This morning we hopped in the car and took a ten minute drive to Craig Dunain. We easily found the parking area near the duck pond and headed off on the circular walk. The tall trees sheltered us from the sprinkling of rain as we began our upward climb, but as the path took us into the firebreak between the trees I decided to pause a moment and put on my rain-shell. (Many thank you to Kerry for loaning me her rain-shell). A quick look back over our shoulders we c...

The day starts early in summer in London, it was light by 4:30am and that's pretty much when I woke, only managing to doze a little. I got up at 5:45am and had a quick shower, then repacked my suitcase (now a little lighter). Crispin was super generous and dropped me at Gatwick airport on his way to work, which saved me 15 minutes of walking, a three-minute train ride to the airport and a 20 minute transfer bus from the station at South terminal to North termina...

It was so lovely to have a quiet relaxed day and the drizzly grey weather in London made it that much easier to enjoy. I started the day slowly and pottered around for a bit before setting myself up with my laptop on a stool at the high kitchen table. I set about updating the class lists for dog club with intermittent chats with Kelly between her work meetings - she had many today. Later in the morning we wondered up to Sainsbury's in the drizzle and bought some...

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is more commonly known as Kew Gardens. The gardens span 330 acres and have different landscapes, both open air and within glasshouses. I spent about 5.5hrs there on Wednesday 4 June, the London sun even managed to appear through the clouds several times during the day making it a most lovely day. My last visit to the gardens was back in 2004! And I enjoyed today as much, if not more than I did last time. The mass of different plants, ...

After enjoying a little sleep in and a quick trip to Sainsburys, I headed off to explore Richmond just a short walk from Kelly and Will's home in Kew. I meandered the streets in Richmond, including walking down the lane where they filmed parts of Ted Lasso. At the top of the Richmond Terrace walk and gardens I stop to enjoy my lunch. There were loads of beautiful flowers throughout the gardens and I was amazed at how big the bumbles were collecting pollen from t...