Scone Palace

Sorry about the lateness of this post, I decided it was still worth posting though!

One weekend, beforeimg_5568-resized the summer holidays we decided to go out in the beautiful sunshine to Scone palace – but, just like Culzean Castle, which we did last year – when we went to Scone palace, the only thing we didn’t do was visit was the palace itself! The weather was just so brilliant we just took a walk around their stunning grounds and had some scones to eat afterwards (ba-dum crash??).

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We had a delicious lunch, straight from the Tesco deli!! Pork pies, cheese, ham, bread – was very nice – and the perfect start to a great afternoon. From there, we went down past the castle to the river – the palace was in pretty good condition for its age, though it was covered in vines! Once down at the river – Megan and I went down onto the stone beach – while Mum & Dad walked through the bluebell covered forest. Looking up the river was pretty spectacular – one of the nicest views since New Zealand! It was so nice, in fact – I later turned it into a felt picture!

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We then moved on to continue our walk around the grounds – and we encountered a huge hedge maze – in the shape of a clan tartan – using two different colours of hedge. Megan thoroughly bet me to the centre – she was waiting for me in the centre – because I essentially went the entire circumference of the maze, and some more! img_5612-resizedMegan took a more direct route. We also encountered a large wooden shelter, with a modelled pineapple on top – and inside it explained about how in the 17-1800s pineapples were known as the food of the rich!

Towards the end of our walk, we encountered white peacocks, roaming around – something none of us had seen before! They were just strolling around the park, where Megan and I were. After we had left the park and made our way back along the road to the castle – we went inside to get afternoon tea, and then came back out to enjoy it in the beautiful sunshine. And then, after a lovely day out, it was time to head home – but with the intention of returning at some point, in the future – to explore inside!

White Peacock!!!

White Peacock!!!

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Wheeeee!!!

Eden project flowers!

On Friday 11th July we went to the Eden project and went into the outdoor biome, Mediterranean, the core and on Monday 7th (Aidan’s birthday!) we went into the rainforest biome. I took photos of flowers and I’ve got some information about them too. I didn’t have my camera on Monday though and so there’s no information or photos of them. Here are some photos of  flowers that I took on Friday.

Cornflower                                                                            Bougainvillea

DSCF1115                                                DSCF1052 You can use corn flowers as a border                              This is Grenada’s national flower.  for a flower a flower bed.

Hydrangea                                                                          Bird of paradise

DSCF1077                                      DSCF1055 Hydrangea’s are beautiful and if you                       Bird of paradise is a purple and orange  change the soil you  change the colour.                        plant that looks like a bird.

Lily                                                                           Water lily or lotus

DSCF1078                                 DSCF1105

You can get lily’s  in lots of different colours.                  Water lily’s are basically lily’s that                                                                                  grow in water that is dark pink and white.

Thank you for reading about the flowers I took photo’s of.

Written by Megan

Gargunnock House Gardens

A slightly different walk yesterday, in a mature and well-kept garden: Gargunnock House Gardens, in the grounds of Gargunnock House near Stirling. The garden isn’t open all the time, but it was open yesterday for the Scottish Snowdrop Festival.

We picked a beautiful sunny day for it, enjoying views of the Forth Valley, Stirling Castle and Dumyat on the way. The garden has a grand drive you walk down with impressive redwoods above, budding rhododendrons everywhere, and some promising acers to the side – and everywhere a carpet of snowdrops! Further on was the house’s main garden, full of the promise of spring. Beyond was the walled garden, and we chatted with Willie the very friendly gardener for some time, exchanging tales of old Wallacestone! We left refreshed and keen to return, and carrying three plants for the garden: a rhododendron for us, and a snowdrop pot each for the children.

The gardener assured us the snowdrops would be even more spectacular in a week; we plan to come back in May when the rhododendrons are out. Lovely!

Megan took some lovely pictures.

Blossom in the garden (pic by Megan).

 

The doocot (pic by Megan).

The fab weather continued into the evening; Megan got these two lovely photos:

Sunset at Grandma and Grandpa’s (pic by Megan).

 

Grangemouth from Wallacestone (pic by Megan and Daddy).