The weekend

It’s the weekend again, and yesterday Linda and I had our weekly get-together.  We had lunch at a restaurant looking out at the Forth Bridges at South Queensferry, before driving along the coast a bit to a rather nice garden centre set amongst mature  woodland on the estate of  the Earl of  Hopetoun.  You have to take a look at Lord Hopetoun’s ‘pile’ .  It’s something else!  One of these days I’ll have to pay it another visit as I probably haven’t been there since my school days.   However today was just a garden visit as I wanted to buy some daffodil bulbs for my little garden, and now’s the time.  There was quite a choice of varieties so I filled a £3.99 bag full of mixed bulbs, which I will plant to come up in a big clump under the apple  and pear trees.  That flowerbed needs to be cleared out so this will be an opportunity to restock it! 

  The autumn colours were starting to look very pretty even if the gardens themselves are looking a bit shaggy so I took lots of photos of little corners here and there, as well as general views.    I thought of buying a couple of plants for winter colour, like skimmias with their bright red berries or cyclamen in shades of pink,  but in the end,  came home with just the bulbs.

I bought more at IKEA on the way home!   No, not more bulbs, but more purchases!   My idea had been just to check out a curtain rail to put up in my bedroom, but I came out with a footstool, a cushion for my computer chair – nice and comfortable – and a couple of smart boxes to use as IN and OUT trays for bills and things!

The computer desk is going to be in the hall, once I clear some junk out of that corner and build the flat pack file drawers I bought ages ago– though I am sure I will find myself gravitating to the living room with the ‘notebook’!   However at least it will be an area to have all my stationery stuff in!  I have a decided lack of storage space in this house!  At the moment nothing is organised – I can see Linda, Morag, David, Colin and several other friends nodding their heads vigorously  in agreement with that statement, but I DO intend to get organised…. one day!  Hopefully this will be a start!  I had better find some boxes to put stuff in to take to the charity shop!

Well, after that digression, let me get back to the Hopetoun Garden Centre…. it wasn’t really warm enough to sit outside in the garden for our cup of tea, but we enjoyed the view of it from the tearoom inside, then back outside again we wandered some more.  Apart from plants

 

and pots and the usual sorts of things you can get in your local garden centre, at this one you can even buy a ruin to hide away in a corner, perhaps!

 

 

 

or you might just prefer something a little more subtle – a statue, maybe, or just a garden gnome!

 

 

 

 

I’d have been happy to take Basil, the resident cat, a lovely friendly creature, who has obviously spotted something interesting in the “Search and Rescue” section!   My garden wouldn’t be much fun for him though, considering the huge exciting area he has the run of here!

I did find the exact climbing rose I want for my garden  though – even if they only had the picture just now. I had this one climbing up my house in Yorkshire and loved it!  Here it won’t be able to climb on the house but I have plans for it, involving posts and a rope as a divider in my garden!  So many ideas, but I just have to get the other ideas into operation first!! 

Talk again soon.