Bank Holiday Monday and everything is shut

We had a bank holiday last weekend for the May Day holiday, so the Monday off work = bliss! . We decided to have a day off from frantic gardening/unpacking/wedding preparation and went to Twickenham for the day, where we'd been assured there were plenty of independent shops to look round.

Very true, but unfortunately most of them were shut for the bank holiday! Still, we had a good wander around, had lunch in an Italian café, tea (both) and brownie (me) in the bookshop café later on and just generally wandered.

The church (St Mary's) was very pretty from the outside, but locked so we couldn't see the inside. Apparently it opens on Sunday afternoons in summer if you want to see inside (and not go to a service).

We also wandered around the gardens near the river. Once all part of York House, a stately home which is now the town hall (it looks very nice for council offices, doesn't it?!).

The gardens are bisected by a road with a bridge over (so the original inhabitants didn't have to cross the road to enjoy their garden?) and run along by the Thames. This is the cascade, pool and Oceanides.

We also found Twickenham Museum, also shut for the bank holiday (which means a return trip sometime) and wandered to find the yarn shop, Mrs Moon, nearer St Margarets station than Twickenham. Of course, this was also shut, so I stared through the window at some rather tasty looking yarn. Definite return trip sometime?

The bookshop was one of the few shops open. It's very small, but an independent with an organic café at the back. It's a shame it's not bigger, but it's so nice to see an independent bookshop...
I bought "Nine parts of desire: the hidden world of Islamic women" by Geraldine Brooks as I thought it looked interesting.

This weekend one of my bridesmaids came to stay, partly to meet the OH for the first time (she totally approved and thought that he's lovely, which is very true, although I'm possibly biased so there is also some unbiased verification of this now), partly to do some wedding stuff. We went off into town and looked at make up. I had a makeover in the Body Shop:

I'm not sure what I think about the shop. I used to use them all the time when I was a teenager/student etc, but then they were bought by L'Oreal back in 2006 and I was sceptical about whether they'd retain the ethical stance that first attracted me to shopping there. But I still buy Ben and Jerry's, and Green and Black's, both of which have also been swallowed up by Evil Multinationals... I was impressed on this outing. I don't normally wear make up, and didn't want to try the make up counters in the dept store as the girls on there look like they put it on with a trowel (!!!). Not the look I was going for. The shop assistant in the Body Shop was very nice, not at all hard-selly, helped me choose some foundation, blusher and eye shadow, didn't force me into trying lip things or mascara (neither of which I wanted) and answered questions very patiently. There was no expectation I'd buy anything, she even said they could do a make-over on the wedding day for free (with donation to charity), and I liked the look she gave me - natural and subtle looking, so I was still recognisably me. So I may be going back there for shopping again!

This Sunday we also went beating the bounds, where we walked the (adapted) boundaries of the parish and the church wardens, erm, beat them with rods. Actually, it was a good excuse to walk around the parish, looking at Staines Moor and ending up back at the pub with a drink afterwards.
The church wardens did beat a few gates we came across,

but mostly we just walked. I was amazed at the variety of vegetation and wildlife (Staines Moor is an SSSI), considering we could hear the noise from the M25, A30 and Heathrow airport most of the time! We haven't had a lot of time so far to explore the local area so it was nice to get out in the "fresh" air for a while.