Snowdrops

It was a cold but beautiful day today, the day of the U3A gardening group visit to see the snowdrops at Kailzie Gardens.  Lady Angela showed us around, first telling us a bit about the old house that used to stand just over the bridge.  It was once her husband’s home but it was demolished  around 50 years ago because of dry rot that riddled the building back then.  She says it was a horrible old building, but I think the pictures I have seen of it have been quite attractive.  The view was pretty special though. This would have been the view from the back of the house.  The front would overlook the garden, facing up the burn – the stream or creek.

 

This is the same view over to the hills east of Peebles.  I liked the shadows of us!  It’s probably the first time we’ve seen our shadows this year!  Gives you the feeling that spring is coming!

I think the snowdrops themselves show that spring isn’t far away.  There don’t seem  to be quite so many snowdrops this year, but there were still carpets of them, most  of them being the most common variety of galanthus nivalis,

but there were some whose name I don’t remember, like these, below. 

We had a very pleasant    afternoon  in the gardens.

This is Jennie getting up close and personal with the snowdrops.

Of course I did my share of photographing them too, but I only had my wee compact - on automatic!

 

 

 

 

Still, it doesn’t do so badly!

Anyway a garden visit usually ends up with tea and a cake or something so of course we repaired to the Kailzie stables restaurant.  No horses there now but some of the stalls are still in the building, and the tearoom is located in what I imagine was the tack-room, extending into the carriage building.

Lovely place, but no chocolate and beetroot cake today!  So I hope you enjoyed our little tiptoe through the tu…….. oops, snowdrops!  I’ll have to see what the snowdrops are like at Dawyck next!

Talk again soon.