Charles, Emma and the Girls Visit

 Sunday 9th July 2023 in Leigh.

After the rain storms of yesterday, this morning dawned with bright, warm sunshine. Hooray! By the time that the RHS Bridgewater Garden opened, we were waiting outside the door. M went in to find a good table in the cafe overlooking the little lake, while R waited outside to welcome Charles, Emma, Penny and Minnie when they arrived. 

As R waited, the queue to get into the gardens was getting longer and longer, even though it moved very quickly. This new RHS garden has become so popular that even members now have to book in advance. One of the staff indicated that visitor numbers are eight times higher than they originally expected, so a success story indeed!

When C, E, P & M arrived, we started with a snack in the cafe before venturing into the garden. M was worried that, at this time of year, there wouldn't be a lot of colour.

How wrong she was!

This RHS garden is built on the grounds of the former house of the son of the Duke of Bridgewater. The original "Head Gardener's" house is quite magnificent and is now used to house temporary staff.

Not sure if M took this picture because of the density of the flowers or the family line-up! ("both", says M!).

This weekend, the National Sweet Pea Society was having its annual show. M loves sweet peas, so was in seventh heaven. The fragrance as you walked in was exquisite.

A final group photograph outside the RHS Garden before we walked back to MM.

As they needed to start back home and we needed to get on, we only took a short cruise round the corner to Boothstown Marina, where we had left MM twice last year. First Penny took the tiller...

And then Minnie. Both did very well and we managed the short trip without doing any damage.

At the Marina, we said farewell and went our separate ways.So wonderful to spend time together and very much appreciated that they came all this way to see us.

We carried on for a couple of hours until we got to Leigh, where we moored up. There is an Aldi next to the canal and we will nip in quickly for some "more bits" before setting off tomorrow.

Today: 5 miles, 0 locks and 1.9 hours.

Trip: 92 miles,53 locks and 53.2 hours.