At 7:00 AM this morning, the household was all awake, with me back on my bed with Soot the 20 year old cat (who’d got us up early), having said hello to our 2 quite elderly chickens (Holly was laying an egg, and Willow was in the run). I scratched Soot’s ears a bit before hearing the headlines, did a bit of Duolingo, Soot snored, I got up and jabbed myself with my insulin pen (I’m diabetic) when I heard breakfast frying begin, and once down in the kitchen I fried the usual bits. Breakfast was served and consumed, I brushed my teeth and got very pissed off with my phone charger, then a blood sugar sensor applicator got irritating and made me bleed when I eventually stuck it in my arm, and Soot had briefly got up, then got back on my bed, restarted his snoring, I packed my bag and had a bit of time sat there with him. Then I properly dressed myself, persuaded him down the stairs, put a few extra treats in his bowl and topped up the water; and it was 11 degrees and 10:12 AM when the car moved.

A stop at the local pet shop for mealworms preceded reaching the Heritage Seed Library at 10:35AM, where a parking officer told Mum she’d gone the wrong way round the car park. The head of staff, when giving us watercress seeds to pack, said she’d almost crashed into someone when going the right way, and we began spooning Hongs Vietnamese watercress seeds into envelopes at 10:45 AM. We finished the unknown number of them at 11:02 AM, I’d noticed a small bottle of Tabasco sauce on the other table in the room, and then trays with not many envelopes in of various varieties of lettuce seed began to be packed. It was at 11:00 AM that some random people came in, a couple of women left and returned with coffee, (and one said she hadn’t had a Jaffa cake for ages), there were six people round the other table with coffee and crumpets by 11:20 AM, nine round it 5 minutes later, Mum was struggling with using a sellotape holder, so I tried to demonstrate the technique required, an escaped dwarf French bean (Pirotta was the variety) went in my bag, I had another quick chat to 1 of the staff, and we were back in the car by 11:50 AM, and managed to take the right way out of the car park and not get told off.

Lanes were wiggled around, some sort of road improvements were in progress on the Fosse Way, I spotted a sign for a sale at a Persian rug store attached to the pole of a road sign, Mum was enjoying herself and going round corners at high speed, Wellesbourne was entered at 12.23PM, Charlecote Park, a National Trust Property, 5 minutes later and the car park was stuffed.

A bit of the lunch brought with us was nibbled before the car was left at 12.47 PM (and said it was 13 degrees Celsius); gusts were making my hair go everywhere, and in visitor reception a golden retriever was doing some deafeningly loud barking, Mum wanted to do a half term bee sign trail (as – at times – she likes to be very very childish) – and the park was entered at 12:55 PM. The first bee of this trail was found in the Spinney 7 minutes later;

…the second bee was discovered in the courtyard at 1:08 PM and the third one three minutes after that by the river (where there were a couple of sheep with shorn backsides)…

…and we went through the West gate and onto an avenue (called Lime Avenue) sort of path lined with nettles and very knobbly trees (presumably limes) – one of which was hollow but still alive.

A small herd of deer wasn’t far from the path; we got to the end of it, a tractor in a nearby field was crop spraying, a couple of propeller planes flew over, a woman going in the other direction was holding three plastic babies, a few sheep were under a very leafy tree, another seemed to have lost half its trunk, beech trees (with beech nuts on) were pointed out to me, and gates were passed back through at 2:02 PM. What was either a dragonfly or damselfly was in the grass nearby…

…the croquet lawn to one side of the house was closed for conservation purposes, and a woman, mid 80s, was sat on a bench wearing a sari and woolly bobbly hat. The ornamental hedges at the back were what I was told was the knot garden, and in the cafe at 2.25pm – melting pot vegan fudge, butterscotch steamers, and elderflower bubbly were what I noticed on the menu/boards behind the counter, and a couple of vegan ice creams were consumed by us (and I was told they were the first ice cream we’d consumed this year). It was 2.55PM when we got back to the car (which said it was still 13 degrees Celsius) and my hair was all over the place; an unmarked police car with lights flashing whizzed past on the M40, and by 3:20 PM we were entering a supermarket, where I spotted ‘A veeeerrrry long fold out book. Where’s Brians Bottom?’ (which appeared to fold out to 2 metres/6.5ft long…).