Lesson For The Day

SATURDAY

We drive north -   an hour into mid- Devon to Bampton on the edges of Exmoor ....for lunch at the Bridge House - the hotel/restaurant owned by the couple who used to run my favourite cafe in Topsham....

and we sit in the  sloping garden at the back by the fish pond...

and have lovely salads - couscous and halloumi cheese/ smoked trout and peashoots -  in the shade of an umbrella...

and wisteria dripping over the fence above us.

I liked having our  iced water in a milk bottle - I didn't know you could still get milk in bottles.

 I'd have liked to walk a while on the moor but my husband didn't feel up to it and after Friday I've learnt it's better to just go with his mood. I said we could always go for a walk later when it was cooler. But we didn't. Which was just how it was on Saturday.

SUNDAY

I pack a picnic and we head off to the National Trust's Montacute House in Somerset. We've been before but my husband doesn't remember it till we get  there.  We are immediately enveloped by the glorious perfume of the lime trees in full bloom - towering above us.

And immediately taking me back to a holiday we had in Greece with dear friends on the island where we honeymooned....and a long lunch we all ate under a cool canopy of linden blossom buzzing with bees.

Fig...

Gladioli -the colour of limes...

Clematis....

Spiny Bear's Breech....

thank you, Belinda for identifying it for me...

Verbena and open kitchen windows...

The Elizabethan facade of Montacute  House...

"Damn - I left the keys to the Jag inside...!"

Can't remember the name of this one...

Hollyhock - dark as claret....

Daisy....

This is the flower of the plant behind the rose....

Osteopermum....I think...

Dahlia and bee

Echinacea

Antirrhinum

Holllyhock

Nicotiana

These little bottles  of Chrysanths were on the picnic table where we stopped at the side of the A303 to have  made-on-the-farm  ice-cream on the way home, just missing by moments a horrible accident involving lots of mangled up cars.

Lesson for the day....have no expectations that today will be anything like yesterday ...or the day before....Friday's despair dissolved as we walked around this beautiful garden and even explored the rooms in the house full of paintings and tapestries.... as my husband said he really enjoyed himself. So I did too.

TODAY in Sidmouth

where we had a tiny promenade along the sea front, avoiding the crowds on the beach,

after my husband's session in the safe hands of our wonderful EFT counsellor who always finds a way to touch his heart. This time she asked him what he would say to himself if he was being his own intuitive healer and he said, 

Trust my ability.

Which means giving up trying to be perfect....and getting it right all the time. 

Something I could do too.