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Monthly Archives: July 2013

Walking Holiday in Cornwall 1

Our eldest daughter and a friend have been staying with us and doing some beautiful walks in this gorgeous part of Cornwall. For the next few days, I shall be using their photographs to show you how lovely this part of the world is.

Day One was a walk along the coast from Portreath to Chapelporth where, mid-afternoon, they came across the strangest pink mist.

Looking across to the path

Approaching Chapelporth

Pink mist across the beach

This is the same beach taken from the cliffs one evening last summer.

Moonlight from Wheal Coates

We are away for a week at the Womad Festival so I won’t be reading or commenting and have pre-scheduled the next week’s posts. I hope you enjoy them.

19 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on July 22, 2013 in Beauty, Chapel Porth, Cornwall, environment, photography, Postaday2013

White Agapanthus, Courgettes and Hydrangea Seemannii

21 Jul

1 We have just two beautiful white Agapanthus flowers. They are being battered by the wind so I hope they survive.

White Agapanthus

2 Today we picked our first two courgettes (zucchini for readers from the US and maybe elsewhere too). I wish you could have smelt them cooking in a little butter with lemon rind – so delicious.

Lemony Courgettes

3 The sustained sunshine has encouraged the tight flower buds of the Hydrangea Seemannii to open. They are very delicate and pretty.

Hydrangea Seemannii

10 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on July 21, 2013 in flowers, Food, garden, growing, nature, photography, Postaday2013

Tags: Agapanthus, courgettes, Hydrangea Seemannii, zucchini

Weekly Photo Challenge: Fresh

21 Jul

Strawberries! Time to go to the PYO farm to pick the freshest of strawberries to make two kinds of jam, strawberry shortcake, to eat with ice-cream – yum!

Waiting to be picked

Punnet full of Strawberries

See http://mybeautfulthings.com/2013/07/19/hanging-basket-strawberries-and-shortcake/

and

Strawberry Jam, Visitors and Dance in the Gardens

16 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on July 21, 2013 in Beauty, Food, growing, nature, photography, Postaday2013, Weekly photo challenge

Tags: making strawberry jam, Weekly Photo Challenge: Fresh

Strawberry Jam, Visitors and Dance in the Gardens

20 Jul

1 I finished off the strawberry jam today – delicious!

Strawberry Jam 20th July 2013

2 We had some lovely visitors today! L and Choir-baby T are back in Cornwall for a week and spent a happy couple of hours with us this morning. T now has quite a lot of words and was able to ask for milk and to tell us what he was doing in the garden. He also says, “Cheese!” as soon as he sees the camera pointed in his direction!

L and Choir-baby T in the garden

‘Cheese!’

3 This evening we went, with friends, to Trebah Gardens to watch The Venus Flower, a dance event performed all the way through the gardens down to the beach. It was a very beautiful production, full of energy and joy. Click on any photo in the gallery for an enlargement.

11 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on July 20, 2013 in art, Beauty, dance, music, photography, Postaday2013, theatre

Tags: contemporary dance, homemade jam, Trebah Gardens

Hanging Basket, Strawberries and Shortcake

19 Jul

1 Driving home today, I was stopped at the lights and just managed to get this photo of the hanging basket at the junction. The town is full of these baskets this year and they are really beautiful.

Hanging basket

2 We went to a local farm today and picked strawberries and raspberries and I spent the afternoon making Strawberry Freezer Jam (no cooking required) and prepared Strawberry jam which will need boiling tomorrow. The freezer jam is the best ever! Because it isn’t cooked, it tastes really fresh and keeps for ages in the freezer. It’s good on scones with cream, on ice-cream or swirled into ice-cream and is perfect in a Victoria sponge! I would make only that kind of jam but there isn’t room in the freezer!

Strawberry freezer jam

3 I also made a delicious Strawberry shortcake to take to a barbecue this evening using my Mum’s failsafe recipe. It pleases me enormously to make things in the way my Mum did.

Strawberry shortcake

17 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on July 19, 2013 in baking, Beauty, flowers, Food, nature, photography, Postaday2013

Tags: strawberry freezer jam, strawberry shortcake

New Horses, Greeting and The Meadery

18 Jul

1 We have two new horses in the back field. They don’t stand still for long but seemed to be interested in my taking a photo!

Two new horses

2 My brother and his wife are on holiday on Tybee Island getting away from the heat of Atlanta for a while. P sent me this from the beach.

Greeting

3 We were taken out for a meal tonight by M and R as a thank you for their holiday – a really lovely treat. It was our first visit to the Meadery which was lots of fun. I liked this statement on the menu.

The Redruth Meadery

11 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on July 18, 2013 in animals, Eating out, nature, photography, Postaday2013, Uncategorized

Tags: holiday, Redruth Meadery, Tybee Island

Weekly Photo Challenge: The Golden Hour

17 Jul

When the sun sets, it lights up the fence in our front garden and casts beautifully clear shadows of the poppy heads.

Golden fence

1 Comment

Posted by mybeautfulthings on July 17, 2013 in environment, nature, photography, Postaday2013, Weekly photo challenge

Tags: Weekly Photo Challenge: The Golden Hour

Morning Dew, Baby Hair and Stencilled Chair

17 Jul

1 The early morning dew on the white borage flowers was very beautiful, even more so when zoomed in on when the buds and the hairy stems look as if they’ve been hit by an ice storm.

White Borage

2 We have spent the day with L and Grandbaby B. How the little one has grown, especially her hair! What a delight to spend a whole day with them both.

Baby hair

3 Very good friends of ours gave Grandbaby B a birthday present of a beautifully stencilled little chair. This was my first opportunity to get a photograph to be able to show you all.

Very special, hand decorated, chair

3 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on July 17, 2013 in flowers, Grandchildren, nature, photography, Postaday2013, stencilling, Uncategorized

Tags: stencilling, white borage

Courgette Flowers, Old Family Recipe and Oxygen, the Song

16 Jul

1 The courgettes are really taking off. I’m so looking forward to being able to harvest some.

Courgette flowers

2 Our eldest daughter is with us for a week as she walks some of the coastal path with a friend. She asked if I had any Picnic Pie in the freezer – a staple of walks and picnics for our family for as long as I can remember. This afternoon, I dug out my Granny’s Recipe book, a note book given to her in 1903 and found the recipe for Picnic Pie from 1946 and made one ready for tomorrow’s walk.

Original recipe from 1946

Picnic Pie

3 While we were in London, Claire’s three choirs performed in Carn Marth Quarry near Redruth. Here, you can hear one of the songs, music by Claire Ingleheart and lyrics by Natalie McGrath, written for the play, Oxygen, about the Suffragist March from Lands End to London.. It was filmed by Tina Wheeler, with apologies for the noisy crowd, unruly children, dogs hitting tripod, and the wind. The tour of the play is coming to an end and it has had brilliant reviews.
Rather belatedly, I want to thank El Guapo for his delightful post when I asked him for help to put the word out about the play for me.

13 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on July 16, 2013 in Beauty, Carn Marth, Dreadnought, photography, Postaday2013, singing, Suffragettes

Tags: Claire Ingleheart, El Guapo, Oxygen by Natalie McGrath, Suffragists

Hollyhock, Impressionist Flowers and Home Again

15 Jul

1 Taking J to Nursery this morning, we stopped for a while to watch this pollen-laden bee make his way to the Hollyhocks.

Coming in to land

2 On Saltash Station, there is a small rowing boat planted up with flowers which is quite delightful but the trains we travel on hardly ever stop there. Here’s an impression of the flowers from the moving train.