Gardens & more gardens

We've had a very outdoorsy weekend - Saturday morning we dug out some grass from the borders of the garden and around the compost bin and completely wore ourselves out by midday! The tomatoes and courgettes are quite happy to be in dirt as opposed to the too-hot greenhouse.

John got called into work yesterday afternoon, so James and I had a rip-roaring game of Risk. He won, in about 2 hours. I was pretty impressed - all of a sudden he had Europe and Africa and I had a tenuous grip on Australia, South America, and part of North America. Hmm.

Here's my lone soldier on an entirely gray (with some auxiliary blue because he ran out of gray men) board.



We then went to Earl Stonham for our first lawn-bowling lesson with some bell friends of mine. It was really fun and I could see all three of us getting addicted to it. I took some pictures of James but they're on my phone and refuse to make their way to the computer. Bah.

Today we finished off the gardening, had the in-laws for lunch, and then made our way to the open garden day at Helmingham Hall, which John found on the web somewhere. It was about half an hour away but seemed like it was on a different planet. The gardens were spectacular.




I loved this tennis court - it was surrounded by a meadow and had these great trellises around the netting supports. Exactly as I will have it if I ever own a stately home!