Happy Birthday

 

As many of you will know it was my big 7..0 yesterday and I had a wonderful day. It may of course not be everyone's idea of a perfect day but for a gardenaholic,foodie who loves the countryside it couldn't have been better.

The idea was that we should visit a garden which we have wanted to see for a few years and as a bonus they have a restaurant with a menu which really appealed. As it would take a couple of hours to get there we left at 9.30 in glorious sunshine. However although I have painted this picture of an idyllic morning not everything was perfect. Yesterday, and for the two previous days we have had beautiful sunny days but they have begun with frosts which have systematically destroyed all the young growth and decimated the irises.

The garden is called Sothys (named after an Egyptian goddess!!!) and was developed ten years ago on land owned by the family who own the Sothys brand. We gather it is an up market cosmetic brand similar to Clarin, and as successful. Not my area of expertise! The garden is in the Correze to the north east of us in the direction of Clermont Ferrand. Although we were following the GPS I managed to miss a turning but as we had plenty of time we just let it devise an alternative route. As a result we found the most amazing countryside within a National Park....and we didn't see a soul. Heaven.

The garden and restaurant are set on the edge of a lake, absolutely in the middle of nowhere, and initially we had the place to ourselves, although it did not stay that way. If only all those others would buzz off.

Lunch lived up to expectations. May be it was because I was viewing it through the bottom of a champagne glass.

Eventually we tore ourselves away from the table to tour the garden. It is currently undergoing a lot of replanting and new hard landscaping so we were given free entry for later in the year. Our first impressions however were that they had suffered the effects of the late frosts very much worse than us....scant compensation. The garden is loosely based on the naturalistic ethos of the cosmetic company...very loosely!

 

 However we thoroughly enjoyed it, and guess what we came away with loads of ideas. I expect I will  still be redesigning the garden on my 80th.