The traffic on Friday was about as bad as we feared it would be, and reminded us why normally we aim not to go anywhere on a Bank Holiday. The R2 traffic report warned of a snarl-up on the M25 around the Waltham Abbey area, so we took the A414 across through to Hatfield, which cost us time, and then there was a slight delay caused by a small shunt near Reading, and a serious delay caused by a really nasty accident a little further on, where somebody had smeared their car over the central reservation, and were being cut free by the fire brigade. That lost us another three quarters of an hour, then there were roadworks on the M4 near Bristol. Fortunately the Systems Administrator knows the local roads around there, having stayed many times with race-going friends who used to live there, so was able to by-pass the roadworks by the counter-intuitive expedient of cutting north of the motorway despite the fact that we were heading south, and rejoining the M5 just the other side of the works. Still, having left home at half past nine, we rolled through the gates of Knightshayes Court outside Tiverton at five to four.
Knightshayes is a National Trust property. The house, a Victorian gothic extravaganza, is closed on Fridays. The house and garden both shut at five, so it didn't matter that the house wasn't open, as we wouldn't have had time to look at it anyway. We had a rather quick scramble around the garden, and saw the terraces near the house, which have some very nice dry garden planting, and the large lily pond surrounded by yew hedges and adjacent yew hedge with a topiary fox hunt along the top, which is the iconic image of Knightshayes used in most books that mention it. There are extensive woodland walks underplanted with azaleas, Cornus, and the usual suspects that you find that kind of garden, and a large parkland with interesting trees, but we scarcely had time to look at those. The walled kitchen garden is now back in production, growing vegetables for the cafe and flowers for the house, and last entry to that was at 4.30pm whereas we got to that part at twenty to five. The SA was turning obediently away from the gate as bidden, when I asked the youthful guardian of the garden with my best appealing expression and largest brown eyes if we couldn't have a very quick look, since we had driven all the way from Essex and the traffic had been dreadful, if we faithfully promised to be out by five. He sighed and let us in. Looking at anything against the clock is never the best way to enjoy it, and we only really got a taster of Knightshayes. It would be worth revisiting, though I can't think when we'll be travelling that way again, and it's a pity we were so late getting there, since this is a good time of year to see it, with the azaleas in bloom and the shrub roses just coming out.
The wedding was very nice. It was good to see the relations, and the venue was relaxed and stylish, the flowers simple and extremely well done, the food and drink good and plentiful, the bride's dress lovely, the page boys and bridesmaids cute, and all the things you'd hope for from a wedding. There's no point in reviewing it in detail, since it isn't as if it's going on a national tour and you could buy tickets if you liked the sound of it. We learnt that the run up had about as many panics as you'd expect, including the bride changing her mind about the dress, and Parcelforce last week delivering all the morning suits to a sixteen year old boy in Oakham, while the t-shirt he'd ordered was sent to the groom's brother. The sixteen year old showed commendable initiative and responsibility in that having opened the parcel (you'd have thought he'd be suspicious that it was a bit large for one t-shirt) and discovered it contained several morning suits for a wedding the coming weekend, he tracked down our nephew's phone number and rang up to explain he had the suits and thought they might be wanted urgently.
On the way back we made a small detour to Malmesbury to visit Abbey House Gardens. These have been created since the mid 1990s by a delightfully eccentric pair of (occasionally nudist) hippies. I first saw them on Gardeners World about ten years ago, when he, decorously clad in a loincloth, was driving a digger around the garden of the fabulous house he'd bought next to the ruins of Malmesbury Abbey, and it's featured in the garden magazines since. It is a wonderfully exuberant garden and I recommend it highly, if you are ever travelling in the direction of Bristol. The upper part of the garden, next to the house and within the shadow of the abbey, has a formal layout with yew hedges and (small) vistas that end in focal points like vistas should, but the planting within the hedges is joyfully chaotic and colourful, and there are jokes, like the big yew ball clipped into a giant face. There is a laburnum tunnel, not so large as the one at Bodnant but looking very good at the moment as the laburnum is out, and lots of pergolas and arches dripping with wisteria and roses, and wooden edged raised beds that invoke the spirit of the medieval herb garden. Then you enter an entirely different world, as the garden sits on the edge of a steep hillside running down to the river and some monastic fish ponds. That is planted up with trees and and an understorey of shrubs and herbaceous plants, including some superb Japanese maples and quite rare woodlanders, and you can descend via zig-zag paths to the river. The rain, which had temporarily cleared as we arrived at the garden, started again as we explored the lower part, and we sheltered underneath a Japanese style gateway (remarkably rainproof) watching the raindrops bounce off the fishpond and the river, while steam rose from the vegetation on the opposite bank. It was very atmospheric and charming, and we had the lower garden entirely to ourselves. It was a wonderful garden, and quite made up for the disappointment of the rushed visit to Knightshayes. We'd like to go back, though not on one of the nudist days.
When we got home the cats seemed entirely unruffled by our absence. They ate their tea, and curled up beside us in the sitting room and went to sleep, which is always a good sign.
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