Wrest Park

I have taken a month long break from blogging, the longest break that I have taken for a year and a half! This is partly because we have been sooo busy and partly (mainly) because the camera broke. Once it had broken, we took some pictures on hubby's phone, some on mine and some on an old and rather large camera. Eventually the idea of sorting through all those pics was daunting and I kept putting it off...BUT here we are again :))) Now to remember what we were doing when the pictures were taken...
At the beginning of April we went down South for my Great Aunt's 90th birthday party!
I crocheted her a shawl which I did worry was too fuddy duddy but she appreciates handmade gifts.
The car ride down was long so we stopped off halfway at an English Heritage site called Wrest Park.
The present house was built in 1834-39, to designs by its owner the Thomas de Grey, 2nd Earl de Grey, an amateur architect, who was inspired by buildings he had seen on trips to Paris.



My favourite room :)
The house was lovely but what we REALLY needed was to stretch our legs and with 150 acres, these gardens had plenty of space to do that.





Looking at a sundial when no sun was shining :)
Kiki, looking for spring.

Swan's nest.
first buds!
frog spawn



frog and toad spawn. The long strings are toad spawn apparently.

And what I can't capture in the pictures was the bird sounds, they were SO LOUD! I took this picture to show how many birds there were :)