A rose is not just a rose......

On the last beautifully warm day in that freakishly hot spell of weather, we took a trip to Nymans gardens in Handcross. What a gorgeous National Trust garden this is. Not too big and overwhelming, not too crowded and still bursting with colour. There was a walkway planted with dahlias in the craziest colours you've ever seen, wild cyclamen nestling underneath a katsura tree whose fallen leaves smelt of burnt sugar and faded lacecap hydrangeas just beginning to fade into papery skeletons. Swoon. But the bit I am bursting to share with you was the rose garden of David Austin roses. Oh my giddy Aunt!!! Now as you may or may not know, roses do happen to be an absolute favourite flower of mine. I agonise over colours, fragrances, longevity, names of the roses that I buy in the shop each week. It just takes me an age. If I could fill the shop with only roses, I would ( oh and bankrupt myself in the process ) so this brief sojourn in this rose garden was sweet torture. One day soon ( and do keep pestering me to do it ) I am simply going to HAVE to have a Rose Week where the shop will be rammed with pure indulgence and I will imagine myself to be Mrs Fantin La Tour. Enjoy these pictures and imagine me running around squealing with my nose buried in every bloom like a greedy bee!