Tulips

Sunday:

Today we went to the Tulip Top Gardens. It is less than half an hour away, a private garden out in the country. When we first saw it, ten years or so ago, it consisted of plentiful but slightly boring tulip beds laid out around a house on a large property. Over the years the owners have gradually cultivated the valley below the house and now it is a beautiful protected area with tulips and pansies and flowering fruit trees and sweeping lawns and a waterfall and gravel paths. The area around the house itself is no longer accessible, so they have their privacy back, but for four weeks a year the valley is open to the public (for a small fee). It is really lovely, and it was a great day for it.

They can't make a lot of money, certainly not enough to pay for all the work that goes into it, and they even let kids in free and had a free sausage sandwich at lunchtime and free tea & coffee and a two-piece jazz band entertaining the visitors!

Tim's father was still visiting so he was with us, we had a picnic on the grounds and wandered around for a couple of hours then grandad went back to Sydney and we came home. My dad is arriving tomorrow. He thinks. Plans are still a bit liquid.

I am fully well again (yay! I was only sick for a couple of days this time) but Aiden is still recovering. We thought he was better yesterday but after an excursion to ten pin bowling and then a play in the park he had a bit of a relapse and went to bed very early after a couple of bites of dinner. He seems ok today so maybe he is over it now.