Hillier's

Although the weather didn't look very promising, we decided to take a chance and go to Hillier's. It was great! We took two of my grandsons, put on their wellies and made our way through all the wet grass - trouser legs becoming very wet, but no-one cared. The trees have all taken on their autumn foliage and, where many of them have already dropped them, the boys enjoyed kicking up clouds of the crunchy leaves as they ran around.

The sun came out as we enjoyed all the pieces of 'art in the garden', from grassy sheep to chicken-wire dragon.

There were baskets of berries and fruit in the pavillion and they looked fantastic - gorgeous shiny reds, yellows, oranges, purples, black, white and greens. In fact they didn't look real. There were some medlars too - fruits which my father used to forage from the countryside. Not heard of much nowadays.

Unfortunately, the machine for making hot chocolate had broken down so the older grandson was disappointed. It's usually one of the highlights of coming to Hillier's! Never mind. They had fizzy Fantas instead. A great time was had by all!