Little Sparta

A lovely morning unpacking my presents was followed by a quick visit to a garden centre where my mother bought me my birthday present in the shape of a beautiful mosaic on slate made by Caroline Blake. IYou can see it at the bottom of this blog. I love the colours in it and also the fact that buttons and beads are incorporated into the mosaic! And it sparkles!

Then in the afternoon we returned to Little Sparta. It was a first visit for my mother although John and I had been there before and it was high on my birthday wishlist to go again. Fortunately the weather kept on smiling down at us although it was very windy. No rain though and occasionally sunshine.

To quote from the leaflet produces by The Little Sparta Trust the garden is described as follows:

"Set in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh, Little Sparta is Ian Hamilton Finlay's greatest work of art. Imbued with various levels of meaning, the Garden is created from the artistic fusion of poetic and sculptural elements with those of the natural landscape which is shaped and changed to become an inherent part of the concepts realised at Little Sparta".

You can take photographs in the garden if you obtain a special permit which I did the previous time we visited but you still cannot publish them even then, so this time all photography took place outside the garden. It can only be reached by tracking up the side of a steep hill which today also was against the wind so quite a hard task but coming down again was much easier with the wind in our backs and going downhill. The wind also made for fantastic cloudscapes!