Smith's Journeys

We were invited back to Pradoe for another four months helping to look after the gardens around the house. We were last there in 2018.

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We packed our bags and delivered our vehicles to family and friends in Palmerston North, who had graciously agreed to look after them both for the six months we are away from New Zealand

We departed from Palmerston North via Auckland for our 11-hour flight to Singapore.

We had a 5 hour stopover in Changi Airport. There was not much going on at the airport in the middle of the night. We then had a 13 hour flight on to Manchester.

We arrived in Manchester and were met by our host, Andrew Kenyon, who then drove us to Pradoe, an hour’s drive south.

We had a walk around the property to check out any changes and to reconnect with the various parts of the grounds.

With COVID hitting the UK and with borders closed, there had been no Kiwis here for over two years. A team of Church folk had taken over maintaining the Churchyard. They will carry on doing this, so we will not have the same responsibility as we did in 2018.

We didn’t have much time to dwell on jet-lag as the garden open day was in two days time. We got straight into gardening and lawn mowing, then setting up for visitors arriving at 2:00 pm Sunday.

The day was a success, with far more visitors than anyone expected. The grounds were at their best.

Monday morning was packing away tables, chairs, crockery and then more lawns. After lunch, we had our training session as tour guides for the house open days.

We plan to take some time off tomorrow and head into Shrewsbury, which is 30 minutes drive southeast of here.

Cheers