" Wandering The Gardens Of Warwick...plus a Friendly Re-Union! "

A visit to brother/sisterinlaw who live in a Warwickshire village.

INTRIGUING : thro casual chat, they'd discovered someone in their village who'd been at school with me in my small city...in same "gang" of girls ( long before dreaded Girl Power took off! ) ANYHOW we hadn't set eyes on each other since aged 15...Suffice to say, that's A FAIR FEW YRS........HOWEVER we had a lovely time with C and husband T... and suffice to say ( again) my brother's bottle bin was rattling yesterday morning...

Friends are valuable folk...obvious statement....both new ones and old.....and this week, I had a kaleidoscopic glimpse into my past and Carol's.....shimmering and spinning over decades... from the time we'd been bashing our satchels together and meeting our very 1st boyfriends beneath the Abbey Gateway... to Friday, sitting lazily in a summery garden SO MANY years on.

WE ALSO visited some of the wonderful Gardens of Warwick. My snap shows The Mill Garden, created by Arthur Measures beneath the walls of Warwick Castle, beside the Avon. It's a delight: delicious plants/shrubs, plus views of castle, mill and river.

And it appears there are lots of gardens open to the public in Warwick.....varied in content and care. There are cottagey ones where you feel miles from the town and cool calm ones:grassy spaces canopied by darkly dramatic trees. And ornate rose-bedded ones... with benches where elderly ladies sit together, talking in fluting well polished voices...

BUT probably the most fascinating was Hill Close Gardens. These are 16 individual gardens, cultivated in Victorian times by Warwick shopkeepers and tradesmen who had no gardens of their own. For long years, the gardens were left derelict but at the turn of this century, locals banded together and 4 yrs ago, the renovation of Hill Close Gardens was complete. Some have their original summerhouses, some of these buildings now " listed". They're secluded peaceful places for hardworking townsfolk.... to relax after digging their own special earth..

It was a treat to visit....as it MUST have been for the tradesman of Warwick all those yrs ago...folk such as **Mr. Chadband, Confectioner....AND Mr. R. Ivens, Auctioneer.....and his brother, Mr. J. Ivens, Master Upholsterer...

** It seems Charles Dickens visited Warwick.... and afterwards the oily Rev. Chadband ( fictitious, I hasten to add!) appeared in his " Bleak House"...