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Monthly Archives: June 2014

Shared Lunch, Garden and Coverack

On another beautiful summer’s day, we had a delicious shared lunch with Humanist friends in a very lovely garden overlooking Coverack, a delightful fishing village on the east side of the Lizard peninsula, Cornwall. Click on any photo for detail.

Tear and share loaf for the shared lunch, on the car seat ready to go

Garden tour

Beautiful colours

Gazania1

Gazania2

Gazania3

Glimpse of the sea

Another glimpse of the sea

Grandchildren’s paradise and Birdbox designed by a Grandson

Wonderful view from the garden

Another birdbox designed by a Granddaughter

Coverack bay

Coverack Church

I’ll post about the wonderful Solstice Party last night, soon.

5 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on June 22, 2014 in Beauty, Cornwall, environment, garden, nature, photography, Postaday 2014

Tags: Coverack, Lizard Peninsular

New Patio, Clematis and Summer Solstice Poem

21 Jun

1 Our Lady Betty Balfour Clematis, which is supposed to flower in September, has given us two beautiful blooms already.

Lady Betty Balfour

2 We have had a beautiful new slate terrace laid very expertly and are delighted with it. Now we just have to re-plant up the wall and the border.

New terrace

3 We are going out this evening to celebrate the Summer Solstice with our friends, N,G&T, who have the new woodland. I found this beautiful poem by Roselle Angwin which I really like and which suits tonight just perfectly. Tonight we will be singing and raising hope, friendship and love.

poem for the summer solstice

Lanes on the cusp of honeysuckle and dog-rose,
ash and oak in their full clothes.

Here where this damselfly alights
on the solar globe of the ox-eye daisy,
where the spells that make rain and wind
and bird-tracks pleach the air –

again and again we sing the sun back up,
spin summer-short moonlight into our hair;
again and again in this circle of days and nights
against loss, decay, death, we raise hope, friendship, love.

Brief lives; but the stuff of which we’re made
is starfire and water – everything holds our trace.

3 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on June 21, 2014 in Beauty, environment, garden, nature, photography, Postaday 2014

Tags: Lady Betty Balfour, Roselle Angwin, Summer Solstice

Night Sky, Lambs’ Ears and A Proverb

20 Jun

1 Last night’s sky from the bedroom window was still beautiful at almost 11pm – just a couple of days before the longest day.

The sky at 10.50 last night

2 I love the texture of the silvery grey leaves of the Stachys Byzantina. They are just asking to be gently stroked which is perhaps why the common name is Lambs’ Ears. Its tiny purple flowers are just beginning to open.

Stachys byzantina (Lambs Ears)

3 This saying was sent to me recently – play, joy and laughter – three of life’s beautiful things to be found every day if at all possible.

How to heal oneself

5 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on June 20, 2014 in Beauty, nature, photography, Postaday 2014, Words

Tags: Lambs Ears, Stachys byzantina

Knitting, Sailing and Sunshine

19 Jun

1 What a cracker of a day this has been! After an early trip to the osteopath, off to singing with The Suitcase Singers where five more wonderful knitters had their pieces finished for me to join to the growing Peace scarf, our contribution to Wool Against Weapons’ 7 mile scarf. I sang and joined and finished just in time for the last song, the very moving ‘Oxygen’, written by our wonderful leader, Claire Ingleheart, to honour our Suffragette sisters. It is 101 years ago today that the first Cornish contingent set off walking from Lands End to London to demand the vote for women. See this post for last year’s event.

The Suitcase Singers surrounded by our 21 pieces

Our knitting went around more than once

More pieces

Our roll of pieces by the Penryn River

2 After that rousing and exhilarating sing, I met the lovely Mr S and we went off for the final three hours of our sailing course and at the end of a truly gruelling session, we have both passed our RYA2! No photos! Too busy!

3 This evening I have laid out our 21 pieces in the evening sunshine in our garden and rolled it all up ready to be collected and taken to Stroud tomorrow. I have marked the end and the beginning with Purple, White and Green ribbons to further honour our Suffraggette sisters with the inscription – “Knit, Natter and Sing Redruth, Cornwall” Hopefully they will help us to identify our bits of the scarf in photos from 9th August when the seven miles of knitting will be spread out from Aldermaston to Burghfield.

21 pieces all over the garden

Re-rolled and Suffragette colours attached

1 Comment

Posted by mybeautfulthings on June 19, 2014 in Beauty, Peace, Penryn, photography, Postaday 2014, Suffragettes

Tags: Bloggers for Peace, Oxygen, The Suitcase Singers, Wool against weapons

Shadows, Roses and Sycamore Seeds

18 Jun

1 I was again up very early and the shadows thrown by our Monkey Planter pleased me.

Shadows

2 Day 3 of our Sailing Course and we both feel completely bamboozled! Absolutely no chance to take photos – we were working so very hard! We have another half day to go as Monday was cut short.The scent of the beautiful wall of roses that I mentioned yesterday kept me sane as we sat in the park and had our lunch, today – Cornish pasties which were delicious.

Pale pink

Creamy roses

3 I have never seen pink Sycamore seeds before. They looked so beautiful with the evening sun behind them.

Sycamore seed pods

2 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on June 18, 2014 in Beauty, garden, nature, photography, Postaday 2014

Tags: sycamore seed pods

Early Morning Garden, Sailing and Roses

17 Jun

1 I was up long before the rest of the house this morning and, inspired by one of HH’s poems, went out to photograph the garden at 6 am with the early morning sun giving everything a special glow.

Early sun on the back field

Feather in the dewy grass – do zoom in on this one. It’s gorgeous!

Clematis seed head

Chocolate Cosmos

Grasses in the field behind us

2 We’ve been on the water for six hours today, Day 2 of our RYA Level 2 Sailing Course, and learned so much our brains are spinning! The views were spectacular!

St Anthony Lighthouse

Pendennis Castle

St Mawes Castle

Cormorant warming her wings

3 At lunchtime we sat in the little park that surrounds the Killigrew Monument about which you can find some entertaining history here. The whole place is smothered in beautiful climbing roses and smells quite delicious. At the end of the day, Gyllyngvase Beach and the water were full of happy people.

Roses all along the path

Fun in the water at Gyllyngvase Beach

7 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on June 17, 2014 in Beauty, Cornwall, Falmouth, local history, nature, photography, Postaday 2014

Tags: chocolate cosmos, Cormorant, Falmouth School of Sailing, Gyllyngvase Beach, Killigrew Monument, Pendennis Castle, St Anthony Lighthouse, St Mawes castle

Sailing, Strolling and Singing

16 Jun

1 Today has been the first day of our RYA 2 Sailing course – what a lot there is to learn!

From the marina

2 Later in the afternoon we strolled about near the marina and in St Mary’s Gardens near Gyllyngvase beach where there are some very unusual plants.

Pink palm flower

Echium Pininana

The bees love these flowers

Cyclops Aeonium, I think

3 This evening we, The Ingleheart Singers, had a joint rehearsal with Four Lanes Male Choir in preparation for our joint concert on Sunday evening.

The poster for our concert

10 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on June 16, 2014 in Beauty, Cornwall, Falmouth, garden, nature, photography, Postaday 2014, singing

Tags: Echium Pininana, Four Lanes Male Choir

Garden Fun, A Sign and Sea Shanty Festival

15 Jun

1 The morning was beautiful again and we played in the garden. Since we aren’t going away to a Music Festival this summer, I have put our festival flag up in the garden.

I’m off up the garden!

Admiring the flag

2 Looking for parking in Falmouth so that we could go to the Sea Shanty Festival, we noticed this sign that put us right off parking just there!

Not parking here then!

3 The lovely Mr S took L to see our boat where they put up the bunting that she had given him for Father’s Day and I took Grand-baby B around the Sea Shanty Festival. She joined in with the singing and clapped along with everyone else. We had a fabulous time!

In Events Square

Rose, the compere

On Custom House Quay, about to sing ‘This is my Cornwall’ , a personal favourite, written by Harry Glasson

4 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on June 15, 2014 in Beauty, Cornwall, Falmouth, garden, music, photography, Postaday 2014

Tags: festival flag, International Sea Shanty Festival

Weekly Photo Challenge – Extra

14 Jun

I was taking a photo of the boats in the Penryn River, Cornwall and saw the woman in her wellies. It wasn’t until later that I noticed the dog almost swimming out of the picture – a much valued ‘extra’.

Boats in the Penryn River – and a swimming dog on a lead!!

For more photos in this Challenge, click here

7 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on June 14, 2014 in Uncategorized

Tags: Penryn River

Washing, Walking and Murdoch Day

14 Jun

1 It pleases me greatly to see baby clothes on the washing line and these are very beautiful baby clothes!

Baby leggings

2 We walked through the park to town today for Murdoch Day, the day when Redruth celebrates one of its famous sons, William Murdoch. Grandbaby B loved marching off feeling independent but safely held on the reins on her backpack.

Off I go!

3 William Murdoch invented gas lighting and used it first in his own house here in Redruth. Murdock also made important improvements in the steam engine. He was the first to devise an oscillating engine, of which he made a model about 1784. You can read more about him here. Our little town was buzzing on this beautiful sunny day as the parade went by, stalls were doing great business and the music was keeping everyone entertained. Two of the musicians have stopped here to take a look.