A busy day at Roots today. With a friend I sowed 17 trays of leaves for the winter – lettuce, mizuma, rocket and others while there was lots of busy activity harvesting the squash and putting them to ripen.
The boat full of dollies has arrived at its destination. The big reveal will come in a couple of weeks. 
Thanks to Sue for these last two photos.
……. brought in after the heavy rain. Now they are recovering and are gorgeous.
There are still some flowers in the garden, more than showing here as the wind meant some of the photos were blurred. I’ll try for those again tomorrow.
Our lovely neighbour, Sue, about whom I have written many times and with whom I’ve made many beautiful things, was today made a Bard, in our view a long overdue honour. We went up to Callington (Kelliwik in Cornish) with her brother and sister to witness the Gorsedh Ceremony. Here follows a gallery to give you a flavour of the very wet and fascinating afternoon.
Sue Hill, Redruth
For promoting Cornish Identity and Culture through Community Arts and Celebration in
Kernow
Her most appropriate Bardic name is Gwriores a Gewri which means Maker of Giants.
I was so touched by gestures made by Sue’s brother and sister – in order to have their parents present, D had their mother’s bag and P was wearing their Dad’s jacket, all there in spirit. They would have been as proud and pleased about Sue’s honour as the rest of her friends and family as would her dear Bill.
The sewing team have been at it again and the boat is nearly full. There’s some finishing off but we’re nearly there. 
The lovely Mr S harvested another big pile of raspberries today from the allotment. Some we ate at lunchtime and some I baked into a Raspberry Meringue Cake – delicious.
Autumn has arrived with more cool and wet weather so I joined my neighbour and her friend and we sewed again this afternoon, there being a short deadline to get enough characters done. I finished off my second dolly giving her curls and started my next one who now has her face but I have yet to decide how to do her hair. I am loving having such a wacky project to work on!
Front curls done and more crocheted chain for the ones at the back.
First five dolls, each with a different character
They don’t need legs as they will only be seen from the waist up.
I have shared a number of Longfellow’s poems over the years. Here’s one I only read recently. It really touched me and I hope you like it too. 
This poem is for Jean the friend with whom I have sung for 17 years.
I found this poem a few days ago and it so echoes my philosophy of looking for joy in the smallest of things.
Today I found joy in the flowers all over the city of Truro where we went shopping, here on the window sill of the bank. 
This afternoon, my joy was sewing – again. I am working on a zany project with my lovely neighbour. For the moment the project is secret, prior to a production going ahead later this month. I am helping to make dollies with character. I’ll take another photo of this one as its crocheted green mohican hairdo doesn’t show well enough here.
It was a beautiful day today for working at Community Roots along with other volunteers including several children. The site was full of colour and veggies ready for harvesting.
R in the mud kitchen
Ready to be made into soup in the kids’ mud kitchen
A few of the 8,000 onions being harvested
I finished off my new patch for the Redruth StoryCoat by adding the bluebells this afternoon so now it can go away to be sewn on.
War grave to F R Gill and his mother Mary Angove Gill
I mentioned a while ago that I have a new sewing project. It has been on hold while the family have been visiting but today I have done a bit more. It’s another patch for Redruth’s storycoat and is representing a war grave in St Euny graveyard and a story that was told in our show, Until the Day Break in 2017. I’m showing the stone as it was in May that year with primroses and bluebells at its foot. It’s very small and on soft material as this one, along with lots of other smaller ones, will be in the folds of the coat. 
I used to read this delightful poem with my Year 7 classes. We loved it then and I love it now. I have always thought it was by Spike Milligan but on looking it up I discover that it is by Jez Alborough, published in 1991.
Go on, start the epidemic!
It’s September already and here is this month’s Happiness Calendar for you all.
For lunch today we had just harvested home-grown corn-on-the-cob, very simply with a little salt and butter.
It was the birthday party of our lovely neighbour today and everyone contributed to a potluck birthday tea. I made a Lime and Ginger Cheesecake and decorated it with calendula flowers and beautiful blue borage flowers. You can find the recipe here. 
Commentator Award
