First and Second!

Hi everyone,I have my first page for Art Journal Journey, where Erika of Bio Art Girl blog has chosen 'When It's Hot' for her theme. A brilliant theme with lots of scope!

I used a few hot colours through a stencil for my background.

I no longer have a garden to sit in but we are surrounded by gardens here, and as you know I love to visit public gardens.
Butterflies and bees are attracted to flowers so they are here along the bottom of my page and on the fabulous Aall and Create butterfly stamp. 

We saw this on Tuesday, it was warm but not sunny but the bees were loving the hosta flowers.

Here is June's page all filled in!

It is also the second of the month so I have a previous post here for Elizabeth's Second Look On The 2nd at The Altered Book Lover.

I have gone back to July 26th 2016 

    -------------------------------------------------------------I promised more photos of the nostalgia trip we took last week. From Nottingham we took a familiar road(to me)to Southwell near Newark.

This is where Richard 1st had his last night of freedom before surrendering to the Scots at Newark.
Southwell has changed greatly since I was there last - quite a few 'posh' shops and lots of eating places! 






I have never seen so many hanging baskets in one small area - very pretty indeed

We had our lunch in the Minster cafe but I forgot to take a photo!(again!)

A wedding had just taken place while we were eating so we were able to go inside! There was a notice saying permission had to be given for taking photos, luckily someone was there to do just that!

The seats all had names on them.

I remember that as a child the carvings here always fascinated me(and still do)

Hubby took this photo during a short shower while we walked round to  the Bishop's garden. 

 I do love a blue and white garden!

 There were lovely cool green areas too - and bees!!

 This is the very end of the ruined palace- the door leads to the private part of the garden

 We both loved this place and we will be back!

As I am here for 

at The Altered Booklover blog where Elizabeth, Bleubeard and Squiggles are sharing a drink related post I had better show you where we had a coffee later in the afternoon.

My Dad used to work for this company, although not at the site where this Garden Centre is. I remember the two men at the bottom right, they were the owners and such lovely bosses! 

This is the bottom end of the cafe and was sectioned off but I just had to go in….

…that's my Dad's name there - Ken Donson - he had a clematis named after him years ago - it is not readily available here but apparently grows well in the US and Canada. I confess to getting tearful seeing this!
We enjoyed our coffee..

..and had a little look around. 

there were lots of old photos on the walls and this one is certainly a view I recognise!

This one too - again at the nursery where I grew up, walked my dogs, played with my cats and rabbits, climbed trees, drove a tractor, saw a baby cuckoo in a nest, learned to ride my bike and of course got my love for gardens! 

Oh! What is it with me? Blurry eyed again

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I have no idea what drew me to this date, but the strangest thing is, this afternoon I have been trying to source some of the Ken Donson Clematis as gifts for my three boys! It was the first date I clicked on......serendipity!

Sorry this was longer than I expected but it just had to be!

Thanks for looking, Chrisx