite my four seasons pizza being very light on cheese and rather too heavy on spice & flavour for my taste. The pizza appeared to have been made by smearing some tomato paste on the bread base and then adding the toppings, more or less missing out the cheese bit. The menu did show some signs of kow-towing to the slimmers with a lot of leggeras scattered about, so that may have been the excuse. Washed down with a glass of moscato.
Sitting near the dough operator, we also got to see the process whereby the frozen pats of dough (delivered by the score in stout cardboard boxes) got turned into the various cooked offerings on sale. A process which involved a lot of very artisanale wooden trays for use in the thawing out process.
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