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Monthly Archives: August 2021

Gladiolus, Water Tower and A Poem

The wind has broken our yellow gladiolus so I brought it in and put it with some Japanese anemones. When I came down this morning the sunlight was making it glow.

Yesterday I caught the Trelissick Water Tower in the gloom but still  love the golden squirrel.

My poet friend, Kim Ridgeon,  thought carefully before publishing the following thoughtful and rather disturbing poem. Likewise I have thought before posting it here. I have the same reservations about my blog – it’s about beautiful things and I try to avoid politics here (Not elsewhere!) but Kim’s poem is a beautiful piece about the horror we are all feeling about Afghanistan.

Thank you, Kim.

 

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Trelissick, Robin and Garden Art

One of our favourite gardens is Trelissick but we haven’t been for 18 months or more as during Covid times we had to book and we don’t plan ahead well enough to do that. We like to think, ‘Where shall we go today? Trelissick? Yes!’ and go – and today we did just that and it was a delight even though it was all grey and misty. There is a special loveliness there whatever the weather.

A Robin posed for us, a scruffy little creature!

After our walk round, we had ice creams and where we sat to enjoy them, someone had been busy making art. I love the leaves for fingers and the pine cones for ears and the littler cones for a mouthful of teeth. .

 

Golfer, Gift and Gymnopodie

My choir, The Suitcase Singers, had our first sing together in the Zed Shed, Penryn,  in 18 months. We had just finished singing “Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher”, when a quite emotional stranger appeared at the door. He explained that he was ‘golfing’ from John O’Groats to Land’s End and had just hit a low point. Then, while having a coffee at Muddy Beach, he had heard us singing and just had to come up to tell us how it had lifted his spirits. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house! This is a link to his remarkable story and his Just Giving page in case you are moved to support him too. David Sullivan is raising money to provide defibrillators all over the country. It was a very special moment for all of us too.

Another lovely moment today was when I went to the allotment to collect our veg for tonight’s dinner and there on our plot was this glorious bright orange squash, a Potimarron, a gift from friends on another plot. What a beauty!  Looking it up I discovered that  Le potimarron est une variété de potiron qui se distingue par son goût de châtaigne. I’m told too that it makes a delicious soup so guess what I shall be doing tomorrow. Thank you very much to S&M.

As I was starting to write this post this evening, a favourite piece of music came on the radio and I thought I would share it with you. Eric Satie Gympopodie

 

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Web, Lunch and Fuchsia

There’s such an autumnal feel in the air and lots of beautiful drip-laden webs all over the olive tree.

The last time we enjoyed Bruschetta we were in Barcelona with our son. Today I made some, using the rest of the tomatoes we were given the other day and they were delicious.

Our lovely white Fuchsia is looking lovely with the Crocosmia behind.

 

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Taste, Sight and Smell

We are picking courgettes from the allotment every day and having made them into soup (velvety and green) had them fried with lemon zest, today I made Courgette Fritters and we had them with some fried Halloumi – very tasty, especially served with some of the Cherry tomatoes we were given yesterday. .

The Cosmos are gone but the Verbena and Poppies make a lovely bee friendly border that is easy on the eyes.

I just wish I could bottle the perfume of the Night Scented Stock at the end of that border. It is so lovely to catch the scent on the breeze when we go down to water the Lottie in the evenings.

 

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Produce Sharing

We love the community feeling at the allotments, the sharing of advice and of produce. In exchange for the gift of some beautiful cherry tomatoes and a cucumber, we cut some purple, white and a bit of green for a suffragette bunch of prettiness.

 

Allotment Week, Zucchini Flowers and A Poem

Today is the last day of National Allotment Week and every day this week we have eaten from the allotment – broad beans, runner beans, golden beans, purple dwarf beans, courgettes, patty pan squash, tomatoes and a chilli.

I keep hoping that there will be more than one Courgette flower so that I can play with stuffing them! Although, as Shirley Conran once said, “Life’s too short to stuff a mushroom,” so maybe it’s too short to stuff a courgette flower!  They are pretty though.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost
 

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Dahlias, Fans and Live Theatre!

The National Dahlia Collection is now just nearby at a local nursery and we went along to have a look. There were some real beauties.

On our way to the Buttermarket for a live theatre performance this evening, something in the distance across the carpark caught my eye. Zoom revealed a fan and some fabric. Another time I will go closer and investigate.

We have had just the best evening of magical live theatre, laughter and fun! The Pantaloons have just presented The Tempest in the liveliest and most anarchic production I have ever seen. Only four actors played the eleven parts with skill and imagination, drawing on the crowd to use their imagination and to provide local colour which was incorporated into the story seamlessly. They are touring until early September and are well worth seeking out. You will come away having smiled so much your cheeks will hurt!

 
 

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Yellow, Tree Spinach and A Quilt

Our Patty Pan squash on the allotment are prolific (or profilic as we used to say in our family) and today I have made a scrumptious batch of soup, Creamy Summer Squash Soup and have three  pints to freeze along with just one pint of Runner Bean Soup. (Sadly, our beans are not very prolific this year.)

We had stir fried garlicky Tree Spinach with dinner tonight. Delicious!

Chenopodium giganteum wilting in the garlic butter

Making one of these quilts is on my bucket list!

Bookcase Quilt

 
 

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Sweet Peas, Seed Pod and Peace Poem

I am delighted with the wall of sweet peas we have grown to hide the shed and potting shelves. The mix  of Sweet Peas, Verbena Bonariensis and Love-in-a-Mist has been delightful, both colourful and scented.

I love how the Crinodendron keeps producing flowers even though there are seeds aplenty all over.

My friend Kim Ridgeon has penned the following beautiful poem. Read it aloud to feel how the carefully crafted words slow you down so that the meaning of the poem is enhanced and peace settles all around you.

Nature’s Smile by Kim Ridgeon

 

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