A little outing...

Yesterday we took Dylan and Edith to Normanby Hall. When we were there on Tuesday (Martin went golfing) we bought a season pass since it pays for itself with just two trips. I decided it would be a good place to spend lots of time and let Dylan run around to his heart's content, and I decided that we would milk it for every penny!

The picture above is of the Victorian walled garden. It is incredibly beautiful and functional, with vegetables growing amidst herbaceous borders and flowers of all kind. They have fruit trees trained flat along walls and into low lying borders and the tall walls create an incredible micro-climate that allows them to grow figs even in a cool climate. Dylan had a great time "helping" a few of the gardeners rake paths, and they were good to let him.

We also had a good time chasing the peacocks and looking at butterflies and ladybugs, which there are a ton of at the moment! A ladybug flew onto Dylan's face at one point, and he squealed like a little girl and flapped around in a low level panic until we got it off!

Normanby hall has a deer park, the hall (of course), a formal garden, acres and acres of lawn, a golf course, a duck pond, an adventure playground, a farming museum, a model railway, a butterfly border, and lots of woodland. It is incredibly beautiful right now!

England in the summer is intense! I much prefer spring, with it's tender buds and delicate blooms, and the way green slowly creeps back after the cold, gray winter. I also prefer autumn, with the berries and the apples on the trees and the genteel way the leaves so gradually lose their color and their leaves. But summer is humid and heavy in a way I never would have expected. Everything is a varied shade of green, and it is velvety and lush.

I miss the desert of Utah more than I could have imagined, but I have come to love this quirky little country with it's strange (but wonderful) people, it's history, and it's incredible beauty. I am enjoying it especially this year since it is likely to be our last one here. I am savoring the green and the wet and the wild blackberries, which are just beginning to ripen.