Sending love and good wishes to all my family and friends and all my readers in America on this your 250th anniversary.
Here are two of our fridge magnets collected on trips to your beautiful counrty. 
Category Archives: Happiness
Happy Fourth of July!
Father’s Day – Breakfast, Lunch and A Walk
Happy Summer Solstice to all my Dear Readers.
I made a favourite breakfast of Blueberry Pancakes with creme fraiche and maple syrup for my lovely Mr S.
Our eldest daughter came for the day and we had a delicious lunch in the Redruth Buttermarket in bright sunshine and with colourful hanging baskets and bunting blowing in the breeze. The excellent kitchens allow for each of us to choose – burger, foccacia, pad thai.
Later we had a rather warm walk down to the beach at Trelissick. All in all, a delightful happy day.
Walking down to the beach
Looking out over Channal Creek
Rock Samphire
Walking back up with the house in view.
And of course, my own lovely Dad is also in my mind today, especially as we enjoy Trelissick which Mum and Dad both loved too.
My Mum, Precious Words and Deeds
My lovely Mum died on this day in 1994 and I still want to tell her stuff that excites me or that I need her wisdom on. That doesn’t go away. She was a very special person and supported me every way in everything I did.
Regular readers will have seen this photo before, a favourite taken at Carn Brea Castle on the occasion of Mum and Dad’s Golden Wedding celebration in 1989
I have been going through some treasures and found some letters from Mum, all relating to her care of me while becoming a mum myself.
A story for you – Very early in my third pregnancy , I knew that I was expecting twins. I had wanted to have twins since I was 9 years old! My GP told me I was being silly and that he would tell me if/ when this was so. My lovely parents believed me and bought us ‘multiple birth’ insurance at 8 weeks and the GP wrote a letter to the insurance company saying that he was sure it was a single birth.
Roll on eight months or so to September 9th 1977 and the doubting GP sent me to see the consultant at the hospital. She listened to me, sent me for an x-ray and there they were, arms and legs everywhere! Before taking the plates back to her, I phoned my lovely Mr S and my Mum to share my utter delight. What follows is the letter from my Mum that came the next day:
Letter dated 9/9/1977
Just a week later, our twins arrived on 16th and 17th September, and so did my Mum to help look after our other two, 4 and nearly 2 years old, while I was in hospital and then three more weeks to help – but that is another story.
Muguet, Happiness Calendar and Garden Birds
May 1st is La FĂŞte du Muguet in France and our dear friend Kath, to whom this blog is dedicated, always gave me a bunch of Lily-of-the-Valley or, if they were away in their house in Meysaac, a card would arrive on the day. The flowers symbolise happiness and good luck and I grow them in the garden in memory of my lovely friend.
Here is the Meaningful May calendar of happiness.
It’s a lovely time of year for bird song. Here is what we heard in a 10 minute recording. 
Happy Beltane to you all.
A Birthday Treat and Bluebells
The first message to come through on my birthday (31/12/2025) was an invitation to Afternoon Tea at The Greenbank Hotel in Falmouth and this afternoon we went with our Dear and very generous friends to celebrate my birthday with a splendidly delicious afternoon tea and the most wonderful views. Enjoy the gallery and imagine our tastebud joy!
The savouries
Sweet treats
Chocolate egg pot, chocolate mouse in a little chocolate flower pot
Scones, jam and clotted cream
Bubbly!
Thank you so much N&G – that was a wonderful afternoon with you two and what a truly lovely birthday present!
Bluebells on the way home
Sea, Sky and A Mosaic
We had a delicious lunch at The Blue Bar in Porthtowan today with our eldest daughter who visited for the day. In between heavy showers, the sky was the loveliest blue and the shades of colour in the sea were gorgeous. 
I love the new mosaic welcoming people to Porthtowan.
If you can, click on the photo and enlarge it to see the lovely bright detail and read all the words in the darker lines.
St Piran’s Day Celebrations in Redruth
It’s been a fun packed day in sunshine today, the parade, markets, daffodils, live music, flowers everywhere and so many happy, smiley people. Enjoy the gallery.
Outside the GrowBox
Outside the GrowBox
The parade
The Lamb
Steam punk
Our flag
Redruth School
Steam punk
Perran Moon, our MP, having a chat
On Bond Street
On Bond Street
On Bond Street
For those who wonder about the lamb:
Redruth Town Council uses The Lamb and Flag as its emblem building on a heritage of use in the town for hundreds of years though its origin remains widely debated. Historians believe the symbol first appeared in the wool trade during the Middle Ages. By the 19th century, people associated a lamb with purity due to its Christian connotations and used it in the mining trade to indicate the purity of the metal they were producing – the smelters stamped each ingot with the sign of the lamb and the St Piran flag was added to indicate its Cornish origin. Both copper and tin were very important in Cornwall, with various mines in the Redruth, Pool and Camborne area being the largest in the world for each of these minerals.
Happiness Calendar, Community Roots and St David’s Day
Today the allotment is no longer ours but our fellow allotmenteers from the last few years came to visit Community Roots to hear about no-dig and to learn all about the garden. It was a very damp and fascinating morning which was greatly enjoyed by everyone. Here are some of them after the tour and after having worked in the new orchard.
It’s St David’s Day and here are more daffodils to honour my Welsh heritage. My Mum’s father was Welsh. They really were nodding in the breeze and the rain as I took the video through the window.
Sunshine, Armandii and A Poem
Today we woke to rain but in no time the sun had come out and it was warm so we were able to get into the garden.
Steps up tp the garden lined with TĂŞte Ă TĂŞte
The Armandii, planted last year, is flowering well..
I love the programme The Verb on BBC radio 4 on Sunday afternoons. Today Ian McMillan was talking to Katie Clarke, Director of Literature at The Reader organisation, about reading poetry with people who have dementia and the magic that can happen just as it does when my choir sings in care homes. One of the poems she described as touching a patient was a poem I had never heard before. I hope you enjoy it as I did.
Happiness by Raymond Carver,
So early it’s still almost dark out.
I’m near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren’t saying anything, these boys.I think if they could, they would take
each other’s arm.
It’s early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn’t enter into this.Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.https://allpoetry.com/poem/8520185-Happiness-by-Raymond-Carver
Do go to BBC Sounds and listen to the programme. It was really moving.
Jigsaw, Cathedral and A Film
We finished the streets of London jigsaw.
It was hard but was lovely to remember walking those streets in the early days of our being together . We even found the street where we came upon a junk shop and there in the window was a painting of Truro Cathedral! How serendipitous was that, it being my home city? We had met at the end of October, found the painting while I was with my lovely Mr S in early January and then we agreed to be married on January 4th, just ten weeks after meeting!
We are just home from watching a fascinating film, The Lost Boys of Carbis Bay, about a group of men who explore and climb around in the old tin mines of Cornwall, incredibly dangerous but obviously very fulfilling for those involved.
