Last of the flower photos for now

Fritillaria meleagris, chequered lily or snake's head.















Ornamental raspberry.
















Pieris forrestii

Tulips & Camellias

Camellia x Williamsii - 'Donation'















Camellia Japonica Nuccios Gem

Orchids & Magnolia

I've had some very kind remarks about my flower photos, so here are a few more from today.
Our orchids have been flowering very well after I bravely cut them back after their first flowering.



























This magnolia was almost dead last year for some reason - this year it seems to be recovering, and flowering nicely. Magnolia Stellata.

Cheap (?) meal

We've now been to Chez Mumtaj clickylink and used the £40 voucher which we won in the Residents First Weekend competition.
(see March 9th blog entry).
Naturally, we had to start in the Farmers Boy where I had an excellent pint of Farmers Joy.
















The Asian/French restaurant is huge and beautifully fitted out. Perhaps because it was Sunday evening, we were quite lonely - only one other table of 3 people on the far side of the restaurant.
















This was the Chicken Tikka starter.
















This was the Seafood Biryani - with a puff pastry lid!

We also had an excellent bottle of St.Halletts Shiraz/Grenache red wine from Australia's Barossa valley.

As I had booked through my favourite TopTable clickylink website, I had a special offer which gave us 25% off our food bill. So...with our £40 voucher we paid just over £28.

If you do the maths, you can see it was a pretty expensive meal, but was certainly the best 'Indian' meal we have ever had. Come on, St.Albans residents, save up and give it some support.

I have heard that they are introducing a more traditional menu which should cost a bit less, but it is worth trying their more interesting options.

Luton Airport

Took SWMBO to Luton Airport this morning at 5:30am as she has gone to Nice for a 3 day conference - nightmare!
(The airport, not the conference)
They have made a new (temporary I hope) 'Drop off, pick up point'. It is a bit bigger than the old one but the entrance to it is a turning off a roundabout AFTER the one which is the exit point. The whole thing gets gridlocked as cars cannot leave the car park because they have to cross a line of cars waiting to enter the car park! The whole thing needs to be reversed - any April Fool can see that. When I left, there was a line of stationary cars backing up towards Luton about three quarters of a mile long. Luckily we had left in plenty of time and didn't get caught up in it.

Cumberland House - Part 2

This is the new village garden - Cumberland Garden.
It is situated in the garden of Cumberland House, between the house and the High Street. As mentioned in the last post, this used to be the main entrance to the house.

Cumberland House

This is Cumberland House which overlooks Redbourn Common.
The original entrance was from the High Street.















The house dates from 1743 when the Duke of Cumberland was victorious at the battle of Culloden.
The house was not the Duke's residence, but was used as his hunting lodge in which to entertain guests invited to hunt with him from his kennels on Dunstable Downs.
The house had stabling for 120 horses and the first floor was a banqueting hall.















This avenue of trees links Cumberland House with St.Mary's church in Church End.

High water levels

The river Ver has not had this much water flowing for a number of years. Perhaps it's still the meltwater from all that recent snow?
Here's the ford in Waterend Lane...















No need for the bus from Redbourn to St.Albans - try white water rafting instead!

Redbourn in springtime

The Moor















A scoreboard has appeared on the pavilion - perhaps they will be ready in time for the new season?

Along the way

Nettleden Church















Violet violets and white violets















Amaravati Buddhist Centre















Back towards the river Gade valley

Nettleden

Nettleden lies between Great Gaddesden and Frithsden.
Allegedly, it is a village where there are more badgers than people.
And...sure enough, here's a badgers set - right on cue.















This cutting is right on the line of the footpath but curiously the line of the footpath is diverted round it. To me, it looks like a railway cutting but I can find no record of there having been a railway anywhere near here.















So, it seems to simply be a very elaborate crossing from one field to the next.
What a huge expense though - all those bricks!















There are some rather nice houses here too...

Nice day for a walk

Yesterday we walked from the River Gade valley at
Great Gaddesden up over the hills to Frithsden.















Part of the walk followed the Hertfordshire Way footpath.
Frithsden has some rather nice houses...






























I can't imagine what the 'purpose' of the walk was.

Further details of this splendid pub are here clickylink