Every Picture Tells A Story

This post has been prompted by Monica at Garden Faerie's Musings who recently asked about the origins of the sculpture in my Blogger profile photo. The photo was taken on one of those rare glorious summer days that we experienced in that long wet summer of 2008. We were on our way home in our camper van, travelling back north from a holiday in Pembrokeshire. Breaking the journey up we had stopped here at a site nearGreat Malvern, which over the years has become a favourite bolt hole.

The day dawned and with the prospect of wall to wall sunshine a garden visit was suggested by himself. Needless to say it would have been churlish to refuse. After consulting local tourist brochures we decided to head for Snowshill Manor. We had attempted to visit there once before some time ago but it was closed. Well, lightening does strike twice ! There seems to be a mysterious law in force that National Trust properties shut up shop whenever we decide to head in their direction. I was rather disappointed but after some cursing and muttering the brochures came out again. The decision was made to head for Sudeley Castle as I had vague recollections of Tudor queens strolling in rose gardens there. I have always been fascinated by the Tudors so this seemed to be as good as reason as any to visit.

Well what a glorious place this turned out to be and with apologies to Snowshill Manor it could not have been surpassed. We timed our visit to perfection as the 'Queen's Garden' was at its peak. Left to myself I could have spent the day there just gazing at this most beautiful garden of old roses but himself had to drag me away to explore further. Whilst wandering around the rest of the grounds some weird and wonderful sculptures leapt out at us including the one above which is now my profile photo. Below are one or two others :







We discovered later that there has been a sculpture exhibition in the grounds of Sudeley for the last four years. A slide show can be seen here. Although a few of the other exhibits looked incongruous in such a romantic setting, I thought that the majority only enhanced their setting and added a welcome note of fun . Our visit ended with me escaping back to the rose garden where my notepad and pen just had to come out. The most beautiful rose should be winging its way to me soon but more of that another day. Thanks for asking the question Monica.