Birthday Bonus

I was rewarded for the chilly week in Cornwall with a week of birthday treats and better weather to boot!

Having persuaded my husband that 65 was a big birthday, I was treated to dinner and overnight stay at Beaverbrook,

(https://beaverbrook.co.uk/), a new country house hotel near Leatherhead in Surrey, once the home of the great press baron Max Aitken, AKA Lord Beaverbrook. The views were spectacular, the staff charming and attentive and the food glorious. Recommended by Jay Rayner, the Japanese restaurant is truly inspired and my first taste of Japanese food was a great success. The house is full of history and Beaverbrook's library is interestingly eclectic, unlike many other libraries in large houses which can be quite boring and obviously unread.

I loved the rows of coloured Penguins, I have some blues and greens of my own, but my favourite find was copies of the Rupert Bear Annual (produced of course by the Beaverbrook's Daily Express) which reminded me that I have a 1981 copy given to my children by their uncle and signed by Alfred E Bestall (Rupert's original illustrator)!

The following day dawned wet and misty but soon brightened up into a beautiful late summer day. We headed for RHS Wisley Gardens, somehow never visited and oh, what a treat. Glorious gardens of every type, dinosaur trails for the children and a sculpture exhibition. We spent hours there and could have stayed longer so have become members. I treated myself to a beech tree sculpture to brighten my garden in winter.

It does seem rather predictable getting interested in gardening in retirement but we have always loved our garden and are looking forward to having time to enjoying and developing it more. Of course many literary names have also been great gardeners and many of them were inspired by Gertrude Jekyll at the beginning of the 20th century. Jekyll wrote articles and books and led the way in garden writing for everyone.

A delightful book which includes extracts from many such writers is Garden Wisdom compiled by Leslie Geddes-Brown with gorgeous illustrations by Angie Lewin. Amongst these pages you will find Vita Sackville-West, Edith Wharton, Constance Spry and many others.

To finish a brilliant week, on Friday we headed for the Bournemouth Air Show. A glorious hot summer day on the beach was a real bonus and the spectacular show of aerobatics, including the fantastic Red Arrows, is well worth attending. The atmosphere is fantastic and it's all free. A bonus of birthday treats!