Dyffryn Gardens summer outing

As today's another Bank Holiday, and a sunny one too, we decided to visit Dyffryn Gardens. Not surprisingly there were double the number of cars parked outside as on a normal weekend. Even so, the estate seems able to absorb huge numbers of visitors, it rarely feels crowded. If we didn't have to queue long to get lunch, it's because a large number of visitors brought picnics with them. 

In the foyer of the house there was an exhibition of watercolours of British stately homes and gardens by Japanese artist Takumasa Ono who's lived in the UK for 17 years. His style is intriguing, as he brings to the genre a sense of perspective originating in his home culture, which not that of Europe post-Renaissance. HIs paintings resemble images taken using a fish-eye camera lens, with an element of curvature in them rather than receding parallel straight lines. He was just setting up his exhibits when we last visited at the beginning of December last year.

Also on display upstairs were some beautiful Edwardian pictures of the house and gardens by Edith Helen Adie, an eminent watercolourist of the first half of the twentieth century. High quality reproductions were on display, as originals were long ago removed from the house and are now in galleries or collections. Some of her best known paintings of Dyffryn now belong to the Royal Horticultural Society.

As it was dry underfoot much of our time was spent visiting the arboretum, a wonderful place for children to play hide and seek. A large clearing in the woods has now been developed as a children's play area, making use of huge trunks and branches of trees which needed to be felled, trimmed and sculpted into useful playground shapes. It's a marvellous addition to the estate, a hidden asset for parents with lively kids under seven.

On the journey home, we called into B&Q for a couple of plant purchases in addition to one made at Dyffryn House, including a new hanging basket for a bracket just outside the back door. I returned to poster design, on the basis of feedback from Rachel. Now it gets harder, a matter of correcting and eliminating error. I'm quite good at getting the big picture right, but proof reading is for me a nightmare. Luckily, I have eagle eyed Clare and Kath to call upon.