Return to Trentham Gardens

 

Because our humans have been extra careful while the nasty virus has been about, it's been more than a year since we last visited Trentham Gardens.

Now Grizzly has had both of his vaccinations against the virus, and Polar has had one, our humans are getting out a little bit more.  Last Friday, Polar arranged to meet our Aunty Tina, her friend who used to look after Hanley Bear, at Trentham Gardens, and we all went too.

Aunty Tina had brought one of her bears along to meet us, a very tiny bear who is even smaller than Waverley!  We did not have very long to chat and make friends, because Aunty Tina was also looking after her Mum and needed to take her home before she got too cold, but perhaps we will meet Tiny Bear again another day.

Trentham is always lovely at this time of year, when the spring bulbs are in flower.  We think the tulips look particularly nice in these tall terracotta pots.

After walking to the exit with Aunty Tina and her Mum, Polar and Grizzly took us for a walk all around the lake.  Some more big trees had been cut down, which would make us sad if there weren't lots of new trees being planted.

After doing some climbing, we looked out for the birds on the lake, seeing greylag geese and the black swans, as well as grebes, tufted ducks and cormorants.

There was also a big, bold heron standing on the edge of the River Trent where the overflow from the lake runs out, who didn't seem at all bothered by Polar and Grizzly walking over the bridge behind him.

We had ice-cream from the cafe at the far end of the lake and watched the rowers practicing, before setting off along the west bank of the lake where the woodland meadows are.

As there were not too many people about, Polar helped us out of our bag and we did some more climbing on tree-stumps that we remembered from our previous visits - except Waverley, of course, as he had not been to Trentham before.

Waverley couldn't believe how beautiful the woodland meadows were, with masses of scented narcissi in big drifts under the trees.  'It looks like snow!' he cried.

We all sat together on a fallen branch, enjoying the sunshine and the scent of the flowers, before running up the path to catch up with our human guardians.

A little further on, Waverley found a bracket fungus that was big enough for him to sit on!

Polar carried us in our Bear Bag back along the high path above the lake to the formal gardens, and then along the route to the exit.  It took us through the area that is full of tall perennial plants later in the year, but looks like scrubby grass at this time of year.

It was chilly enough for us to put our jumpers on when we got back to the bridge out of the gardens. 

'Can we come again soon?' asked Waverley.  'It's lovely here!'

'We've all missed it too,' said Endon.  'I hope we can visit when the irises are in flower.'

'Hopefully, we can visit regularly in future,' said Polar.  'We've updated our annual tickets.'

We all cheered, because Trentham Gardens is one of our favourite places to visit in the whole world - although there is an awful lot of the world we haven't been to yet!

I wonder where we will go next?