The Highs and Lows of Life

We went for a garden visit today and unexpectedly encountered both the highs and lows of life. The high consisted of the wonderful garden we went to, called Culter Allers. It was open under the Gardens of Scotland scheme (otherwise known as the Yellow Garden book, published every year and giving full details of details and dates for all open gardens in the whole of Scotland).

The flowerbeds were a pleasure to behold to a lover of bright colours as I definitely am. John was equally impressed by the vegetable beds and I had to remind him that this garden is enclosed by walls on all sides and therefore has a completely different climate to our 900 ft high and very exposed spot. No wonder that the carrots were rather more lush than our own ones!

Not all the flowers had bright colours, instead this one (unknown to me and any suggestions are welcome! although I strongly suspect it won't be hardy enough for our garden) was statuesque and reminded me vaguely of peacock feathers, shapelike.

The house itself was also open, to have tea. It's a late Victorian baronial house and is not normally open to the public so we enjoyed our brief glimpse of the magnificent hall, while enjoying a spendid Scottish tea.

Afterwards we walked along a, according to the Yellow Book, 125 year old avenue of lime trees to Culter Village Church where I especially loved our wander around the old gravestones. I don't believe in an afterlife of any kind but can readily see why you would want to be buried in such a peaceful spot if you did believe in such a thing.
The other gate out of the graveyard leads into a meadow with rural fields stretching out into the distance. There wasn't much decoration on most of the gravestones (the Scottish Kirk is way too sober for such frivolities!) but by laying down in the grass I did discover a very unusual one which just had this head on it without any text! No idea what it signifies (it looks like a she-devil to me?!) but it certainly caught my imagination.

Another day spend in idleness, but it was definitely inspiring! And while wondering around the graveyard and taking photographs I kept thinking how I could use them in digital collages!