Kiftsgate Court Gardens has been on my ‘To Do’ list for far too long. When we visited the nearby Hidcot Garden several years ago, a friend told us that he thought that Kiftsgate was the better garden of the two. We have been meaning to visit ever since but every time we were in the area the garden was closed.

Kiftsgate was on my radar ‘to visit’ during our recent holiday in Winchester but Mr C thought he would rather visit as a day trip from home. Today (27th May) was that day. The journey was a little dull but the weather was perfect. We had lunch in the courtyard where we found a shaded table before entering the garden.

We are Historic Houses members so were able to visit the gardens for free as part of the membership. The lady who checked us in suggested we visit the upper gardens first before descending into the lower garden area and that is what we did

The pathway down to the lower garden is a little narrow and uneven and, from time to time, we had to step aside to let others pass by. At one point Mr C stepped aside to let a family past, he complimented the young girl (being carried by her father) on her Angel wings. A little bit of conversation ensued as the family passed by.

Then I heard the words, ‘I am Megan’ and I was transported back to the previous day when I was a Visitor Reception volunteer at Attingham Park. A young girl walked ahead of her parents right up to a fellow volunteer and said to him, ‘My name is Megan’, and as her parents caught up with her she said,, ‘Have you met my brother?’ A brief conversation ensued before the family left to enjoy their visit to Attingham Park.

Back to Kiftsgate, the words, ‘I am Megan’, caused me to look to see if there was a brother following. There was, so as the family passed me, much to their surprise I asked them if they had visited Attingham the day before. I explained that I was at visitor reception when they arrived and we had a brief conversation before we went on our different ways along the path.

Kiftsgate garden was well worth the wait and we had the perfect weather to enjoy it.

Much later, we dined on the patio enjoying the warm-but-welcome cooler temperature after the heatwave.

We have a clear desk policy at work which means that every night we tidy our papers into a draw or cabinet. Every evening I store my work papers and work notes in a cabinet near to my desk. A few weeks ago I returned to work after the weekend to find that one of my notebooks had gone missing. This wasn’t terribly important in the great scheme of things, it only contained work jottings to remind me how to do things (process steps).

But where had it gone? I checked through my papers, my drawers, the cabinet where I had placed it, underneath the cabinets and drawers and also the trays of my colleague who files his papers next to mine each evening. I couldn’t find it anywhere.

A colleague double checked and couldn’t find it either. It left me with the disturbing feeling that perhaps I had done something strange with it. After a couple of days I arranged for an email to be sent out building wide to see if anyone had found it. I heard nothing.

Just before lunch time today, my colleague who files his papers next to mine and who also sits next to me exclaimed ‘Oh!! Look what I have found!!’ He was most startled to find my missing notebook in the bottom of his work trays. He was also a bit discomforted because some papers had gone from his bottom tray and that is how he noticed my notebook…

It seems the universe is still up to its tricks…

On Saturday evening a good friend came round to visit.  There was lots of chatting, board games and a demonstration of Japanese medical skills and the next thing I knew it was 4.30 in the morning!!

The result of this late night/early morning meant I was rather lethargic during Sunday morning.  But I was forced to spring into action in the afternoon to clear away all the Christmas decorations. Following that there was the obligatory appearance of the vacuum cleaner to clear up all the little bits of decorations that linger on the carpet.  After all this activity I was able to log onto my computer for a few minutes before getting ready for my Sunday evening meal.

When I got up from the computer and left the room there was a heavy clunk as if something had fallen over.  When I went to investigate I couldn’t see that anything had moved and decided that it was the chair spinning round and hitting the desk.  I promptly forgot about it, until this morning…

When I opened the door to that room (the room I am in now) there was a little bit of resistance and it wouldn’t open fully.  When I managed to  open the door  and look behind it to investigate the problem I immediately noticed the word God glowing out from the dark and I could see a faint book outline underneath.  I bent down to pick the book up and realised that there were also two CDs on the floor as well.

I discovered the word God was on a bookmark. It is one I picked up a few years ago from St Mary’s Parish Church in Whitby whilst investigating my family history.  On one side of the bookmark there is a picture of the Church and on the other side the following quote:

God

Grant me

the Serenity

to accept the things

I cannot change,

Courage

to change

the things I can

and Wisdom

to know

the difference.

The other three things were also interesting…

The book was ‘Christy Moore, One Voice, My Life in Song’ – When I was campaigning against the moving of our work down south and the subsequent loss of skills, I used some of his songs in the campaign videos that I made.

One of the CDs contained photos taken by a colleague at a PCS conference a few years ago. Some of the photos on the disc were of an event where one of my campaign videos was shown – Tomorrow the first meeting takes place do discuss how we can raise awareness and campaign against the same issues.

The second CD had a few photographs that my Dad took of the flowers that I bought for my Mum’s 75th Birthday. She is 80 this year.

A message?…

Robert A. Heinlein