An English country garden

The rich and not-so-famous Australian media magnate opens the gardens to his stately pile in the depths of East Dorset once a year. Fortunately, aged friend, who appears to have lost no end of weight since she gave up going to the gym, has one of those books which tell you when the hoi polloi are allowed entrance to private properties. We try to encourage the other member of the Last of the Summer Wine contingent to join us; sadly she feels overtaken and overcome by work. But, AF has also invited a man! Shock! Horror! Said bloke belongs to someone else but is tagging along, fortuitously as it eventually transpires.


After they demand coffee and cake the minute they arrive at the joint, I leave to wander amongst bright orange honeysuckle, sweet-smelling white wisteria and a couple of stone lions. I look out over a pasture where a few well-chosen specimens of award winning horned sheep graze and give myself a well-earned pat on the back for remembering to bring along my note-pad. I then embark on a session of self-harming in order to draw blood to write with as I have forgotten a pen. Actually, I didn’t really do that: I retraced my steps and borrowed a biro.

AF and mushroom expert friend reappear replenished. I think I will find him extremely annoying. I don’t. We take a slow walk along the banks of the River Allen and all the tributaries that have been made to feed Stanbridge Mill which was mentioned in the Domesday Book. Mushroom expert turns out to know everything there is worth knowing about nature. In this respect, he’s a bit like Bob. (You’ll have to search the blog archives if you can’t remember who Bob is). He’s far more spiritual than Bob. And he’s so laid-back he’s positively horizontal. As we traverse the water meadows, he points out all sorts of things I would have missed and also teaches us how to differentiate between birdsong. I now know how to identify a Reed Warbler! By song….the others pretended they could see one; I didn’t believe them.

By far my favourite new piece of knowledge is the exploding bulrushes. I was so excited that I was forced to rush ahead and write this phrase down. For this information alone I offered to share my packed lunch with the mushroom expert. Naturally, he declined, initially suggesting that I wouldn’t have anything suitable for a vegetarian. Clearly, this bloke is not familiar with the contents of my fridge which are sparse to say the least. However, even I can do a turn with cheese sarnies made with brown bread and no butter, cold cheese pizza and a bunch of grapes. I only had one hard-boiled egg though and not enough altruism to share it.

Stanbridge Mill, once owned by Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake& Palmer fame is an absolute delight. Pity they don’t let us in a bit more often.