MarchTrip to Rutland AS

Thursday 22^nd March 2012-Off to Rutland C&C AS site today. Not by the quickest A1 route but across the Vale Of Belvoir, through warm stone villages, passing close by the eponymous Castle, all in March sunlight with a slight mist in the distance.

 On to Buckminster for pics of an interesting string of cottages and then on to Site with a friendly receptionist who was immediately able to give 'walking to Rutland Water' advice as well as having a good supply of tourist leaflets. Definitely don't use satnav to site as the map marked road is not open now.. do as says in the CC guide!

 Site looked about half full and most hard standings were occupied but the site do the pitch allocation anyway. We were on grass but did only book a week ago. It now has 135ish pitches as a swimming pool is to be constructed on a previous camping area. Is a flat open site with some hedging .. functional, not picturesque but with a landscaped sitting areas dotted about and a good view of Greetham village church spire. A great location for lots of local attractions, including 3 pubs in Greetham!

We were fairly handy for the toilet block but our male block only had 2 wc's. There is another block with around 4 male wc's so probably not a problem overall. All close to CC standards with only a few minor omissions eg not enough clothes hooks on some washbasin and shower cubicle walls.

Off to Barnsdale Gardens after lunch. Really interesting, not only for the wide range of planting and design, but to see the actual size of the individual sub-gardens used by Geoff Hamilton for his TV shows, each addressing a particular aspect of gardening... there are 38 of them! It was obviously too early in the year to see things at their best, but the nursery shop had a huge selection of perennials.. at a rough count about 20 varieties of Hemerocallis alone! The shop also had both of my 'collectibles' - local chutneys and leather bookmarks, so really rounded off a super visit .. all in bright sunshine. We even saw Nick Hamilton, easily recognisable as the son. Definitely recommended.

PS If anybody knows of a supplier of traditional clay type water pipes please let Barnsdale know as they need some short lengths of various diameters to repair a herb garden damaged by frost.

Then off to see the Drought Garden somewhere near Rutland Water but failed here.. my info had 2 different locations and could not find at either .. off to see the receptionist tomorrow!

Finally a quick whizz through Empingham and Exton to see the area we are planning to walk tomorrow from site.