wakehurst at Ardingly

we drive in, out and around. Narrow streets, sharp corners, parked cars almost blocking the road... following Maps to wakehurst Gardens. Our hotel is on the edge of town, we have to negotiate the edges to get clear.

We have two Maps, Google and the GPS in the car. Mostly, they agree.

For a while, the car is telling us to turn round and go back. We ignore it. Until we reach a roundabout, we circle and go back.

Then... the car realises that I have plugged my tablet in to recharge. Do I want to connect? it asks, there is no option for No. No way to load the necessary app either.

We try to get the car back to navigation. It insists on playing music, the radio. No navigation.

We arrive at the Gardens. Plenty of parking.

It only takes a few minutes to turn the radio off, we hope the nav will eventually come back.

The Gardens are, of course, enormous.

They began as a private garden. The Elizabethan mansion is still there, now used as offices.

Over the years, the mansion has changed. I find it interesting that at one stage it was four wings with a central courtyard. One owner demolished three of the wings... they must have wanted a serious change of lifestyle.

The are water gardens, Meadows with buttercups. Rock gardens, formal and woodland, sections with all plants from one country. Lots of lawn areas. The grass here is so soft! With little flowers is it, which are not weeds.

We stroll for nearly six km. The best is the woodland. Pity we dont know the names of the trees, luckily some are labelled.

We are excited to see a pheasant! then we see more and more of them. The colourful males and the dowdy females.

Deb, and others, worry about a lone duckling. Is it okay?We hope its parents find it.

We finally reach the restaurant. This is where the crowds congregate. In the gardens, there are very few people. That we see, anyway, there could be people on other paths, out of sight.

I take photos and... realise that not many people are taking photos. Yes, these gardens are a tourist destination but... its also a local park for a lot of people. I dont bring my camera to bold park near home.

The main feature of these gardens is the seed bank. They store seeds from plants from all over the world. So the plants will not go extinct. These gardens are an offshoot of londons Kew gardens, away from londons pollution (and risk of flooding apparently).

Seeds are gathered. Then cleaned and dried, except for "recalcitrant" types of seed which would die if dried.

If they arrive in fruit, the fruit is ripened so the seeds can mature.

A sample is xrayed to make sure the batch of seeds is not damaged. Then that sample is germinated... to make sure that the xrays did not damage dna. its a complex process, to make sure that they have a good batch of seeds.

Which are then frozen, if its a sed that can be frozen, and stored. Ready for a post apocalyse replanting.

I seem to remember that there is another seed bank in a very cold country where freezing is easier.

its all amazing, and fascinating. just one thing being done to protect nature. from us, mostly.

We have lunch of "jacket potatoes", we would call them stuffed spuds. Seems to be the common food, equivalent to our meat pies.

And we drive home. it seems simpler to return... until the last hundred metres. The hotel driveway is hard to spot. We miss it and have some tricky driving to get back.

We make it back. Go to our room. And stop.

we eat dinner in our room, sandwiches we bought at the gardens. Thats it. enough for one day!

Oh, except that i decide its time to link gps watch to tablet. deb transfers her gps trace online via her tablet. i have the same model gps, would like to save my trace.

of course i fail.

i dont know why i try, i cant even work the technology of the shower taps.

and that. is it. the end :-)

Except that i now remember:

deb did not want to be in london. so no visit to kew gardens.

I find that wakehurst is an offshoot of kew... good enough.

So my planning includes

wakehurst. at ardingly. which is less than ten km from haywards heath,

which leads me to birch hotel

so thats at least part of why we are here.

and i must say : for no particular reason, i do like this hotel :-)

.

.

--

Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
...

===

If everyone is thinking the same way, then someone is not thinking.