Back to RHS Bridgewater

Friday again … aren’t the weeks whizzing past?!  I hope you’ve had a good one!

I took this photo on Monday’s dog walk – look at that sky!

Nine Arches, Sankey Valley Park

First of all, let me say a huge THANK YOU! to everyone who has bought my patterns over the last week.  Wow, I didn’t expect such a response and I am very grateful that you have chosen my patterns to add to your projects queues.  If you’re new to the blog and have no idea what I’m on about, then last week I released five patterns which had previously been published in magazines but are now mine to share (there are agreements about rights with magazines which mean you can’t share them yourself for a certain length of time).

I do hope that you thoroughly enjoy knitting the patterns and don’t forget to let me know how you get on as I would love to see your socks!

In all of the pattern excitement of last week, I didn’t get chance to tell you about my trips (yes, two in one week!) back to RHS Bridgewater.  I am certainly making the most of my membership whilst I can!  A friend had mentioned that she would like to visit so we went early on Monday morning, complete with our brew and a picnic; the cafe there is extremely busy but actually, it was so much nicer to sit on a bench outside.

There is something very calming about sitting amongst the flowers, knowing that there’s nowhere else you need to be right at that moment – and also that they are not your flower beds and therefore there is no work for you to do on them.  I don’t think I have ever been as much of a Garden Appreciator as I have been just recently sitting on the benches at the RHS garden and listening to the hum of the bees and the distant conversations of other people.  I’m trying really hard at the moment to make time in my week for things that make me happy (the downside of working for yourself is that it can be really hard to stop working) and I was very happy sitting there with my brew in my hand.

I went back to Bridgewater on Thursday evening for their first Walkies event.  Dogs aren’t usually welcomed into the garden but this was a special evening opening when you could take your four-legged friend and walk around all the gardens and the lake as the sun went down.  Another friend came with me and borrowed her neighbours’ dog so that we could walk together.  My boy is a sociable chap and didn’t at all mind having a companion to walk with!

We were able to go into all the walled gardens and right around the lake – we decided that as the sun was already starting to go down that we would walk that way round and then finish in the walled gardens closer to the welcome building as it got darker.

It was really quite busy with lots of people taking the opportunity to walk their dogs, and my dog was beside himself with excitement at the whole experience.

I’d love to tell you that we had a leisurely stroll around the gardens but sadly not.  If you’ve ever flown a kite and experienced that moment as it starts to fall from the sky, twisting and turning and trying to wrench the string from your hands before crashing into the undergrowth, then you will understand what it was like walking my giddy hound around the paths in the darkening twilight.

“Sit by this lake and have your photo taken,” I told him.

But no, he was far too excited to sit anywhere to have his photo taken.  If you think this photo is a bit blurry, this is the best of them all as the rest of them were more like this …

It reminded me of the day that we took part in a Race for Life event which is a 5 km (3 mile) charity run/jog/walk to raise money for cancer research.  The walkers, which make up the biggest group and of which we were part, set off last after the runners and joggers and then you can take as long as you like to walk the course.  It’s a fun event – but not when you have a dog that really wants to be at the front and not just at the front of the walking crowd.  I have never walked 3 miles so fast in my life.  In fact, there were moments when I seriously thought that I was just going to be dragged on the ground in cartoon style behind this crazy dog that wanted to win some kind of time trial trophy!  Anyway, you get the picture and for some reason the dog seemed to think that this was a similar kind of event.

By the (record) time we got back to the walled gardens, the light was fading fast.  We had been given some guidelines on how our dogs should behave – one of them was that dogs were not allowed in the water.  It was like this when we got there, honestly!

Once the light starts to go, it goes fast, doesn’t it?

The coffee van at this side of the garden was still open so we stopped for a brew and to admire the moon.  My photos don’t do it justice but it was huge and golden, a proper harvest moon – absolutely beautiful.  The dog wasn’t impressed and didn’t even want to sit down whilst we had a brew.  What a pest!

We didn’t sit for long as the garden was closing so we headed back to the welcome building and wondered how the staff would make sure that everybody was out as it would be a long night if you were shut in!

It was a lovely evening and I did enjoy the evening sounds and scents which are always different to what you experience during the day.  I hope that the staff at Bridgewater felt that the event was a success – if it was then I’m quite sure it will be on again, but whether I’ll take the canine kite with me again is still up for debate … I’m sure I’d have a much calmer walk with a stuffed toy! 🙂

Finally for today, I have recently been speaking to Lindsay from the Making Stitches podcast and her podcast featuring some sock knitter called Winwick Mum is live today.  Lindsay has spoken to some really interesting people for her podcasts and I was delighted to be asked to be among them.

If you click this link here, it should take you to the podcasts page so that you can listen to it if you’d like to.  There’s a trailer of what’s coming up in this season’s podcasts, and depending on your podcast player, you might need to go to find the next episode as it may not link automatically.  I must warn you that the sound quality isn’t excellent on my part in places as I don’t have any equipment for recording conversations, but Lindsay sounds fabulous! 🙂