We went to the Waterperry Gardens this morning - not that far from Ambrosden. I parked in the overflow area missing that I could have parked closer.

We wandered through woodland puzzled by the odd signs like "Renunciation" scattered along the paths, later learnt that the Gardens had been taken over by an economics society that had ended up linked to yogis and swamis. This accounted for a pillar with Sanskrit on it and odd pictures where we had lunch.

The gardens were pretty and varied, an odd Stonehenge like effort of hedges and topiary, hedges with windows in them, a pool with a statue of a girl in a very short dress.

We all had chocolate and coffee and walnut cake which was very boring of us in the cafe, they took pity despite us not having booked and we had a table inside.

In the evening ate at the Nightingale which turned out to be more a pub than a restaurant - we sat right by a screen blaring forth music videos which wasn't great. Good food and cheap, friendly staff, seemed like a strong community place. I noticed lots of Republic of Ireland registered cars and vans in the car park.