Flowers, flowers and more flowers. Oh, and rain. Plenty of rain.

My first visit to Tatton Park Flower Show was on Saturday, and it was a great day out.  Despite at times heavy rain and mud underfoot.  There were plenty of clued up people at the show who'd arrived prepared, presumably having visited before, and I envied their sensible wellies and waterproofs.  But it didn't matter as there were lots of floral displays undercover to admire and covet.  

The show cemented in my mind how much I love the English cottage garden look, a seemingly artless but actually highly accomplished mix of colours and scents.  Lots of white, pink, pale purples.  Tall salvias and exuberant echinacea.  Eye catching eremurus, the perfect spheres of aliums.  

I tried to concentrate on taking pictures of what I liked and what I intend to grow myself, though didn't always manage to get the label with the plant's name included in the shot.  

If I'd money to spare I'd have bought masses of plants.  As it was I'm making plans in my head for elaborate, well planned flower borders for next summer.  That's the joy of gardening, isn't you?  There's always another year in which to get things right!  

Yes, I absolutely love echinacea.  I've learnt that it's so important for the pollinators to have different shapes of flowers to feed from.  These open daisy shapes, the bell-like flowers of foxgloves and hollyhocks, the intricacies of verbena bonariensis and the up-turned umbrella shapes of yarrow and fennel.  

When we weren't admiring the plant display and show gardens, we were sitting down to a very fancy afternoon tea.  Scones with cream and jam, posh cakes and delicious sandwiches, plus a couple of glasses of champagne.  Who needs sunshine when you've a classic cream tea?  

Though I may need to lose a few pounds before my weigh-in at slimming club on Thursday!  Anyway, today - an equally rainy Sunday - was spent recovering from all that scoffing and walking.  I recently treated myself to a gelli plate, brayer and some acrylic paints.  Which means I'm listening to podcasts and doodling nature inspired motifs, so I can experiment with hand printing.  I want to make some cards, maybe gift wrap, and - if I buy fabric paint - to print on plain fabric and hem that to make tea towels.  I've got a copy of Lotta Jandotter's 'Lotta Prints' book to give me ideas and practical info on how to print successfully.  Perhaps I'll get stuck into that tomorrow.  

Well, that's the last of the photos.  Hope you liked them.  I'd absolutely recommend a visit to Tatton Park, though take my advice.  Wellies and waterproofs!  You know it makes sense.