Today I went for a very pleasant walk around the Château de Voltaire. It's a lovely historic building where the philosopher Voltaire lived from 1758 until his death, and it's very close to where I live. This weekend the gardens were open to the public all day (there are usually quite restrictive opening times) and I went for a wander.
The garden isn't one of these fancy French gardens, full of sculpted bushes and fountains. It's still fairly "sauvage" and is partly surrounded by woods. The sculpted hedges I did see look rather overgrown...
and the fountain was full of weeds and looked as if it hadn't seen water for decades (centuries?). I rather liked the little statue standing in the once-was fountain.
but it was obvious that no water had been through that sprinkler for quite some time.
There were some very nice secluded parts,
and I loved this seat.
A wander down this path
Brought me to a surprise... bee hives and bee keepers!
They were busy finding the new queen in a hive in which the previous queen had left, or died, and I had a very interesting conversation with the bee-keeper. Once they had caught the new queen, they painted a white dot on her back so that she could be easily recognised. Here she is!
We are very lucky that there is not too much pollution, and the bees have easy access to the great variety of trees in the park, all of which grow naturally and with no pesticides or other chemicals.
While we're talking about plants and insects, I wanted to share a recent photo of my strawberries... since this picture was taken they've all been eaten, but we're usually lucky enough to get a second lot later in the summer. For now, admire these beauties:
Bye bye for now, and remember to take part in my giveaway!
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