BENNETTS WATER GARDENS

Every now and again you stumble across an unexpected gem in life, one of those little rare nuggets of pleasure and today we found one at Bennetts Water Gardens.

The Imperial Gazebo

Orfe Pond

You’d never believe these lovely gardens are just on the outskirts of Weymouth town centre in a suburb called Chickerell. 

Japanese Bridge

Roach Pond

Formerly on the site of old brickworks, the clay pits have been turned into a series of lakes where the Bennett family have farmed water lilies for over 3 decades.

Peaceful view across the lake

In fact as you wander around the lakes, you’re transported into a living artwork as many of the water lilies inhabiting the lakes were originally from the same nursery in France that supplied Claude Monet’s famous garden in Giverny.  Yes, there’s even a Monet style bridge to boot.

Monet Bridge

Japanese Bridge

It’s not difficult to lose yourself for a few hours following the green grassy pathways meandering by each lake’s edge, taking pictures of countless lilies and trying to snap the odd bug or two in the vegetation.  It’s a garden photographer’s paradise for sure.

Here’s a small selection of water lilies.  There's just too many to choose from:

and a few beasties lurking in the undergrowth:

NEW GARDEN DOOR

Hats off to Barry ‘The Fence’ (FenceSmart) for doing a quality job in putting up our new garden door.

The scruffiest gate in Charminster is no more!  

Good riddance to bad rubbish

Taking down the old door

Instead we must be the envy of the neighbourhood with our new super-smart door and there’s even a cat sized gap at the bottom for our moggie visitors.

Super shiny new door

Of course now we’ll need a super-smart front door to match.  Note to self: add new front door to the ever growing list of future household projects.

FIRST ROSES

I’d hoped to have a million and one reasons for not going to work this morning but alas the odds are now firmly stacked in favour of a bank holiday heatwave and not my Euro-millions ticket.  I’d picked all my lucky numbers.  They weren’t.  I’ve had to console myself with a portion of home-made spare ribs and a cornetto to make up for my lack of millionaire status.

I may not be financially better off but my garden is bursting with nature’s richness. Last year we ripped out all the ivy planted around our secret seat and replaced it with a selection of both climbing and rambling roses.  

Rampant ivy has gotten out of control

Ivy replaced with climbing and rambling roses

Ivy left to its own devices is a rampant invader taking over every surface in its path.  Give it an inch and it’ll take a mile as we found out when scraping it off next door’s wall where it had decided to take a starring role in its’ own version of Jack and the Beanstalk.  Ivy is great for covering unsightly walls but take care to curtail its growth before it becomes a monster.

After only a few months roses have grown quite a bit

First roses to flower are the delicately pink ‘Laura Louisa’.  This rose has big bold blooms, a fine baby pink base colour tinged with pale yellow.  They are very pretty.

Laura Louisa fragrant climbing rose

‘Beautiful Sunrise’ is aptly named with shades of orange and yellow packed into small tight buds.  This climber has settled in well and put on a lot of growth since spring.

Beautiful Sunrise climbing rose

‘Chevy Chase’ is not far behind.  Already you can see deep red rose clusters getting ready to burst into flower.  It will make a stunning contrast to the lighter coloured roses.

Chevy Chase rambling rose

Last but not least is ‘Crimson Shower’ which has yet to put in appearance but which I’m sure will be as equally lovely as it’s thorny neighbours.

Garden tour complete, now we’re back to wall panelling.  It’s not all beer and cats you know, there’s still DIY to be done.  First coat of ‘Gentle Fawn’ applied to the MDF rails and stiles that will make up our recessed panels.  These should be ready to go onto the base panel in the next few days.

Painting the rails and stiles

BRISTOL'S CAT PUB

Taking a break from DIY for a weekend mooch around Bristol.  This large bustling metropolis on the River Avon has many interesting things to see:

There’s ships

Bristol's harbourside area

There’s spectacular feats of engineering

Clifton Suspension Bridge

There’s invisible people climbing in through windows

Invisible man locks himself out

And of course there’s the infamous cat pub, the Bag of Nails, where you can enjoy a specialist ale, play all those old board games you’d forgotten about whilst listening to the landlord’s eclectic vinyl collection on a Technics record deck that the pub is probably named after.  It’s all a bit weird but extremely chilled out.

The Bag of Nails pub

Specialist beer drinker & cat lover heaven

In this minuscule drinking emporium, kitties casually stroll across the bar counter dodging pint glasses and beer pumps to seek out strategically placed cardboard boxes on which to have a kip.  

I'll have a cat daniels and coke bartender.

Sorry I don't have any ID on me, I'm a cat.

We spotted at least 3 tabbies and a gorgeous brown cat, all of which seemed quite at home amongst the bottles and beer supping punters.

Ripped wallpaper?  Not me Guv

Now I have been known in the past to slyly purloin special beer glasses from pubs by means of an over-sized handbag and wondered if I could get away with a cat?  But those days are long gone thanks to fashion fads, large super-sized carpetbags having been replaced by smaller functional micro bags so no chance of kitty kidnapping today.  Still, it’s a thought eh? 

The Bag of Nails is definitely the best thing about Bristol – beer and cats, what’s not to like?

No.  I'm not going to look at you.

Of all the bars in all the world you had to meow into mine.