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Category Archives: community

All About Primroses

I love primroses as I think I may have mentioned before, so when I saw a sensory herbalism course featuring the primrose, I knew where. I had to be this morning.

It was a delightful morning, gentle and life affirming to be in the company of like-minded others, to learn about the primrose, to draw, to find words, to really ‘see’ the flowers, leaves, structure and special qualities of the primrose, to discover its healing properties and to drink delicately delicious primrose tea. The sense of calm I left with has lasted all day.

Beautiful plant card artwork by Fiona Owen

Thanks, F, a brilliant morning.

6 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on February 20, 2026 in community, environment, nature, Postaday 2026, senses, Uncategorized

Tags: community roots, The Big Shed

Potatoes, Primroses and Pancakes

17 Feb

There was a bitterly cold wind up at Roots today but the hardiest of the volunteers planted all the potatoes. A less hardy group of us planted tomato, aubergine, pepper, fennel and celery seeds. Others were transplanting the baby onion plants from seed trays into modules.

Amy among the rows of potatoes

There are more beautiful primroses in our front garden.

It’s Shrove Tuesday and this evening we’ve had savoury pancakes stuffed with ham and sweet corn followed by crêpes suzettes with the juice of ruby red blood oranges.

5 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on February 17, 2026 in community, Cornwall, environment, Food, nature, Postaday 2026, Uncategorized, volunteering

Tags: community roots

Allotment, Leeks and A Good Read

13 Feb

We’ve had lots of fun and lots of delicious food from our allotment over the years but the time has come to move on. We have four raised beds for veg in our garden and can get fresh veg from Community Roots so at the end of the month we will hand over the plot to a lovely and very enthusiastic young family.
This morning we dug up a lot of our leeks and have spent the day processing them all. At £1 each from the shops, they are a very valuable crop! We now have some pots of leeks in white sauce as a ‘ready’ veg, prepped leeks for the base of a risotto and four bottles of leek and potato soup – a very productive and pretty tiring day.

The current book from The ShelterBox Book Group is ‘Scattered’ by Aamna Modhin. This is a powerful and gripping story told by a journalist who visited Calais as she was reporting on the refugee crisis and here begins to come to terms with being a refugee herself. It is a wonderful mix of personal history and journalistic detail, all told in a very readable style. I really cared about Aamna and her family and I learned a great deal about the whole refugee situation which the media doesn’t really show. There’s an excellent glossary, notes section and bibliography. It seems a perfect choice for the ShelterBox book group and I’m looking forward to the Q&A with the author next week.

6 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on February 13, 2026 in community, growing, History, Postaday 2026, Uncategorized

Tags: Aamna Modhin, Kakuma Refugee Camp, Somalia

Seedlings, Ingenuity and A Mantra

10 Feb

We have hundreds of onion seedlings at Roots and they will be ready for transplanting next week.

Today we transplanted 200+ baby lettuce and pak choi plants and they are now in one of the big poly tunnels as there is no room in the smaller prop tunnel where the propagating takes place. The ingenuity comes in the suspended racks to create more room for the baby plants.

We are ten days into February so it’s a bit late to share this month’s mantra from The 2026 Almanac but I like it so here it is:

2 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on February 10, 2026 in community, Cornwall, environment, growing, nature, Postaday 2026

Tags: community roots, Lia Leendertz

Tree Planting, Singing, Community

08 Feb

What a wonderful day as two of my communities came together, The Roots gang to plant an orchard and the Ingleheart Singers to entertain the crowd and then to sing Wassail to welcome the trees to their new home! Enjoy the gallery. Click on any photo for a bigger version and the caption.

Early instructions from Matty

Fruit trees will go where the blue squares are markedAll setting off to find a place to dig

Setting off to choose a spot

Us digging a hole for our tree

Busy diggers

Our plum tree is in. Now to go home to change ready to sing this afternoon.

As we leave, there’s a rainbow!

Choir singing the Newdigate Wassail

Trees all in and mulched.

Children giving bread and cider to the trees

Reasons for Offering Bread/Toast:

Symbolic Offering: The toast represents a gift to the spirits inhabiting the orchard, specifically the “Apple Tree Man” or tree spirits, ensuring they are well-fed and inclined to bring a good harvest.
Attracting Guardians: The bread attracts robins, which were historically considered guardian spirits of the orchard.
Fertility Ritual: The act is part of a wider fertility ritual that includes pouring cider on the roots and making noise to wake the trees from hibernation.
Representing Abundance: The bread symbolizes the previous year’s harvest and acts as a pledge for a fruitful return in the following autumn.

The ceremony is rooted in ancient pagan customs to ensure the health of the trees (from the Old English “waes hael” meaning “be in good health”).

1 Comment

Posted by mybeautfulthings on February 8, 2026 in Celebration, community, Cornwall, environment, friendship, Happiness, nature, Postaday 2026, Uncategorized

Baking, A Treat and Music

07 Feb

I spent the day baking for tonight and tomorrow. One cake was for this evening when we joined friends and others for an open mic evening with a pot luck supper. The other cake and the bread buns are for tomorrow when we have a Tree Planting event at Community Roots and will need to feed the volunteers and the choir.

There is always an interesting spread at a pot luck supper and tonight there was a special treat – utterly delicious ba bao fan, Eight Treasures Rice.

One of the ‘turns’ was a wonderful player of an accordion.

The evening was in aid of Children of Peace.

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Posted by mybeautfulthings on February 7, 2026 in Children of Peace, community, Cornwall, friendship, Postaday 2026, Uncategorized

Singing in Solidarity, Sunshine and Fish

05 Feb

Today at our choir rehearsal, The Suitcase Singers sang in solidarity with the people of Minnesota. With our singing we send love from Penryn, Cornwall to you all. Thank you so much Heidi Wilson for writing such a brilliant song, to Katy Rose Bennet and Sarina Partridge for inspiring our leader, Claire Ingleheart to teach it to us. Do click on the link and share the solidarity. The first video is us and the second one, the singing in Minneapolis.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17nRsPprFT/

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1C6dfJFRNF/

The sun was shining on the far side of the river lighting up the coloured houses.

After singing on Thursdays, I go to the local fish shop.The beautiful arrangement of the Red Mullet caught my eye.

Salad Crops, Daffodils and A Jigsaw

03 Feb

In between jobs at Community Roots today, I walked around all the poly tunnels to see what was growing.

I love seeing random daffodils growing on the verges.

We have just finished one of the jigsaws given to us for Christmas. It was quite a challenge and very satisfying to complete.

6 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on February 3, 2026 in art, community, Cornwall, environment, growing, nature, Postaday 2026, puzzles, Uncategorized

Tags: community roots

Afternoon Tea, Birthday Cake and Viburnum

31 Jan

Along with the rest of the gang at Community Roots, we were invited to the 80th birthday party of one of our volunteers. It was a delightful occasion with a very delicious spread and the most amazing cake!

Eric’s wonderful cake showing all his interests especially his participation at Community Roots where his inventions are legendary. Look for the carrots and cabbages too. There is also a fabulous family tree.

Outside the venue were lots of Viburnum bushes.