Out and about, part 1

What did I say the other day about being a more regular blogger?  Anyhow, we'll gloss over that and get back to the business at hand.  With the return of the sunshine of the last few weeks, we've been able to get out and about and what better thing to do that introduce one of your old childhood haunts to your own munchkin?  So the other weekend on the way to visit my grandparents, we stopped off at Hylands Park.  These days it's probably best known as one of the venues of the V festival but when I grew up, it was my local park and where we went most weeks to walk the dog. 

 There are acres and acres of grounds to walk round and apart from around the main house, it's allowed to stay pretty wild.  What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than wandering through all the wildflowers?  When I was little, the house was just a wreck although the formal gardens were always kept up and they're still beautiful now.

 The house looks fab since they've done it up, the white stone really glows in the sunshine.  Nice cafe in the stableblock too, secondhand book stall, obigatory plant stall and touristy shop.  In fact, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were at a National Trust property.  Still, the cake was nice, the tea pot was huge, the sun was shining....


Found some rather cool art work in the grounds too with little animals and plants carved into all the nooks and crannies.  We were all very impressed. It's by a local artist Michael Barter, you can check out his website too.