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Monthly Archives: June 2013

Lemons, Buttercups and A Meeting

1    Choc Chip Uru sent this along today and I love it – both for its philosophy and because I love lemons and cooking with lemons as you will see from my recipe pages!  You can add Lemon Curd, Lemon Butter Cake, Lemony Courgettes and more to that list!

When life gives you lemons

When life gives you lemons

2   Our lovely horses in the back field (not really ours, we just like to pretend!) are up to their knees in buttercups!  Do horses have knees?

In the buttercup field

In the buttercup field

3    Our Grandbabies have met each other for the first time tonight – three little cousins together – so delightful!

Stroking their baby cousin

Stroking their baby cousin

 

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Fierce Winds, Rain Flowers and Plans

1   It was stormy in the night and the winds blew a skeleton leaf into the porch. The lovely Mr S spotted it and brought in for me. The shadow is almost as beautiful as the leaf.

Skeleton Leaf and shadow

Skeleton Leaf and shadow

2   Raindrops on the newly opened flowers make them even more beautiful.

Pansy after rain

Pansy after rain

Cistus

Cistus

3  Plans are afoot! Next Wednesday, it will be one hundred years since a group of women from Cornwall set off to walk from Land’s End to London to join their Suffragette and Suffragist sisters in Hyde Park for a rally where they were continuing their fight to win the vote. We are looking at the route and getting as many people as we can to join us on the first section.  If you are in Cornwall and want to walk along, you can find more information here and here.

Oxygen-the play

Oxygen-the play

 

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Magpies, Snail and Our Fledgling

1    We have a family of Magpies chattering away in the garden, not quite enough for a parliament (when there are lots of magpies gathered together)  We have this rhyme with regard to Magpies but I’ve never seen more than five at once.

One for sorrow, two for joy;
Three for a girl, four for a boy;
Five for silver, six for gold;
Seven for a secret, never to be told;
Eight for a wish, nine for a kiss;
Ten for a bird that’s best to miss.

Young Magpie with a parent

Young Magpie with a parent

2   This very small snail was on our bench. I may not have found him quite so beautiful had he been among the baby lettuces!

Small snail

Small snail

3   Our new sculpture is being moved around the garden until we find just the right spot. Here he is sitting on several roof tiles, as advised by the sculptor, in the middle of the lawn but I don’t think he’ll stay there for long…….

Our Fledgling by Richard Holliday

Our Fledgling by Richard Holliday

 

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Reds, A Wonderful Way With Words and Apache Wedding Prayer

1   In a gap between showers, we went into town and the greengrocer’s display was just so red – from the crimson of the cherries to the orangey-red of these tomatoes still on the vine. I love the smell when they are broken off the vine – so delicious.Do you remember making earrings when two cherries were joined together on the stalk? Simple pleasures!

Tomatoes on the vine

Tomatoes on the vine

Precious and very expensive cherries

Precious and very expensive cherries

2   I have had such a lovely thing happen today. An ex-pupil has been in touch to tell me how I have never been forgotten and how I am the motivation for this person deciding to go into teaching. S/he was serendipitously introduced to my blog by a good friend and then discovered my photo on the About Me page and left me a comment……..  I’m walking on air tonight!  (Now, of course, I’m wondering where that expression comes from!)

3   Interestingly, this beautiful poem has come my way twice in as many days. It is to be one of the readings at a Wedding Ceremony I am conducting next week and a good friend sent it to me too.

Apache Wedding Prayer

Now you will feel no rain,
For each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
For each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there is no more loneliness,
For each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two bodies,
But there is only one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place
To enter into the days of your togetherness
And may your days be good and long upon the earth

What lovely sentiments with which to begin life together.

 
 

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A Visit, Magpies and The Mystery Object

1   We had a lovely visit to friends today, meeting their lovely young dog, Kaja, whose first birthday it is today.

Kaja, a bottle and some sheep

Kaja, a bottle and some sheep

One of the chickens whose eggs we have weekly

One of the chickens whose eggs we have weekly

Just harvested potatoes

Just harvested potatoes – thank you!

2    We had the first visitors to our bird house today – magpies!

Magpie at the new bird house

Magpie at the new bird house

Magpie in the new bird house

Magpie in the new bird house

3   The mystery object that I showed you here turn out to be Bicycle clips as evidenced in the newspaper cutting of June 23rd 2001.  I can’t help thinking they would soon put holes in the fabric as they are very sharp. I can’t help feeling that Marilyn is more likely right and they are callipers used for measuring – must be tiny measurements indeed.  Click on the photo to see it more clearly. When we bought the little object, the man who sold them to us also gave us this newspaper cutting.

Bicycle clips!

Bicycle clips!

 

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Pomegranate, Salad and A Sign (Weekly Photo Challenge)

1    Isn’t the pomegranate just beautiful when cut open!

Natural beauty

Natural beauty

2    We used the seeds for this fabulous salad full of flavour and texture – Chicken, Basil and Avocado Salad with added sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts and the gloriously glistening pomegranate jewels.

Super salad

3   L&T visited for the day with Grandbaby B and we had a delightful walk in the woods. The Free range chickens sign amused us all but we didn’t meet any chickens……

Delightful sign

Delightful sign – last week’s challenge but too good not to share!

Rhododendron

Rhododendron

Fungus

Fungus

Taking a breather

Taking a breather

Last of the bluebells

Last of the bluebells

 

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Suffragette Garden, Kebabs and A Rocket Send-Off

1    Our Suffragette garden is in bloom again with white petunias, purple clematis and green leaves.

White Petunia

White Petunia

Purple Clematis

Purple Clematis

2   Another beautiful evening so we’ve barbecued again and enjoyed  a delicious supper with a glass of wine in the evening sunshine.

Halloumi and vegetable kebabs

Halloumi and vegetable kebabs

3   Twenty years ago today, we had just given my Mum the best send off imaginable and as it became dark we went onto the green near their bungalow and set off fireworks, rockets, in fact. My Mum was born on 5th November 1914, Bonfire Night in the UK and she used to say she came in to fireworks and would like to go out the same way. We did her proud! She would have loved it!  There were forget-me-nots in flower in their garden then and they are in flower in our garden now.

Forget-me-nots

Forget-me-nots

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge – Fleeting

Sunset looked promising last night so we headed for the North coast and were there just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of the sun as it sank into the sea.

Last glimpse of the sun as it slips into the sea.

Last glimpse of the sun as it slips into the sea.

 

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Drawing, Baby Rabbit and A Horse

1   I saw this the other day and thought, how perfect!

The world is pretty....

The world is pretty….

2   This morning we spotted a baby rabbit in the garden. Baby rabbits are called kits I learned recently. Fortunately, he was eating the dock leaves and not my flowers!

Baby rabbit

Baby rabbit

3   I love it when the horses in the back field come right down to our wall and I can hear them munching and neighing and whinnying together.

Our horse neighbours

One of our horse neighbours

 

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Choir Babies, ‘Oxygen’ and Cricket

1   Lots of beautiful Choir-babies with us today -they are such a delight and the singing must be very good for them!

Choir babies

Choir babies, watching Claire as closely as we do!

2   This afternoon, at the Hall for Cornwall, we were invited to an Open rehearsal of ‘Oxygen’, a new play celebrating the centenary of The Great 1913 Suffrage Pilgrimage. Women marched from all over the country to a huge rally in Hyde Park and this play is about the Cornish contingent.  It was brilliant watching the actors and directors working together and such a privilege to be invited in.   A number of us have plans to walk in the footsteps of these amazing women on 19th June at the start of the project. We plan to walk from Land’s End to St Just and all along the route there are other events planned. If you live nearby, please join us!

About to set off from Land's End to London

About to set off from Land’s End to London

Many of you reading will know that my Great Grandmother was a Suffragette who was force fed in Holloway for her actions in the fight for women to get the vote. I think she would have been very proud to know that she and her fellows are being remembered in this very moving tribute. Fot those of you who are reading in the UK and who are anywhere on the route from Land’s End to Hyde Park, try to see one of the productions of the play along the route. Find out more here.

3   We have eaten in the garden this evening with the sounds of Summer all around us, the most evocative being the thwack of leather on willow, the shouts of ‘Howzat!’ and the sporadic clapping from the nearby cricket ground. They all bring back warm summer memories for both of us of our Dads playing cricket when we were kids.

 

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