This month we’re having fun and having a super picnic in North Norfolk, England, at the Norfolk Lavender Farm. We’ve got a lovely spot reserved next to a field of lavender, and lots of luscious food to eat.
After our picnic we walk through a beautiful bluebell wood to the beach, where we can chase and have fun on the sand!
Bliss I hear you say! Well not quite.
There’s a few things that are trying to spoil our fun! WASPS!
We’ve got to catch all those pesky wasps to stop them ruining our picnic and taking all our food!
This month we have to count up and catch all the wasps in the pics but be careful because there are also some harmless bee’s buzzing around too, but we dont mind those. Then there’s a quiz as usual, on the history of lavender, its more interesting than you think! And finally our funny caption pic.
So get those hampers out and packed up with goodies! Don’t worry we’ve got plenty of plasters and spray to keep those pesky wasps away
See you there pals!

The answers to the quiz are all in the History of Lavender article below!

HISTORY OF LAVENDER
The origin of lavender is thought to be from the Mediterranean, Middle East and India and can be dated back to over 2500 years ago.  The Egyptians made perfumes with lavender and when Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened traces of lavender were found and its scent was even still detected. 

Lavender was first thought to be introduced to the UK by the Romans several thousand years ago. Being a natural antisceptic it was used to dress battle wounds. The Romans in fact had many uses for the plant and they used it to help repel insects, to cook with and to wash with (which in Latin is the word ‘lavare’ – this is where the lavender name is dervied from).

Lavender is one of the oldest perfumes used in England and in the 1500’s Queen Elizabeth I used it both as a perfume and also in her tea to treat her migraines.  She also carried posies of lavender and had it scattered before her, to ward off stenches and the plague

By the time of The Great Plague in 1665 it was even thought to help protect people from becoming infected and to cure those with it.
In France the 16th century lavender was regarded as an effective and reliable protection against infection and it was also believed to prevent cholera. 

Queen Victoria preferred lavender jelly to mint with her roast mutton, and from about 1800 to the 1930’s no genteel lady went abroad without a flask of English lavender in her reticule.

By then French fashions became the rage and, at the same time, plants at the largest English growers in Mitcham, Surrey, succumbed to shab, a fungal disease. Until some 20yrs ago English lavender was in decline, with only the Norfolk Lavender Farm, at Heacham keeping the commercial flame alive.

Today, you might think nearly all lavender oil comes from Provence, but, in fact, English lavender is resurgent, with multiple small producers. Often, they also run a gift shop and restaurant, which attract customers like bees to the flowers.

Location

Norfolk Lavender Farm, Heacham, Norfolk, England