Yesterday I drove down to Surrey taking a break en route at Lyveden Newbield for a picnic which I ate beside the water and a look round this unfinished Elizabethan garden house. I didn't spend much time looking at the grounds as I wanted to be on the M25 before it underwent its twice daily metamorphosis into the world's biggest carpark. As it was the traffic was moving at a steady 70 for most of the M11 and M25, although on each I witnessed an almost identical example of driving worthy of 'Police, camera, Action' when a car undertook at great speed on the hard shoulder and then lane jumped this way and that until it vanished into the distance.
Today we visted Michelham Priory and Wakehurst Place - two truly lovely gardens. At Michelham the garden is the setting for a jewel of a house which is marginally spoiled for me by the fact that none of the rooms we see are furnished for living, although I did like the display of contemprary pots in one of the rooms - accompanied by a different friend my admiration might have turned into a purchase, but Liz and I are neither of us natural shoppers.
At Wakehurst the house is virtually devoid of furnishings, but had a rather lovely exhibition of photographs.
The weather was pleasant and sunny - warm, but not too hot.
