Dr Neil's Garden and Duddingston Common Land

 On Saturday, Crafty Green Boyfriend and I had a lovely day trip. We started in Jock Tamson's Gairden, a new community garden that has grown up on what used to be a relatively open area beside Duddingston Kirk Parish Church. It's now a thriving organic growing area and space for people to explore their spirituality through gardens.  It was very sunny when we visited and several bees and hoverflies were enjoying the flowers, including this buff / white tailed bumblebee

Next to Jock Tamson's Gairden is Dr Neil's Garden, which was first established by Drs Andrew and Nancy Neil in the 1960s and has developed since then into a beautiful garden. Laid out on a hillside the garden is full of lovely little stepped pathways and hidden corners 

 

and has beautiful views over Duddingston Loch 

and Arthur's Seat 

It's also a very shady garden, making it one of our favourite places on a very hot day, though we don't visit very often as it isn't the easiest place to get to from our end of town! 

We then accidentally discovered Duddingston Village Community Land and Duddingston Field, which we had never before known existed. This is a lovely area comprising a community garden (the community land) and an orchard and community woodland (the field).  

On the hill above the Field is a woodland pathway that leads up to join with the main road and path around Arthur's Seat. Given how hot it was though we turned back and walked round the other side of the Field into Dudingston Village for lunch. 

I took loads of photos on Saturday, but accidentally deleted them all. We have a new computer system and I had forgotten that I needed to save my photos in a particular way. Very annoying, but hopefully I will remember in future. And luckily Crafty Green Boyfriend had taken the lovely photos that I've used here.