Today Jane and I took a day trip out to Stoke on Trent — or perhaps it would be more accurate to say “Stoke and environs” or “The Potteries”.

We started off at Biddulph Grange, which is a garden run by the National Trust. Like many large gardens, it is broken into smaller ‘rooms’. In this case though, because the original designer was an expert 19th century botanist (James Bateman), many of the rooms represent other regions of the world, such as China (home to lots of oriental plants) and Egypt (less sure on the botany of this one but it has some stonework and a weird little temple affair). The rooms are, in some cases, joined by tunnels or other architectural features rather than just a gap in the hedge. I’m not sure I’d rush to drive the distance to get there again but would certainly consider it if passing through the area.

Lunch was a Roaring Meg, a pub named after a Parliamentary heavy cannon from the English Civil War. It was flagged up as a local restaurant and, from the outside, I thought it looked a bit disappointing: a relatively modern pub building. Inside though, my delight was restored, both with some decent architecture and decor and also excellent food at quite reasonable prices.

The particular reason we headed in the Stoke direction was to seek out some ceramics. We recently lost a couple of treasured bowls when a chopping board slipped over on them. We’re going to try a faux-kintsugi repair but they won’t be food safe afterwards so we wanted replacements. Stoke has a lot of choices as a historic centre for ceramics but we picked The Potter’s Shed as our first port of call. We came away with four bowls and four plates that we hope to keep both safe and in regular use for a long time to come. If we’d needed, we could have visited numerous other places but that was enough for a full and worthwhile day, a short but valuable holiday.