Sunday 19th November - Lunch, and not Leith Hill Place

What to do today?

Proper lazy morning, breakfast in bad (thank you, my love), leisurely bath...

book a table at a favourite pub ("yes, we can just mange to fit you in at 12:45") that was lucky...

Collect The Patriarch and drive off through the autumnal country lanes and golden sunshine...

Come face to face with an enormous plate of properly roasted beef (rare) and honey-roasted vegetables and red cabbage and mashed swede and broccoli and roast potatoes and yorkshire pudding... I swapped my broccoli for some of the patriarch's parsnips and red cabbage and mashed swede - goody goody

Some time later, dawdle back into the car and drive through the pretty village of Ockley where every view has been taken from a chocolate box picture

© Copyright Colin Smith and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/710194

turn left and then later on right and then later on left and left again into the Rhododendron Car Park above Leith Hill Place...

walk through the sunshine along shrubs full of promise for next Spring

and what about this acer palmatum?

But when we arrived at the gate to the field leading to Leith Hill Place it was shut; the house and gardens are closed now, with only limited opening hours over the winter.

Oh.

Never mind - the afternoon was wearing on, the warmth of the sunshine was becoming thinner, the temperature in the shade growing colder...

so we went home. I reckon we had the best of the day, and have found a very enjoyable Sunday Day Out for future weekends.

Tea. Cake. Candles against the autumnal dusk.