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.

Marcus – Aurelius

Ernest Hemingway

Carl Sagan

Paramahansa Yogananda

Sir Peter Scott was the son of Antarctic explorer Captain Scott who, in his dying letter, urged Peter’s mother to “make the boy interested in natural history”.

Peter particularly loved the wild open marshes of Britain and the mysterious geese that visited from unknown shores. He learned to protect first the birds, and then their wetland habitats.

In 1946 he set up the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge as a centre for science and conservation. Uniquely at the time, he opened it to the public so that anyone could enjoy getting close to nature.

Peter and his family presented the BBC’s first live television wildlife programmes from his artist’s studio overlooking the lakes at Slimbridge, from where he brought a love for the British countryside into millions of homes.

As well as setting up WWT, he became an Olympic sailing medallist and a well-known painter and broadcaster. He created the IUCN red list which measures whether species are threatened or endangered. He was the founding chair of WWF – he even drew their famous panda logo.

WWT flourished during Peter’s life and has continued his life’s work since his death in 1989.