Awesome blossom & carpets of wild garlic

Awesome blossom

This morning I opened our curtains to see this astonishing blossom (partly due to the mild winter).

Then after lunch, I got an emal saying that the tourist attraction closest to Apley Farm Shop, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, “has won the top Gold Award in the Large Visitor Attraction of the Year category of the prestigious VisitEngland Awards for Excellence 2015. Intended for venues that welcome more than 50,000 visitors per annum, it was judged on the overall quality of the experience provided.” It’s very well deserved – we’re delighted for them !

Then this afternoon we rode along a bridleway we’d never even seen before, let alone ridden along, through carpets of wild garlic & bluebells, with gorgeous sunshine shining through the bright lime-green new leaves. Blissful. Venetia said “Mummy, this is like riding through the pages of a book or being in a film.” If only England had more days like today.  We saw quite a few local residents including Phil Allen, Apley Walled Garden’s Head Gardener who’s sending me his news tomorrow.

On the way home, we spotted Foo-Fighter, one of our bulls, in with the cows & calves. On the Apley home farms, this week Adrian has been drilling fodder beet, doing yet more fencing & has planted more of the environmentally-friendly stewardship bird seed & flower mixes, plus some game cover. Winter barley was planted in Sept 2014 & will be ready by end of July 2015.