A week or so ago, I went to Orange for a couple of days. I haven’t been there since I was around six years old as my grandparents used to lived there. I remember a little bit about visiting them, my Pops garden, especially the dahlias that grew between the drive and the house, the dark bricks at the front of the house and the park that was nearby.

After the meetings and work finished on the Monday, I went for a walk around town and headed off to Sampson St to see if I could find the house. After a bit of trudging up and down the road, I eventually found what I think is the house but I haven’t looked through the old family photos to see if it really was the house.

After that, I went up the road to Cook Park, the park I remember going to with my Nan and sister armed with slices of bread to feed the ducks. I went in through the gate, walked along the path which led to the duck pond. There were quite a few ducks either paddling in the pond or just sitting by the edge, catching the last few rays of the warm afternoons summer sun. Of course, when I got near to the ducks, there were some who waddled over hoping that I had some snacks for them. They were most disappointed when I just kept walking. Down the path, I came upon a sunken garden that was filled with roses. Roses of many colours but unfortunately they weren’t in their full glory although many of the bushes were full of flower and bud.

I did find a number of roses that looked superb and although I didn’t have my “good” camera, just my small one, I still managed to get some nice photos that I would like to share with you. I can’t remember the names so you will have to be content with a colour description.

The reds are always a favourite aren’t they? This one isn’t a deep red

Neither is this one.

Some of the roses had the full flower as well as a bud or two

There was one dark red rose but the bush only had some buds.

I tried to get a bit clever with the camera for this mauve rose.

There was a really dark purple almost black rose but the camera didn’t seem to want to take the flower as it was.

The subtle colours in the pink rose took my eye

The white roses added a dash of elegance to the rose garden.

My favourite was the yellow rose whose perfume was quite nice

Well there you go, a bit of the roses of Cook Park in Orange. I can almost smell their scent can’t you?