Witch hazel blooms at Pembroke Lodge

To Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park yesterday for lunch - hearty food designed to satisfy after a long walk on a cold day. Mum and I enjoyed jacket potatoes smothered with toasted cheese and red onion, P & W had pasta with a delicious tomato and veg sauce. Then a few turns round the gardens in the bitter cold; snowdrops carpeted a slope near the house, and gorgeous camellias flowering already, delicate pinks, creams and whites, one already carpeting the path below in fallen petals. Lastly we found three small hamamelis trees clustered together under the bare winter oaks and in full blossom; two golden yellow and one red, sweetly scenting the air.