There’s something special about cottage gardens. I love to find gardens where the flowers come to greet you. This one was a delight, hanging over the edge of the wall. It struck me that the beauty of this flower is enjoyed more by those passing by than from indoors! The plant seems insistent on looking away from the house, wanting to catch the attention of passers by.

This one certainly caught my eye. And while I’m distracted by flowers & gorgeous blooms like this peony I am not spotting things I am supposed to be searching for like door furniture!

Roses never fail to catch my attention, especially when they are leaning over a garden wall, enticing me to come & savour their delicious perfume.

It’s been a real bonus of visiting this Wiltshire town, just nine miles from the city of Bath & discovering hidden treasures in the form of gardens & roses in particular. But it’s also interesting to stumble across something more unusual – like this gate. It’s a real work of art & as the sunlight catches the design the gate seems to come alive. It’s an amazing work of art. I also have a soft spot for wild flowers, especially those that appear in random places. This lane caught my attention, it’s the sort of image that is well suited to chocolate boxes. Nostalgia time! Do you remember when boxes of chocolates featured cute scenes? Cats, dogs, or pleasant country cottage images.

You see I am easily distracted from the task in hand, discovering the location of the images in this little book.

I am beginning to fall in love with the cottages here. There are some beautiful frontages to these old cottages. What a contrast to the modern take on a garden – paved over with loose shingle that spills out onto the roadside.

Here gardens remain things of beauty. This cottage caught my eye, the rose, rambling across the building. It is quintessentially English country garden, except the small amount of soil the shrub is growing in makes it even more amazing. Not only has the rose survived, it is positively blooming! The white stands out against the stone of the building – one complimenting the other.

I love roses & this month they are looking especially good. I cannot resist stopping to smell the roses. How was I to know the lady who lives here was busy in the garden? This rose is gorgeous & reminds me of one in my parent’s garden; I think it’s called Golden Anniversary, or something similar. It flowers profusely & has the most amazing perfume. This one is well sited, easy fro passers by to stop & admire it, drinking in the heady scent.

It’s back to the churchyard! Somehow I have a sneaking suspicion that we have missed something! First there is something that demands a closer look – an amazing display of wild flowers. There is something intriguing about wild flowers. They grow naturally yet appear so beautifully placed, constructed to form a colourful burst in the most unlikely of places. I can struggle to establish a plant that has been cultivated & bought at a price. Yet a wild flower can grow from a simple seed, blown by the wind or dropped by a passing bird.

I am not a fan of wandering around churchyards, looking at headstones, but here there is something rather charming. It’s an old church, with equally old graves. The stones are partly covered with moss & have a certain charm of their own. If I said there was a feeling of peace & tranquility it sounds rather silly, but there was something about this sacred place.

After a while I realised we were not alone. A lady I took to be the gardener came across to chat a while. I left my companion to explore while I listened to her tale. Clasped firmly in her hand she too had a copy of the book. At this point the “gardener” informed me that she had solved 70 of the picture puzzles. Can this be true? I did not reveal the meager total of our efforts to date numbered just ten. Perhaps we should simply abandon the project now!

A small book sitting on a display at the garden centre. What could be wrong with that? It can become addictive, that’s what! The book is designed to lead you around a small market town in Wiltshire and to identify locations that appear in the book… My problem is that I tend to become distracted – spot an interesting garden, plant… or find assorted items that catch my attention that are not in the book!

It’s a bit like the I Spy books I had as a child – mark off one item & you gain points. The trouble is it all seems so simple, until you look at what you’ve found & compare the photo in the book.

Our first outing took us to the church, it seemed a good place to begin. On the way we met a friendly postman, keen to ask about the book we were carrying… All became clear – this was no ordinary postman, this was also the person responsible for the book! Later I wished I’d asked him to autograph it for me.

Next we were greeted by lots of cheery daffodils. Their welcome was much warmer than the one we received as we stepped into the church. Perhaps we had interrupted one of the church ladies at work. Whilst she bustled around we looked for clues & locations of statues – anything to start our countdown!