Wednesday, June 12, 2013

In England, Again!

My husband and I are on vacation in the charming rural county of Dorset, England right now and I couldn't be happier anywhere else in the world even though today it is grey, cold, and rainy here. Our traditional annual England vacation is definitively one of the highlights of the year!

I don't know what it is with me and England, but I just love being there. The moment I set foot on this island I am cheering up delighted by the architecture, the history, the landscapes, the gardens (public and private), the "greenness" of everything, the culture, the dogs, the Cream Teas, the way of living and the (mostly) friendly Brits, always having a funny comment about the weather on their lips. But if you follow my blog for a while you know all that already.

My regular readers also may have noticed that I haven't been blogging for a while as life has been crazily busy in the last couple of weeks, but I hope that I can write up some posts while we are here as rainy days like this one deliver a good opportunity to do so. Imagine me sitting curled up on a sofa with a cup of tea in reach to my right, in a cozy cottage with views of the sea, happily typing up this blog post.

On our first day here the weather was splendid though and I would like to share with you a couple of scenes, which we encountered. After the first night at our self catering cottage we set out in the afternoon to explore Worth Matravers, the little village, where we are staying and our closest surroundings, and it took us only a few minutes to find the local Tea Room.



Just the sight of the charming buildings made me swoon and we couldn't wait to go in and have our first Cream Tea.




And certainly we weren't disappointed. Having tea outside in a lovely little garden of a Tea Room, it doesn't get any better than this!



While admiring sumptuous paeonies accompanied by lady's mantel...



...the scones enhanced by clotted cream and delicious jam just melted in the mouth.



Inside the Tea Room had a nice collection of tea pots, all in use for the guests. If you are in the area and love tea I would highly recommend this place! The Worth Matravers Tea & Supper Room, at Worth Matravers, near Swanage, Dorset BH19 3LQ is right opposite the duck pond of the village. You can't miss it! Phone (01929) 439368. They also serve light lunches daily and suppers, but the latter only on selected days of the week.



By the way, even the ducks at the local duck pond seem to have a happy life. 




Having their own little duck house almost as charming as many of the cottages here, they certainly can't complain.



Right below the duck pond we came across a very small public village garden, where we were greeted by the most charming plantings of flowers.



The day of our excursion coincidentally was also a day of Open Studios of local artists and we visited a studio displaying pottery, aquarelle paintings, and prints. The art was lovely, but I was equally fascinated with the surrounding private garden, which I got permission to take some photos of. The picture above shows the entrance of the garden adjacent to the studio adorned by an arch, which was  planted with an abundantly flowering clematis.




Close-up of the clematis flowers.



Picture perfect scenes out of that garden...



...promising many more gardens, which we are about to see on our trip.



However, that evening we went for a spectacular walk through the countryside towards the sea.



Passing by free grazing sheep,...



...lovely yellow flowering shrubs that seem to be typical for the area (My dear British readers, any ideas how this plant is called?),...




...and finally reaching the spectacular coastline.



We enjoyed the sight of the iconic sailing boats and...



 ...more enticing views,...



...of the Dorset coast.



On the way back we encountered another herd of sheep with plenty of lambs...



...and a little rabbit, whose thin ears were lit up by the evening sun so that you almost could see through them.



One last look at the central place of the village complete with the obligatory English red telephone booth and we were ready to go home and fall into our bed. Not bad for a first day in England, don't you think?

See you in the garden!

Christina



25 comments:

  1. PRACHTIG!!!!
    Nice trip you made..and that scones...mmmmm

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great to hear you're back here Christina! Enjoy your holiday and have a great time!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Welcome back to England - it seems hardly any time at all since your last visit. The plant is called Ulex europaeus common name gorse, and it is out all over the country at the moment from farthest north in Scotland down to Cornwall in the south. It does looks stunning against blue skies and green fields, but do not go too near as it is prickly.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Glad to see you are on vacation and enjoying it! It all looks fab and that sheep is adorable (as is the rabbit). Enjoy! Jeannine

    ReplyDelete
  5. OH MY!!! Are your photos just so amazing! I loved everything about them! I am so glad that you are on vacation in such a fantastic place! The buildings, the tea, and the GARDENS!!! Just perfect! Thank you for the inspiration! You put a smile on my face...enjoy every second!!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I was swooning over that beautiful scenery. Since I'm not able to travel there myself, I'm so happy that you are, and that you are sharing those lovely photos with us! Welcome back to blogging. I've missed you!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dear Christina,
    Well you are having a lovely time! That is a very nice part of the world that you are staying in. We will be down Dorset way ourselves for not for another few weeks yet. I am going to see what other places you visit and get some inspiration!
    Bye for now
    Kirk
    PS
    I see that Rosemary has already identified Gorse for you. It has such pretty flowers but is very prickly! It often has lots of spiders' webs in it too.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Marian, nice to see you around again and thanks for your comment!

    Mark and Gaz, thanks for your nice words! We are having a wonderful vacation so far, the only problem being that the time goes so fast!

    Rosemary, lovely to receive a comment from you! Thanks for identifying the yellow flowering plant for me. Now I can read up on it a little bit :-).

    Jeannine, thanks for your nice note. It is easy to fall in love with the sheep and rabbits here ;-)!

    My Garden Diaries, thank you so much for your very nice comment. Your enthusiasm for my post made my day and motivates me to get some more blog posts out :-)!

    Dorothy, thanks for your toughing comment. I missed reading your blog as well, but hopefully I will also get to catch up with it while I am here as well.

    Kirk, how nice to see you commenting here again! Dorset is a wonderful versatile place and you will have no problem to find lovely things to do yourself. But of course, I hope that I can come up with something in my blog that might intrigue you to visit as well :-)!

    Christina

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi Christina...what an absolutely wonderful place to visit. It looks so quaint and charming! How lucky you were to visit. The tea and scones look so yummy and all of the flowers are so pretty! Thanks for taking us along!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Bonjour Christina,

    Quel beau voyage un village vraiment charmant j'adore!!
    c’est vraiment sympa de pouvoir ce promener a travers vos photos merci beaucoup!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I have never been to the UK but I love it; I guess being originally from India and growing up with all the British culture, literature and everything. I would love to go and sit there. What charming places!! Are you originally from the UK?

    ReplyDelete
  12. What a fantastic place to be Christina. You have been away to long!!
    I wish you a wonderful hollidaytime.
    Warm wishes and rosehugs Marijke

    ReplyDelete
  13. Merveilleux! Quelles belles vacances!
    J'aime beaucoup la clématis 'Broughton Star' que j'ai au jardin.

    ReplyDelete
  14. "I have never been to the UK but I love it" What charming places!!

    Definitely, keeping my fingers crossed to visit there.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Christy, thanks for your comment! We cherish every day that we are here!

    nanou, I am glad you are enjoying my photos. The little village where we lived was truly a charming gem!

    KL, I hope you have the chance to visit the UK in the future, it is so worth it. Originally we are from Germany.

    Marijke, so nice to read your comment! My blogging break was much longer than intended :-(, but I hope I will be able to post more regularly in the future. I love the word rosehugs :-)!

    Malorie, clematis can definitively be quite lovely in the garden. Unfortunately I don't have any in mine, yet.

    recardomaurice12, wishing you that a trip to the UK is possible for you. It is such a beautiful and interesting country.

    Christina



    ReplyDelete
  16. Liebe Christina,
    das sind so wunderschöne Bilder!
    Ich kann dich verstehen, dass du England
    so gern hast. Es muss ein tolles Land sein.
    Besonders die vielen berühmten Garten würden
    mich interessieren. Leider war ich noch nie dort.
    Aber irgendwann möchte ich da mal hin und auch
    Cremetee trinken :-))
    Ganz viele liebe Grüße
    sendet dir Urte

    ReplyDelete
  17. Urte, thanks, yes in England there is no shortage of famous gardens! But also the not so well known private ones are not to be missed as I hopefully will show in my blog :-)!
    Christina

    ReplyDelete
  18. So gorgeous! I'll be in England soon but doubt I'll have much extra time to do this kind of sightseeing since I'll be there for a wedding. I'll just have to plan a second trip. :o)

    ReplyDelete
  19. What a gorgeous, gorgeous place! Your photos are really lovely too. I dream of visitng England one day. I'm an Aussie who doesn't like Australian natives or our hot summers. I think I should've been born in England:)

    ReplyDelete
  20. Casa Mariposa, thanks, oooh if you are already there for the wedding can't you add some more days? I am sure you won't regret it. Otherwise second trip is a must :-)!

    Kim, thanks for your kind comment and for becoming a follower. I would have loved to be born in England as well, but maybe retirement is an option ;-)? So far I have never been to Australia, but I hope to be able to visit it one day and see for myself...

    Christina

    ReplyDelete
  21. Lucky you! I've always wanted to visit England. I can't believe the flowers on that clematis. Wow

    ReplyDelete
  22. Phillip, I feel very fortunate every day that we are here. I hope you get to visit England as well in the future. That clematis is quite stunning isn't it?
    Christina

    ReplyDelete


  23. Hello, you have a lovely blog. I share your interest in the plant world. I have the fortune to live in Galicia (Spain), where the landscape is identical to that of England. I recommend a visit to our land. We have many traditional country houses for visitors
    The yellow flowering bush called "Cytisus Scoparus", here we call them "Xestas" and grow everywhere. In the past its branches are used as brooms to sweep in the villages.
    Greetings.
    Isabel

    ReplyDelete
  24. Somehow I've been missing your posts, now I'm catching up. Thank you for sharing these beautiful photos of a lovely country. I love the greenness, the blue skies, the wonderful country side and gardens, sheep, ducks. It's like taking a mini vacation.

    Love and hugs ~ FlowerLady

    ReplyDelete
  25. Isabel, thanks for your comment. Unfortunately I have never been to Spain, but would love to visit one day. I am surprised that you say that the landscape is identical to England. I thought that it is much drier and hotter there. There is always more to learn...

    Lorraine, I am glad that you are catching up with my posts. You didn't miss too much though, since I had an unintended blogging break. Hopefully I will be more regular in the future.

    Christina

    ReplyDelete