Just a brief post of record really. My latest visit was last Tuesday with my bridge partner, Daphne, and her visiting 95-year-old aunt, Vera. But we didn’t see much of The Newt, because, despite the fact that we met up in the car park at 2.30, we sat talking in the café in the Story of Gardening until we were kicked out as the café was closing, and then we were kicked out of the gardens before we had completed our wander around, again because they were closing.
I say ‘kicked out’. We were in fact treated with the utmost courtesy by the staff. The car park is some way from the entrance, and we were met on time by pre-arrangement by a buggy, and were driven to the Threshing Barn, where we were lent a wheelchair.

Daphne and Vera had not managed to have a post-prandial coffee, and I’m always game for refreshments, so we made for the café at the far end of the deer park, on the grounds it was likely to be less crowded. (In the event there were not many people anywhere.)

I did do my share of pushing, honest. Indeed, the beginning part of the walk there was up a very steep hill, and even with two of us I had to ask for a short stop.
We were pleased to find that the deer park lived up to its name, and saw the group of fallow deer.





The main entrance to the café had a notice on it directing us to this side door.

We did not notice the time pass, as we consumed the delicious coffee and cake that Vera treated us to, and put the world to rights. In (over)due course we made our way back to the main area, this time with the brakes on down the steep hill, and started to walk around the most accessible bits of the garden, once Daphne had bought a few bits in the farm shop. The Newt is clearly between seasons, but with lots of signs of glorious things to come shortly.



We didn’t get to go in the greenhouse, since a nice young man explained to us that it was past closing time…

But there was still a buggy to get us all back to the car park.