Shiny Happy day out at Nyman's

The Sock and her friend Lazy Trollop went for a wander around Nyman's on Thursday - a day well chosen being the warmest of the year so far. The very best sort of Spring day brilliant deep blue skies the first fresh burst of buds blossoming on the trees...

Shiny Happy People* enjoying the sunshine..

Shiny Happy leaves unfurling on a copper beech

A chance to practice with the macro lens showed just how extraordinarily intricate and beautiful the details are

Shiny Happy magnolias

The Sock was going to show you a picture of a Shiny Happy Lazy Trollop but she might retaliate with a picture of the Sock on her blog. Thus we have established a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario.

Wisteria in waiting...

The walled garden was carpeted with a wonderful mix of frittilaria and daffodils providing a naturalistic display of colour and texture that the Sock wouldn't have expected to work but somehow did. The Sock's never had much luck with the meagre clumps of frittilaria planted in the past and they looked so much better planted en masse. Sadly my photos of the larger display failed to do them justice so all you get to see is a clump.

Nyman's 'Bulb of the Month' was frittilaria persica - a great choice and made the Sock want to rush out and buy some.

So drawing on all her critical faculties how would the Sock assess these gardens?

Well they were lovely, just absolutely lovely, everything that Spring should be about. Blue skies and Shiny Happy People.

Although if you want just one teensy little criticism... the Sock would have liked a nice cheese scone to go with her quite good veg soup in the café.  Nobody EVER does nice cheese scones any more!


* In the unlikely event you should want to refresh your memory of the Shiny Happy People song you can singalong with it here