A bright and sunny day, if not as warm as we would like so we decided to go to the annual Shepton Mallet open garden day. I refer you to the corresponding entry this time last year when you will see what we did. This year from the administrative point of view it was a disappointment. The map was far from clear, the number of open gardens was reduced by 25%, the flags, bunting and signaling that we were used to seeing in previous years were not there so it took us about half an hour to find out where the first one was.

I was not particularly inspired by any garden except the last one see below so we went to a garden that we had previously visited. They were offering tea coffee and cakes for a donation for local worthy causes. It was just nice to sit in the sun and stare at the clouds below and have small talk with the others sitting there

At a garden in Southfield Road

A rotted tree trunk but what a style!

a small rivulet giving on to a stream at the end of the garden.

a central feature with a small fountain brings the garden to life

I like gardens that ask a question which in this case is, ‘what is going on at the bottom and where do the paths lead? The garden is full of variety but not too busy and as the owner said, you will find it difficult to find a straight line.

In retrospect some of the gardens that I was looking forward to seeing were not open. I wanted to continue the conversation with those owners alas that was not to be. I wonder why at least eight people did not volunteer again to offer their gardens. The fingers point to lack of planning and lack of management; perhaps also the people of last year were not appreciated enough or  feel appreciated.

Our appetite for visiting the gardens was definitely less than last year plus the fact that my stomach was giving me some trouble so we decided to go home and drove through largely deserted roads.