National Botanic Gardens followed by scrummy lunch

These ad hoc, spur of the moment events, in addition to our regular monthly walks turn out really well, as indeed this one did, encouraging people to join us who might, for whatever reason not be able to come to one of our longer walks at that particular time.

This event went down especially well as there was free entry to the Gardens as happens every January and after Colin and John suggested a late lunch to follow our tour of the gardens, at the nearby village of Llanarthne.

9 of us met at the Gardens and had what can only be described as a little wander.

There was a large area of beautiful snowdrops beside the main path that welcomed us as we entered, then we veered off to see some weird and wonderful tree trunks from around the World, The Ghost Forest.

We made our way towards the Great Glasshouse and examined the wide variety of plants and trees from all corners of the earth.Then we popped out and passed Principality House to get to the Fairy Woods--see photo--where hidden amongst the trees we found the remnants of a fairy tea party,and a toadstool village and Colin played us a merry little tune on a wooden musical instrument hanging from the trees.

Unfortunately none of us could name that tune!!!  

We ventured onto a wet and muddy area and decided we did not need to get too dirty so took a detour towards the shop and art gallery area, and then moving on to the Apothecary Hall, we examined lots of boxes and bottles of old pills and potions.One that we saw seemed quite incredible, "asthma cigarettes" not to give you asthma of course, but to help with the symptoms of that and other chest problems.I'm sure some people believed this at the time though it seems quite incredible to believe today.

At this point we realised we'd lost Sandra and Mike, who had wandered off deep in conversation.

Luckily they weren't far away so we regrouped and entered the warm and wonderful Tropical House complete with the most beautifully coloured butterflies, fluttering all around us.

A detour off to the ponds, and other water features completed the tour.

Our rumbling tummies made us look at the time, and we all decided it was time for lunch.

The short drive took us to a lovely eatery at Llanarthne where we spent a few hours relaxing and enjoying the surroundings and scrummy food and drink whilst continuing our socialising.

This was something just a bit different and I'm sure we'll return in the future.

There is always something new to see in the Gardens and usually some new group members to show around.

Many thanks to everyone who came and made this a really lovely day.

 

 

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