The Walled Garden of Ty Glyn.

Whilst not a blazingly hot day it has been sunny and of course best of all, not raining. It was windy at the coast making the sea too rough for the rowing club to take a boat out much to Peter's disappointment. It isn't so much the rowing that gets put in jeopardy but the launching and landing where unpredictable and rough waves could cause the boat to capsize and possibly injure one of the crew by its weight. I on the other hand had perfect conditions for my Sunday walk.

Having not given myself enough time for the journey and then being stuck first behind a slow moving tractor and then an animal transporter I arrived fifteen minutes late to the meeting point. Luckily for me the majority of the group were still there waiting for another car which in the end got themselves in a muddle and went back home. (That's an ungrammatical mix of singular and plural but you get the meaning.)

We met not far from the village of Ciliau Aeron (Bends in the River Aeron) and walked along lanes and paths via an organic farm where some bought vegetables from their honesty shop, to the walled garden of  Ty Glyn. 

We've been there before in the spring of last year when I remember seeing lots of hellebores in flower. This time the garden was full of flowering plants as well as some vegetables. 

The vast garden is maintained by a group of volunteers. Those of us that are keen gardeners were itching to clear out the weeds that were encroaching the flower beds but instead we wandered around marvelling at the plants, once we had identified them (there may have been some use of a nifty app on a phone) and generally talking all things horticultural.

There were mature fruit trees too and later on we found a large mulberry tree absolutely covered with fruit. We discovered that shaking the branches caused the ripe fruit to drop down on to the grass below. The other people in the garden may well have been bemused to see a group of seven older folk gathered around this tree enjoying the fruit which was very tasty. But you have to chose the fruits that are as black as a blackberry, the red ones as we discovered are incredibly tart. 

We stopped to eat our lunch at a table under a pagoda like structure near the wonderful wooden dragon. We usually all bring something to pass around; nuts, biscuits etc and this week the guy who organised the walks had brought a cake and a card to celebrate my birthday (coming up next week.) He had been moved by my tales of cake-less birthdays and being a fellow cake enthusiast had bought a carrot cake along with a candle which was lit and duly blown out. What a nice bunch of friends.

Every corner turned revealed more stunning colour combinations such as these deep red dahlias and snapdragons while behind them the sweet pea towers were filling the air with their lovely scent.

The garden is filled with quirky statues which I have shown before but I couldn't resist giving these two odd birds a second turn in the spotlight.

We didn't even leave the walled garden until 5.30 and still had to walk back to the cars along the footpaths. I gave one of our group a lift back to the bus station in Aber and got home by 7.00. A very nice day indeed.