Hazel had written to the current owners of The Grange, a Mr and Mrs Eyres, explaining that her ancestors had lived there in the 1800s and asking if she might, when she came to England, walk around the garden. She was secretly hoping the Eyres would let them have a look inside the house, once they got there. She would be travelling with a friend, she wrote, and they planned to visit the Cotswolds for a long weekend: any of the four days would suit, if it was convenient. Ian Eyres thought it was an awful bore. Of course the Eyres couldn’t let these people come all the way from bloody Australia, just to look at the garden. What if it was raining on the day? They’d have to offer them tea. Tea was better than drinks, because it had a natural conclusion, when the food ran out and the teapot had been refilled and emptied for the second time. If the worst came to the worst, you could start stacking the cups and sandwich plates so that they got the message. In his letter Ian Eyres added the word ‘afternoon’, so as to be extra clear that by tea they meant cake – i.e. an hour, tops – and not supper. They didn’t want to be landed with them all evening.

Dawn had selected their lodgings, for this part of the trip. She’d researched places in Broadway, first, but everything was so expensive. Same thing with Chipping Campden. In the end, she’d found a B&B close to Honeybourne which looked nice. The owners, a Mr and Mrs Powell, had a small plant nursery, specializing in ferns. It wasn’t far from the places they’d earmarked to visit: Snowshill Manor, the garden at Hidcote, Stratford-on-Avon. Cheltenham they’d do later, on their way to Bath. Hazel had some sort of family connection with Cheltenham, too: Dawn couldn’t keep track. During their time in London they’d shared a room, to economize, and they planned to do the same in Bath. City hotels were expensive. Bath was astronomical: that’s why they were only stopping there for the one night. But out in the rural areas, where the rates were more reasonable, they booked a room each. Not that either of them was short of money. They were both comfortably off, with their pensions and savings, but neither of them liked to be wasteful.