Cadbury Garden Centre is certainly a "day out" destination as well as just a garden centre and when we arrived on a slightly drizzly Saturday morning it was already teeming with happy shoppers come to buy everything from such essentials as a packet of grass seed to some knitting wool for Great Aunt Minnie in time for Christmas. Yes, it may not be the end of the summer yet but we do have to think ahead.
Heading for the Terrace Café we found we had missed breakfast by a whisker (it finishes at 11.30 am) so as a pretty good substitute we ordered to Italian toasted sandwiches with gammon ham and mixed cheddar cheese plus two large coffees. There is a very good range of both hot and cold food on offer to suit every time of day; the pastries in particular looked very tempting and I thought I might come back later for those! You can sit outside to eat and this part of the centre overlooks their summerhouse/garden shed department. Whilst waiting for our sandwiches my husband became enamoured of a rather cute hexagonal shed with small gothic windows which was apparently crying out to house our lawn mower, rusty garden implements and the spiders that set up home in our garage on a regular basis. That is until I pointed out that it was a Wendy house suitable only for the under tens.
Our sandwiches were great, full of thick gammon ham and melted cheese, just the thing to set you up for a bit of shopping. We had a good look at the bedding plants and autumn hanging baskets which were all colourful and healthy; the plants are obviously very well cared for. Drifting on through garden furniture, garden tools, the handicrafts, wools, and children’s toys, I came to rest in the cookery shop which was full of lovely things. This is the ideal place to buy a special gift; there is a good selection of china and glassware and all sorts of interesting knickknacks.
Scenting a trivial purchase was about to be made I was swiftly bundled away through home-made chutneys, jams, exotic ciders - surely we need just one of these for the cupboard - pets, we don’t have a dog but I can’t resist this blanket with Fido written on it in paw prints - until we arrived at lawn care and finally agreed to buy the thing that we had really come for, an autumn treatment for our lawn. We spent a very happy couple of hours and even if we didn’t walk out with the Wendy house in kit form under our arm I defy anyone to leave with nothing!
Jacquie Vowles