Wakehurst Place

I'm lucky this month to have a few random days off. My holiday entitlement at work runs June - June so I had 4 days to use or loose. Today I used one of them to visit Wakehurst Place with Tom's Mum.

Wakehurst Place is a country estate botanical garden. It is lovely! Sarah has been going there for about 30 years with many different people and loves it. I had heard a lot about it from her, but had never been there. So when she suggested we go on one of the days I needed to take off I was well up for it.

We began our day in the stately home and adjacent walled garden. It was just like I used to love reading about - I could imagine a victorian family living there and spending their afternoons walking around their gardens and the lawns of the estate. Sarah loves flowers and gardening which makes her an excellent guide as she knows the names of all the pretty things.

After the garden we walked along the paths around the outskirts seeing many gorgeous trees. Luckily it only rained for a short while and was sunny the rest of the day. The main thing I learnt was to identify a common spotted orchid.

There were many beautiful trees, flowers and lots of ducks. I really enjoyed spending the day walking around outdoors and looking at everything. We had a delicious lunch of quiche and salad in the cafe, and after a look around the Millennium seed bank went back for tea and cake. I was shocked when I looked at the clock when I got back to the car and realised it was already 3pm! Time does fly when you are having fun.