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Buttercup, Tête à Tête and A Poem

Despite even more rain, there was a brave buttercup in the garden and the tête à tête in the front garden have suddenly brightened up.

Many years ago when her children were still little, mine rather more grown, my kid sister sent me the poem about not spending time dusting when life offers so many more opportunities especially when one’s children are young. I’ve always loved it but had forgotten about it until a dear friend at Roots reminded me of it.  Thank you P.

Dust if You Must by Rose Milligan written in 1998.

Dust if you must, but wouldn’t it be better
To paint a picture, or write a letter,
Bake a cake, or plant a seed;
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there’s not much time,
With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb;
Music to hear, and books to read;
Friends to cherish, and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world’s out there
With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair;
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
Old age will come and it’s not kind.
And when you go (and go you must)
You, yourself, will make more dust.

I wondered if I had posted the poem before in the almost 15 years I have been writing this blog and so put the word ‘dust’ into my search bar.  It was such a delight to read back over so many posts that I had forgotten.

 

Potatoes, Primroses and Pancakes

There was a bitterly cold wind up at Roots today but the hardiest of the volunteers planted all the potatoes. A less hardy group of us planted tomato, aubergine, pepper, fennel and celery seeds. Others were transplanting the baby onion plants from seed trays into modules.

Amy among the rows of potatoes

There are more beautiful primroses in our front garden.

It’s Shrove Tuesday and this evening we’ve had savoury pancakes stuffed with ham and sweet corn followed by crêpes suzettes with the juice of ruby red blood oranges.

 

 

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Scarlet, Yellow and Rain

The flowers on the first stem of the Amaryllis have finished and the second stem is so top heavy we’ve had to put it on the floor to lean against the arm of the chair! It is still remarkably lovely six weeks after planting. I’m hoping there’s at least another week of loveliness in it.

The Tête à Tête miniature daffodils are appearing all over the garden. I love the ones in the monkey planter.

Photo from 2018

I’ve been browsing again  through an old paperback about life in Cornwall 100 years ago and was amused by the description of the wet weather in Cornwall – plus ça change!

From “Exploring Cornwall 100 Years Ago” Selected and Edited by Stuart D. Ludlum

 

 

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More Buttons, Jigsaw and A Word

These aren’t in fact buttons but they were in Granny’s button collection. I don’t know what they are – any ideas?

Another Christmas jigsaw finished. This was fun.

I should have given you this word yesterday on Valentine’s Day as it is a term of endearment for one’s sweetheart! It means literally, “cute little pig’s eye” and comes from Chaucer.

From my pack of Forgotten English Knowledge cards

 
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Posted by on February 15, 2026 in art, nature, Postaday 2026, Uncategorized

 

Bracelet, Buttons and A Word

When I was eight or nine, my Granny went to Austria and brought me a lovely wooden bracelt with paintings of  flowers. It no longer had the elastic threaded through but I do still have the pretty wooden beads.

In the bag with the beads were a collection of buttons  some of which also came from my granny.

The sun shone this morning! The beautiful book I was given last week had 99 words for rain and one for sun.Here it is.

Sending love to all my Dear Readers on this Valentine’s Day.

 
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Posted by on February 14, 2026 in art, Austria, Beauty, flowers, painting, Postaday 2026

 

Allotment, Leeks and A Good Read

We’ve had lots of fun and lots of delicious food from our allotment over the years but the time has come to move on. We have four raised beds for veg in our garden and can get fresh veg from Community Roots so at the end of the month we will hand over the plot to a lovely and very enthusiastic young family.
This morning we dug up a lot of our leeks and have spent the day processing them all. At £1 each from the shops, they are a very valuable crop! We now have some pots of leeks in white sauce as a ‘ready’ veg, prepped leeks for the base of a risotto and four bottles of leek and potato soup – a very productive and pretty tiring day.

The current book from The ShelterBox Book Group is ‘Scattered’ by Aamna Modhin.  This is a powerful and gripping story told by a journalist who visited Calais as she was reporting on the refugee crisis and here begins to come to terms with being a refugee herself. It is a wonderful mix of personal history and journalistic detail, all told in a very readable style. I really cared about Aamna and her family and I learned a great deal about the whole refugee situation which the media doesn’t really show. There’s an excellent glossary, notes section and bibliography. It seems a perfect choice for the ShelterBox book group and I’m looking forward to the Q&A with the author next week.

 

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Cormorant, Sail and Primulas

The sun shone today as we sang with a view of the Penryn River.  A cormorant (or maybe a shag) stayed on the buoy for the whole time we were singing.

A beautiful old sailing boat went by.

These vibrant primulas were on sale near our bread shop.

Today, my Dear Friend Kath, to whom I dedicate my blog, would have been 76. Started writing in November 2011 when she died and still think of her every day.

 
 

Jigsaw, Cathedral and A Film

We finished the streets of London jigsaw. It was hard but was lovely to remember walking those streets in the early days of our being together .  We even found the street where we came upon a junk shop and there in the window was a painting of Truro Cathedral! How serendipitous was that, it being my home city?  We had met at the end of October, found the painting while I was with my lovely Mr S in early January and then we agreed to be married on January 4th, just ten weeks after meeting!

We are just home from watching a fascinating film, The Lost Boys of Carbis Bay, about a group of men who explore and climb around in the old tin mines of Cornwall, incredibly dangerous but obviously very fulfilling for those involved.

 

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Seedlings, Ingenuity and A Mantra

We have hundreds of onion seedlings at Roots and they will be ready for transplanting next week.

Today we transplanted 200+ baby lettuce and pak choi plants and they are now in one of the big  poly tunnels as there is no room in the smaller prop  tunnel where the propagating takes place. The ingenuity comes in the suspended racks to create more room for the baby plants.

We are ten days into February so it’s a bit late to share this month’s mantra from The 2026 Almanac but I like it so here it is:

 

 

 

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Primroses, Amaryllis and A Beautiful Book

Primroses in the garden and our five week old Amaryllis, first potted on January 12th.

 

I have been given the most beautiful book by a very dear friend who knows of my love of words of all kinds. It’s called “Ninety-Nine Words for Rain” and is by Manchán Magan with gorgeous illustrations by Megan Luddy. Expect to see lots of lovely Irish words over the next few months. As regular readers will know, Cornwall has had enormous amounts of rain and some vicious storms over the last couple of months and there are words here for every kind of rain. Here today, gleidearnach, which beautifully describes some of our recent rain.

 
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Posted by on February 9, 2026 in art, friendship, nature, Postaday 2026, Words

 

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