Busbridge Lakes Trip

I am very fond of Busbridge Lakes. It's the closest Gothic Garden to where I live and I was completely unaware of its existence before coming across the reference in Hedley and Meulenkamp's compendium of British follies. Last year I had a group of friends from the LGMG over to the Rectory for a housewarming party, as the August Bank Holiday weekend happened to be the last one before I started work. This year I did the same, and decided to take those who remained on Monday out to the Lakes and show them the follies.

Mrs Douetil, on the gate, claimed that it 'hadn't been a good year' but at least our pennies added to the revenue a little. Not least of this was the money we paid for bags of grain to feed the birds, grain at which they universally turned their beaks up. They preferred coffee cake, at least the peacocks did. Only Mr Webb, as you can see, succeeded in arousing any interest and actually got various exotic ducks feeding out of his hand. Perhaps there was something interesting on his cuffs. My heart fell as I thought we were going to be barred from the Ghost Walk by a path closed as a result of a fallen tree (indeed in another place there is a photograph showing my incredulity from the naughty side of the notice); but we found the upper path and got in that way. Only to discover sheep hiding in the Hermit's Cave, rather than ghosts.