Glasserton and foxgloves

Hi
I'd like to carry on the tour of the Isle of Whithorn from where we left off last time. You will remember that the holidays my wife and I take, turn into active affairs because while we are in a location we like to see as much as we can and hence we always return to our cottage well and truly knackered.

This holiday on the Isle of whithorn was no exception and I'll just recap how we started off the week and what we both thought was going to be a leisurely Sunday.

In the morning we visited Whithorn Harbour and had a walk around the headland taking in some ruins before retiring to the Steam Packet Inn for lunch. Following a lovely meal we took a ride to Garlieston and after walking around the harbour and village we visited Galloway House gardens and took the woodland walk down to the beach.

We had by now both had enough and with weary legs we got in the car and set off back to the cottage. However, on the way back we saw a strange church in the middle of a field and couldn't resist going to visit it. It was locked but we found out later that it was Cruggleton church and was built for the family that lived in the now ruined Cruggleton Castle.


By now as you can imagine we were getting very tired so we drove through the lovely countryside looking at the amazing flora and forna which included some gorgeous newly born calves and a long legged pony.
Anyway feeling reasonably exhausted, I guess we were only about 2 miles from our cottage and looking forward to a cup of tea when we entered the small village of Glasserton.


There we saw a home made sign by an entrance lodge that said, "Glasserton Gardens open this Sunday." My wife and I looked at each other and both new instinctively what the other was thinking. Because the sign said that it was open on Sunday, it meant that it was probably closed for the rest of the week. So I turned in and went down the long drive way and parked by a lovely old church that must have belonged to the Glasserton estate.

We walked through the churchyard and were greeted by a lovely couple from Yorkshire. They had taken over the gardens and were restoring them to their former glory. I can't recall the couple's name but they said that although Yorkshire was a very nice county they absolutely loved the Isle of Whithorn because of its quiet beauty. I had to agree, especially when one of them pointed out that it was over 60 miles to the nearest traffic light. Coming from Stafford this rang very true because here we have a traffic light on every corner. Our highways department seem hell bent on putting as many obstacles in front of the motorist as possible. We have to suffer: humps, chicanes, traffic lights, speed cameras, pedestrian crossings, cycle and bus lanes all within the same mile. Right that's enough of Stafford and its woeful traffic; don't get me started on why they have to keep digging up and messing about with the Newport road.

The gardens were an absolute delight and I've never seen so many foxgloves in one place. They came in every shade and being in a walled garden they were protected from the wind. I started this post with a photo of the foxgloves so now you know what it was you may want to pop back to the top and have another look at it. Sorry about the quality, it was taken with my first digital camera and it only had 1.3 million pixels and I was so tired(It's alright don't bother getting the violin out)I could have noddeed off standing up. Thankfully it wasn't a big garden but it was none the worse for that. We had the whole place to ourselves and Glasserton will linger long in our memories. But I think that was enough for one Sunday. we returned to the cottage to get a bit of sleep no doubt another full day would be ahead of us come the morn.
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