The edible garden is always buzzing with bees. They love the Nasturtiums and the Borage flowers.
Bee on the Borage
2 There was a spider busily making a web between the Nasturtium leaves.
Spider, making a web
3 We bought an enormous cauliflower the other day from The Old Market in Chacewater and tonight had Cauliflower Cheese with Borage Flowers and salad for supper.
Cauliflower Cheese
1 In our edible garden we are growing flowers to pop onto salads and they look so lovely, I want to be able to do that throughout the winter even if the flowers have died off. I have, in this cause, been experimenting with freezing the blossoms and today I unfroze some to see the results. Borage does not like being frozen and neither do the Nasturtiums but the Pansy blossoms worked really well and decorated Sue-next-door’s lovely allotment grown salad beautifully!
Pansies on the home-grown green salad
2 One reason why my Nasturtiums in the pans for the pan-stand (see here) may have died was that there were no drainage holes in the containers…… Today, ready for re-planting, the lovely Mr S has drilled holes in the black pan, the copper bowl and the brass shell casing that has been re-modelled into a bowl. The drilling produced beautiful shavings, first the copper ones and then the brass. I also show you here the engravings on the bottom of the shell case which say “POLTE, MAGDEBURG, JULI 1918” with some very small symbols/letters in the middle. Fascinating! I don’t know where my Mum found it.
3 Walking through the park this afternoon we met a delightful and very well trained 8 month old puppy called Poppy. Here she is waiting for the ball to be thrown.
Poppy
I conducted the loveliest Humanist Wedding Ceremony this morning, in a beautiful garden with Cornish mist mizzling and everyone smiling. It was personal and very moving and made even more special by the fact that a small group from The Suitcase Singers, one of the choirs I sing with, sang a number of most appropriate songs, chosen by the couple and beautifully arranged by our MD, Claire Ingleheart. Thank you to the singers who helped to make that a very special ceremony for everyone involved. Photos will follow later.
Two of our number invited us all back for lunch and that was really good too, to unwind with friends over a truly delicious meal and then to have a walk around their lovely and very productive garden. There was a Water Lily just opening on their pond. (Thank you, P and J, for the rhubarb!)
Water Lily
I love taking photos in the rain! I love how droplets collect and act as little magnifying glasses on the leaves. Do click on the photo and then zoom in – it’s like magic!
Water droplets
Michael Chapman was playing at Botallack Count House last night and it was such a treat to listen and to watch his magic fingers on the guitar. At the interval we went out to see the sunset which was not the stunner we had hoped for but I loved the almost silhouette of the chimney against the pinking sky.
Chimney at Botallack
2 This afternoon we called in again at The Old Market, Chacewater which is a delight. We bought cherries, a cauliflower, French beans and two Pain au Chocolat for tomorrow’s breakfast. I also found some bargain Trailing Lobelia which I had hoped to find to re-plant the pans in the pan stand. The Nasturtiums I showed you recently have been attacked by blackfly and in a week are all dead. The market is a real treat, all fresh and lovely and very well stocked.
Chacewater Market
3 On our evening walk we noticed that a neighbour’s garden had a new addition, an enormous tea-cup planted with flowers. Look carefully and you will see that the tea-cup and saucer are made from old car tyres! How inventive is that?!
Tea-cup planter
Half sea, half sky with agapanthus flowers – just beautiful in the sunshine, Falmouth, Cornwall. For others in this Challenge, click here.
From Gylly across to Pendennis
1 Yesterday I was in Penryn and noticed this delightful bucket of flowers. What a lovely idea!
Hanging bucket
2 It is two weeks since I was given a bunch of lovely blue Brodiaea and I just love how they are dying with such delicacy and pretty complementary brown markings.
Brodiaea
3 Walking along from Gylly Beach to Castle Beach this afternoon, mostly watching children playing in the rock pools, I spotted a dedication on a bench overlooking Castle Beach that I have not noticed before.
Fishing
50 years on
I found this particularly touching as it was on Castle Beach, in April 1967, that the lovely Mr S gave me my engagement ring which we had just bought together in a little antiques shop in Truro. We came to Falmouth on the train and walked up and over to the beach so the place holds rather special memories for us both. We had met at the end of October 1966. On January 4th 1967 Mr S proposed and not quite 10 months after meeting, in August 1967, we were married.
A tiny little Fire Opal
Singing was particularly good today, uplifting on a grey day and afterwards just twelve singers in a brief rehearsal for a Humanist Wedding I am conducting on Monday. The small group sounded just wonderful and I think they will add something very special to the Ceremony. Singing together in harmony goes a long way to developing the heart……..
Develop the Heart by Dalai Lama
Paul, our friend who is walking for Peace from Rome to Jerusalem, has left for Rome today.
Paul at Gatwick with his sister
Here is another of the songs of Peace that we sang for him a couple of weeks ago. This one had me in tears! The words have never been so appropriate. If you read this Paul, we are all thinking of you and sending our love to you.
If you would like to know more about Paul’s Peace Walk please click the red link. He would love it if you could add a message of Peace for him to take along on his momentous walk.
Please enjoy this gallery of today, spent first in Hayle and then in Bolanken with lovely friends this afternoon. Click on any photo for detail.
Truro’s flowers this year are even more beautiful than usual – window boxes and hanging baskets are around every corner and are a pleasure to be walking amongst. They are a real credit to those who planted them up and to those maintaining them. Thank you to them all for bringing beauty into a grey day today. Click on any photo for detail.
2 I love shops that are full of baking bits and pieces! Today I found some pretty muffin cases for some pretty Banana and Blueberry Muffins that I plan on baking tomorrow. I found the recipe on Bernice’s blog this morning. Thank you
Pretty new muffin cases for some baking tomorrow
3 We read about colouring in books for grownups and thought we would give it a try. I bought one a few days ago and found the concentration very good for clearing my mind of stuff that I really didn’t want in there. Today, We bought one for Mr S too. We’ll let you know how we get on with them. Seems to me the peaceful activity might well be a good one when I am recovering from my next hip op!
Colouring book for grownups!
The bee seems to me to be the symbol of life. Without it we will all die!
As Einstein or perhaps Maurice Maeterlinck in his work “The Life of the Bee” in 1901, said, ” If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”
Bee on a White Cosmos flower
For more in this interesting Challenge click here.
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