Stanley's pictures: Our First Day Back In The UK,

and we were out,

for breakfast in Beckenham,

to the Big Breakfast,

whenever I take a picture, I always say one, two, three, go!

Diana does not,

we started with a latte coffee,

for the girls lasagna and chips,

a English breakfast for Steve, smoked salmon baguette for myself,

neither Kai or Diana will walk through a graveyard, they are both slightly superstitious, here it is a short cut to the car park, Steve and myself did walk through it and found this marker for an admiral,

back into the car and we made our way through Croydon,

to the lavender fields,

we were a few weeks early,

but Diana,

and Kai were jumping for joy,

but all that jumping was a bit tiring,

well one more for luck,

in case you are wondering where we are,

the name is on the telephone box, Mayfield Lavender, the address is 1 Carshalton Road, Banstead, SM7 3JA, and is open from 1st June to September 14th, there is a cafe and shop selling, you guessed it, lavender based products,

the lavender farm covers an area of some 25 acres,

it is huge,

and great for taking photographs in,

the problem being we were a few weeks too early,

but it did not stop the girls from snapping away,

and with a storm coming in,

I took a few myself,

comparing pictures,

and a look back to make sure Steve and myself were still here,

a mower is used to keep the grass down between rows of lavender, to walk along each row you will have covered 25 miles!

it clouded over and started to rain,

but soon stopped,

so a dash back to the car,

all smelling of lavender,

entrance to the farm is £1 to look around, all that is asked is the you do not jump over the rows of plants, in a few weeks time all of the blooms will be out, so if you are in the area have a look, it will be fabulous,

nearby,

we called into Woodcote Green garden center,

a pose by the flowers,

Steve was looking for a plant for one of his window boxes,

the girls were just looking,

garden ornaments seem to be,

de rigueur,

if the numbers here on display are anything to go by,

these all made from discarded tin cans, whilst here we bought some kebabs for this evenings meal,

Steve pointed this out to me on our way to the farm, so we stopped on our way back, the only post boxes I have ever seen are always painted red with a black base, but this one was painted gold, Steve explained that a gold painted box means that an Olympic gold medalist lived in the area of this box,