Apple Harvest

Giles and the girls have been busy with the apple harvest; they are making apple juice to sell in a pop-up shop in the spring; it means fewer apples for the wasps to enjoy but such is life.

The masher:

Shandy feigns interest

Hedge Cutting

I spent the day with Giles, cutting the huge yew hedges in the garden. I grew up part of a farming family and spent my early, and teenage years involved in agriculture so I'd been looking forward to a day of physical work but my.....these are big hedges and somehow I ended up doing the upper storey. It was a full day, up and down the ladder brandishing my, not so light, sabre and as the blisters on my hands ballooned the last few meters seemed to go on forever but it was finally finished (in record time according to Giles) and I did get an enormous sense of satisfaction from the day.

 Lunch with Giles and the garden girls in the orangery.

Butterflies

Painted Lady and a Red Admiral in the walled garden