One of our yearly highlights is going to Chawton Open Gardens. It’s over a weekend and many village gardens are open, there’s a tea shop in the village hall and a scarecrow competition with strange figures dotting the streets.
It’s always a lovely day out with many dogs, a big horse drawn cart hauling kids around and even a tiny little train engine. At various intervals through the day, Morris Dancers converge on the street outside Cassandra’s Tea Shop and hold up traffic.
We were going there today. Mirinda had put the date in the calendar ages ago. We were really looking forward to it. Then, yesterday, I went online to check what was happening. I’m glad I did.
I think whoever updated the website was in a bit of a hurry because it really should be Chawton Open Gardens 2019. Perhaps they were so upset they couldn’t see straight through the tears. Suffice it to say that we were also very upset. So I went into town and visited the butcher instead.
Two years ago, to the day, I wrote that Maison Blanc had closed in the Borough. I pass it most days and, sadly, the shop is still empty. There’s a few ‘still empty’ shops in Farnham. It makes me wonder how all the new ones coming in the various developments will manage after the first flush of novelty.
In the butcher’s I chose some delicious looking meat products and we chatted about our plans for the weekend. He told me he was going on a tour of Brookwood Cemetery and I told him about Rookwood Cemetery.
He also told me about his historical interest in the period 1839-1919, both here in the UK and on the continent. He reckons that not enough study has been made into how the Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1842) started the long slide into the First World War. He’s also a bit obsessed with the Eastern Front during WWI and thinks, while the Western front was obviously awful, people tend to forget the equally appalling Russian end.
It made a change from cricket, which is what we normally discuss. I didn’t bother telling him that my historical interest is even narrower than his (1836-1860 propeller to ironclad in the RN) and bid him farewell.
And so, rather than spend a day wandering around other people’s gardens in Jane’s village, we sat in our own, moving pots to Mirinda’s satisfaction before moving them again. (It’s time like this that I’m glad we don’t have a grand piano.) I’ll probably have to move them again tomorrow.
Late in the day (while I prepared dinner) Mirinda took the girls on the Pig Walk and took this short video, insisting I include it in today’s post.
Oh, and Freya started her season today…as Sue predicted on Wednesday.
A lovely doctorate free day! Even without Chawton gardens being open.