I went to meet a dear friend today with the purpose of walking together on the Penrose Estate but the hailstorm on my way over and its continuation for some time meant that we stayed local and walked around their garden and woodland.
A handful of hailstones.
The chickens didn’t seem to mind the hail or the rain. Their eggs are so lovely – pale blue, white and two shades of brown.
Chickens with their dust bowl now a pond
Beautiful just laid eggs
On our walkabout N spotted a fox at the bottom of the field. A long zoom just caught him before he slunk back into the hedge. The new woodland is growing really well and Bluebells are appearing in their natural habitat. Regular readers may remember us helping to plant 800 trees last year just before the first lockdown.
It was such a treat to walk and talk with a good friend in the calm and loveliness of their patch.
The bluebells at Godolphin are superb and my photo doesn’t really do them justice. Everywhere you look there are carpets of blue.
We were there to meet with friends for a celebration of our Dear Friend, Ti’s, 102nd birthday! Godolphin is where she generally celebrates her birthday. When she was 99 she walked to the top of the hill, her 100th was on the beach at Gylly Beach, the next year, after a broken hip, she went half way up Godolphin Hill and this year we picnicked in the lower field. Here is the cake and some of her cards.
On our drive there I noticed two charming signs, ones only to be found, I think, in country lanes. On the way back I managed the photos from the moving car.
PS Had a message from WordPress today to day that my blog has had 50,000 views!
A friend who reads my blog had read of our disappointment at finding the car-boot sale closed last Sunday. We had been hoping to find tools for the allotment now that we had a shed to keep them in. H knew of a friend who had a shed full of tool that she needed to clear and so we were, very kindly offered them. Now we don’t need to take things down with us each time any more and we are very grateful to H for delivering them and to her friend. .
It’s four years since our lovely neighbour, Bill-next-door, died and I took a little remembrance bouquet round to Sue. We also had a lovely lunchtime picnic with mutual friends to remember this special man. You can read more about him here.
Rosemary, Foget-me-not and Blue Muscari in the colour Bill loved
I love dew drops on flowers.
I promised you more photos of the bathing hats on their swim trials.Thanks to Sue and Meier for the photos.
What a treat to meet friends for breakfast again, lovely food and a long, long catch-up. Join us as we spot some charming sights as we stroll back to our car.
Truro River
Sheds
Wisteria in flower already
Weather vane
Going back into the bookshop was a special pleasure after such a long time. It wasn’t busy but the city of Truro was buzzing and very full of shoppers.
We now have a new supply of reading but one book that looked interesting, I left behind. Has anyone out there read it? Any comments?
We spent the morning at the allotment planting many onion sets, red and white looking forward to a good harvest. You’ll have to look closely to see them!
The post today brought me my pre-ordered copy of Peggy Seeger’s new cd – First Farewell. I’ve been watching her online each Sunday tea-time and many weeks ago, in an online Songs of Protest with Greenham Common women, Peggy sang one of her new songs that really touched me, “How I Long For Peace.” Another gem on this wonderful album is, “Gotta Get Home By Midnight.” I love how she is laughing on the cover and that all the music is made with her sons and daughters in law. It’s truly beautiful in every way.
What a lovely afternoon we had with friends in the garden! We caught up on news and laughed and laughed – a tonic for us all. The cakes went down well too – the Heligan Pineapple Cake and Sticky Ginger Cake, a new recipe from Cornish Kitchen.
“In readiness for the Easter holidays and an influx of visitors, St Michael’s Mount has implemented radical new social distancing measures.Creating a one way system for those visiting the attraction, the ‘Coming Back Causeway’ has been built to ease congestion, and opens to the public today, Thursday April 1st.
Speaking at the opening ceremony this morning, Marizion parish councillor Mike Mount praised Cormac, saying: “The Coming Back Causeway, which looks almost identical to the original causeway, has been built with such efficiency that hardly anyone saw it happening.” Mr Mount added: “A one-way system on the original causeway was trialed last summer, but was later abandoned after it emerged that visitors could not return from the island.”
Photo by Photojournalist Greg Martin
I like to pass on the Action for Happiness calendar each month. You can find more details here.
A kind friend dropped in some poems for me this afternoon. Here is one of them, new to me but by one of my favourite poets, Billy Collins, an American poet we once saw live in South Yorkshire. It is just one sentence and I love it. I hope you do too. Thank you very much, M.
Today
If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary’s cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.
We threw open the windows this morning while having breakfast and listened to the bird song instead of the radio. Bliss.
A lovely sunny, blue-skied day and we met good friends to walk around a local garden where the Rhododendrons are fabulous, the Magnolias magnificent and the enormous skeleton leaves from last year’s plants both delicate and truly lovely. What a treat to spend real time with real people after all this long lockdown.
One of my readers, P, sent me the following lovely message this morning. I was so moved by this beautiful story that I asked her if she could be my Guest Blogger for today and she agreed.
I hope you don’t mind me sending you a beautiful thing. Your blog has brought so much light and comfort through a really dark winter, it means a lot to me, and I’ve thought of you every time I’ve seen one of these little gems tied to a lamppost or a tree recently!
I just had to walk the Falmouth terraces before work this rare still morning, frosty and crisp with the mist hanging over a glassy harbour. These gem-like embroideries have been popping up around town, little splashes of hope and colour in the grey. One had appeared on a bench above a very unassuming little green space. It’s where we used to take our beloved young Mieke for a nearby leg-stretch and hoon about, and as she got more ill and couldn’t go far, I’d sit on the bench while she snuffled for dropped snacks and watched the other dogs bowling around. On her last morning with us – after a horribly unsettled night – she rallied, marched Pete out of the door and dragged him to the green to say goodbye. She sailed into her tomorrow that evening.
The photo of Mieke is her exploring the green as a puppy. She died with lymphoma in October, after 15 short but oh-so-busy months of life
It is so lovely to be given ‘beautiful things’ and I treasure this lyrically written piece which moved me to tears. All photos by P.
We left this little posy on next-door’s doorstep as a Wedding Anniversary gift and in memory of a dear friend.
It is International Women’s Day today and in The Guardian last week, a letter writer suggested that the sports pages on this day should be devoted to sportswomen for a change. The next day, someone suggested that the letters page should be devoted to letters by women. Well, today they did that and I had a letter published!
