It was a beautiful afternoon and after lunch with a very good friend, in the sun at The Buttermarket in Redruth, I walked home along the lanes listening to bird song and noticing all the lovely things on the way.
Lovers’ Lane
Pink flowers, bright green leaves
Dark red leaves
Happy landing for the feather
Tonight’s sunset
That was a cracker of a day at the festival!
Our town was buzzing – live music, delicious cakes and excellent coffee, some wonderful outfits, meet ups with friends, bubbles in the park and, in the afternoon, two fascinating talks.
The first talk, by Sharron Schwartz, was about the Cornish miners who went to work in Mexico and Wisconsin in the 1820s. Cornishman were experts in hard rock mining and their skills were called for all over the world. The other talk, by Dr Lesley Trotter, was about the women who were ‘left behind,’ The Married Widows of Cornwall.
I missed Six on Saturday this week as it was a very busy weekend so here are my six for last week.
First some really good news – we thought our Acer, a present for our Ruby wedding, 19 years ago, had succumbed to the drought. It may be a different shape as it recovers but it isn’t dead! We spotted some new growth today.
The Japanese Anemones are looking very good especially with the purple of the Verbena Bonariensis.
The Rudbeckia are glowing.
The Clematis Montana in the front garden has two flowers but you’ll have to look hard to see them!
Other Clematis seed heads are looking delicate and lovely.
The Buddleia is in the field behind us, not strictly in our garden but we benefit from the blooms.
I’m a bit late to the party this week but you could still pop over to Jim, over at Garden Ruminations, where you’ll find Six on Saturday and in the comments, you’ll find many delightful posts from keen gardeners all over the world.
Yesterday, after buying the wonderful pastries at Redruth’s monthly market, we called in at our favourite gallery in town, 89 Redruth. The room was full of very interesting work but my eye was immediately drawn to a small painting, We went in saying, we mustn’t buy another piece and came out later to have a short chat about whether to buy. Happily, my lovely Mr S loved as much as I did so we were back within minutes and today called in to collect it. It was so lovely to meet the artist and to see her reaction to my loving her work.
Sunset at Elmscott by Michelle Rudd
We went to a birthday do at recently refurbished Rose Cottage today. We just had our lunch but the guests were encouraged to make use of the spa in the delightful back garden of the pub. After cooking themselves in the sauna, they had the option of three ‘plunge pools’ – one warmed by the sun in a lovely white bath, next a cooler metal bath and lastly, for the truly hardy, a refrigerated tub!
Today we have harvested the last of our sweetcorn cobs and I have made a big batch of Corn Chowder. We had some tonight and the rest will go in the freezer to enjoy some summer sunshine on a grey winter day.
P.S. There was one more piece in 89 Redruth that I fell for and might have bought today but it had gained a red spot overnight…..
Specimen no 2 by Anita Pryor
It was good too to learn the story of this collective:
Our lovely neighbour who takes my cakes to the market each month, made a special sign for it on the market stall. 
There was a new stall at the market, a French/Italian patisserie, Nougatine, and, my goodness, the Lemon Tarts were absolutely the best I have ever tasted.
The sky this evening was beautiful. 
P.S. The exhibition at Truro Cathedral ends on October 5th.
The hanging baskets outside our favourite coffee shop in Redruth are looking really lovely.
I haven’t sown Love-in-a-mist this year (an oversight) but discovered a couple of self-sown ones in the stony path.
Our tomatoes in the greenhouse are ripening up nicely. This one caused some amusement.
My first thoughts for today’s six were our six drought damaged Hydrangeas but I need something more uplifting as maybe you do too. So today, it’s the few flowers we have left and their scent. Interestingly, the gardening charity RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey have had such problems with their hydrangea collection this summer that they are thinking of moving them North to its gardens in Greater Manchester and North Yorkshire, to allow them to thrive away from drought and heat.
The beautiful rose we were give for our Golden Wedding 9 years ago flowered earlier in the year and is now having a second go. Its scent is proper old fashioned rose, the sort that as kids we used to try to make into perfume!
Crown Princess Margareta, a fragrant English Rose
We are keeping our Sweet Peas watered with grey water and watering cans and they are giving us colour and scent which is delightful. We get our Sweet Peas from Sarah Raven as plug plants each year, rather extravagant but such lovely varieties.
Sweet Pea – Dark Velvet
Sweet Pea – Prince of Orange
From The Clouds of Scent Sweet Pea Collection
Sweet Pea – Lady Collier
Those Sweet Peas fill us with perfume all day and when the sun goes down, we have Night Scented Stock, which daughter no 2, a bad sleeper, used to call ‘Night flowers,’ as we took her for a garden walk to settle her back into sleep. Some may think they look a bit scruffy and inconsequential in the daytime but their scent at night more than makes up for that.
The herbs fill the air with their particular, foody smells but maybe they are for next week.
I’d like to recommend a beautiful little book, “Led By The Nose’ by Jenny Joseph, its subtitle ‘A Garden of Smells.’ You may know her name from her wonderful poem, “Warning” which you can read here if you’d like to. This delightful book follows her garden month by month, not by colour or what she can see in her garden but the smells that lead her and the reader around by the nose.
Jim, over at Garden Ruminations, hosts Six on Saturday Pop over and in the comments, you’ll find so many delightful posts from keen gardeners all over the world.
To see the partial eclipse this evening, we went up to Copper Lane behind us, looking out to St Agnes and the sea and caught it in the holes of a colander! The light went to dusk for a while, a strange, eerie light with sunset still two hours away. The rooks went crazy, cawing and flying into the rookery but came out again only a few minutes later when it all got brighter again.
The eclipse starting
The strange light
The rookery
The eclipse moving on
The last partial eclipse was in March 2015. You can see the post here.
Last week was all our white flowers and this week the golden orange hues have caught my eye. As we in Cornwall move into our 5th heatwave and a hosepipe ban, I don’t know how much longer the flowers will last. They have all been going over more quickly than usual already given we have had no real rain since early June, just a smidge of Cornish mizzle last week.
We’ll concentrate our watering, with watering cans, on the food we are growing especially the tomatoes and sweetcorn and hope that the leeks, kale and kalettes will survive. The autumn raspberries are looking very small and really need lots of rain…..and then sun!
Courgette flower
Orange Cosmos
Begonias in a chimney
These were seedlings I was given as volunteer harvest at Community Roots and I didn’t get the name.
California Poppies
Nearly 7′ Sunflower
And today, a very short, sweet poem by Emily Dickinson. I’m not sure that yellow is so rare in nature but like that the sunflower picture gives us blue too.
Nature rarer uses Yellow
Than another Hue.
Saves she all of that for Sunsets
Prodigal of Blue
Jim, over at Garden Ruminations, hosts Six on Saturday. Pop over and in the comments, find so many delightful posts.
Last night the full Buck moon was still glorious and I do like taking a photo through leaves and branches.
I made another sunshine cake today. It was my usual coffee cake for the monthly Saturday market in Redruth and baked on solar energy.
The sun coming through the etched glass on the front door threw the pattern onto the stair carpet at the top of the stairs.
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