Birthday treat.

It’s about 6 weeks since our birthdays at the beginning of July but today was the day for a treat. Grace and John bought us annual membership to The Newt, Somerset, about an hours drive away from Bath near Bruton. ( You may have heard of it as sponsors of this year’s  Chelsea Flower Show)
It was actually for Chris I think but today, as an RHS member he was allowed in free (Tues and Thurs ) so we took out the membership in my name so we both got in for nothing. The membership lasts for a year so we can return and also use it to get into various other places, largely in Cornwall but it does include the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, for free.

We had a lovely time exploring the various gardens in this huge apple producing estate. The current owners were vineyard owners in South Africa and now make cider. There are apples everywhere you look.
The house, and various other buildings dating originally from the late 17th century, now house a hotel. There is quite a lot of walking so if your are staying at the hotel you get the use of an electric golf style cart.

I thought the Cottage garden here was particularly pretty and in the Parabola there was a twisting arch with Sunflowers, gourds and squashes. Quite unusual. Lots of hot colours everywhere - extra. The Parabola used to be the kitchen garden and houses many varieties of apple ( over 300) representing all the counties in which they grow. The trees are trained to form curious shapes and form a Baroque-style maze described as - An homage to la pomme!

There are several restaurants and we used a voucher included in our gift to book lunch in the Garden Cafe. All the produce is from the garden so largely plant based though not strictly vegetarian. You can add meat or cheese if you want. I had some local Sutton Brau cheese which is very similar to Halloumi and Chris added beef to his choice. Lovely as these were we could have done without as we were over faced. Didn’t stop us having puds though! ( Had a cider of course to accompany it all)

After lunch we walked through the orchards to the Four Seasons Garden. Quite a walk, we had a cuppa in the little tea shop at the end and then had to make a quick walk back to make the farm shop before they closed. Made our purchases and drove out at 5.00 pm in the dot.

A fabulous day out, thank you so much Grace and John.