They came, they saw....

and the rain held off!

The house, in sunlight; I'm not sure why that patch of parthenossisus on the right is 'bald' at the moment, but it is slowly coming into leaf

Our first two garden groups....despite the Technical Dept's downbeat opinion that he didn't feel the garden is exactly yet 'ready for prime time'. Well, the good people of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire (most of whom seem to have been present, last Monday and the one before) either disagreed, or else were extremely nice and understanding about it. The weather forecast was lousy in advance of the day (each time), but in fact the rain cleared up and the sun came out five minutes before everybody arrived, on both days. The roses and bearded irises performed wonderfully, as did the four-footed (who flirted outrageously with everybody who arrived, to the extent that he was exhausted from all that effort by the time they'd all left).

Approaching the citrus terrace, between grapefruit and bergamot trees, with sweet orange straight ahead

Everything was weeded and pruned and mulched to within an inch of its life, and the scent from the bloosom on the trachelospermum was absolutely intoxicating.

The West pergola, looking south: Cecile Brunner in flower, along with Pierre de Ronsard

Looking along the North Pergola

Looking south, from the North pergola

The border beside the North pergola

The rhyll - empty, here, but for the visits it was full and burbling

Looking across the North lawn, from the Uva Fragola pergola

Pink Perpetue, mixing into Kriton.

The SE pergola, with strawberry beds and raspberry canes behind

Looking into the woodland

New steps, leading down to one of the new box-lined paths

And twenty two for lunch, in the barn, each time - expertly looked after by the two Tamaras, who are part of the georgian-mafia-in-Pisa that we interface through Anna, our georgian cleaner.

Lunch: asparagus agnolotti; bass en croute; and iced white chocolate and gingerbread parfait.

I am SO pleased it is all over....to the extent that I don't even mind that it has been raining practically nonstop since they left.






Tonight's dinner:

will be in London, since we're on the 18.15 (again) this evening,  for this month's 48 hour  furlough.