After the arrival of our flat footed avian visitor, I entrusted Chris with my camera and asked him to take photos of all the visitors in the garden. As O.I.C. (Officer in Charge) of ticket sales and on entry duty, I could hardly wander off and take piccies!
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| Some of the team |
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| Chris drying up |
What did he do? Answer: he played with the camera taking close up shots of individual blooms and leaves. Hardly any people appear on them and so it looks as if the garden was empty!! The couple I've found with any visitors on were obviously taken with Chris hiding in the undergrowth! I cropped out all the foreground foliage he used as camouflage in order to see tiny distant 'visitors!' His excuse: he didn't like to photograph people! Honestly! (sigh) Still he did help with the teas and we changed the wording on his shirt to something more appropriate!
More pictures (of an empty garden!) can be seen at:
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| One or two distant visitors..... |
It was a really tiring week with 5am starts to get everything ready. Maybe it was a high level of fatigue that caused my first and single biggest mistake! Our first visitors arrived early. Alarm bells rang as we heard early footsteps scrunching on the gravel until I realised it was friends who have already promised to come and help again at the village event at the end of the month. I say again because, it didn't occur to me that they had come to support us and look around a garden they already know so well. How wrong could I be? I rushed out with 'pear' aprons (that Denise had made the night before). In no time, they were modelling the aprons and AMAZINGLY, they stayed and worked ALL day! Dave shuttled visitors to and fro in Mellings (the Mini - bus!) from the car park. I say car park but, it was in Rob's perfectly manicured apple orchard - the world's most scenic car park! Many thanks to Rob for the privilege!
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| ...have been found after enlarging the photos! |
What absolute dedicated spontaneity by good friends. A special vote of thanks to Dave, Di, Eve and Jo who served teas all day long and only expected to come for an hour! ........And, may I say? This was not grubby chipped mugs slopping around with super-strong builders tea! It was elegantly served trays of afternoon teas using china cups and saucers with yer actual napkins! Real class!
Our other weekend stalwarts from the NGS were Pauline, Rosemary, Katie, Barbara, Roger and Teresa. The house was left spic and span with all crockery washed and stacked tidily and not a crumb to be seen. A big thank you to them all! We had more compliments about the teas and cakes and Denise's works of art than we did about the garden!! Despite all the hard work and anxiety over weather and numbers, it was a fun and successful day. We were really lucky with both the weather and all the yummy cakes that people made. The grand total achieved for the NGS was £846.32!!!
