Haystoun

When I announced amidst thunder and lighting and with the rain lashing down outside that we were going to visit an open garden this afternoon, John, to his credit, did not question my sanity (although I'm sure he thought I was mad!) but simply got in the car and drove us there. It was Haystoun near Peebles and the last time we had been there Troi, the greyhound, was just a pup and I was using a film camera (remember them!). In fact I was doing a photography course with the Open College of the Arts. That was in May 2004, so exactly 10 years ago.

The memories came flooding back on arrival in the garden and so did the rain. Armed with a huge brolly which was mainly used to shelter my camera, we walked around the loch (created in 1994).

 Most of the rhododendrons were in flower and provided a colourful foreground for the water.

I remembered this salmon ladder so well from 10 years ago and I could not help myself but took very much the same pictures as at that time, just because! That last time I used a slide film and had the pictures put onto a CD for me by Jessops. Once we got back home I had a look at them all again and they are uncannily similar to the ones I took today with my digital camera.

The quality of these recent ones is much better though as cameras have advanced amazingly in all that time and the size of my images is enormous.

The garden itself has matured and there are many more plants and trees about and at this time of year the texture and colour of the leaves and grasses is such a delight. Due to the rain there weren't as many visitors as one would have expected so I didn't have to dodge to keep any human beings out of the picture.

After we had done one tour of the loch with the rain coming down there were patches of blue in the sky and it suddenly looked much lighter. I suggested we went around once more, this time in the opposite direction, and again John went along without protest (he really is a saint). I remembered these stones which lay on the bottom of the loch, and which hadn't been visible in the rain but with the light they appeared.

 I love playing with all the reflections.

The rain came back before too long but this time it was a gentle downpour which created beautiful ripples in the water so I didn't mind getting wet in the process. Don't you just love the colours of this picture.

Everything was lush and green and totally gorgeous. I couldn't help myself but had to continue clicking away to capture all that beauty and eventually reached some kind of photography high with pure delight.

 I'm showing you mainly the ones I took of the loch and its surroundings but the garden itself with its greenhouses and immaculate beds was also beautiful. I had almost 100 pictures at the end of our tour around the garden and you might well get to see some more of them in a future blog post.

We also enjoyed a delightful cream tea in very posh surroundings with the paintings of ancestors of the Hay family looking down at us. This family has owned the Haystoun estate since 1635, can you imagine, and are still in residence.

Troi had been very much on my mind during our trip and we talked about what a wild pup she was while now she is becoming quite an old lady, so it was very fitting that the last thing we discovered in one of the flower beds was a statue of a greyhound which proved irresistible. So did quite a few plants in the plant stall!