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Category Archives: Happiness

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

4 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on April 15, 2026 in Celebration, Cornwall, Eating out, environment, Falmouth, friendship, Happiness, Kindness, Postaday 2026, Uncategorized

Tags: afternoon tea, The Greenbank Hotel

Sea, Sky and A Mosaic

12 Apr

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.

1 Comment

Posted by mybeautfulthings on April 12, 2026 in art, Cornwall, environment, Happiness, nature, Porthtowan, Postaday 2026

Tags: dolphin, The Blue Bar

St Piran’s Day Celebrations in Redruth

07 Mar

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

The parade

The Lamb

Steam punk

Our flag

Redruth School

Steam punk

Perran Moon, our MP, having a chat

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.

4 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on March 7, 2026 in Celebration, community, Cornwall, craft, flowers, Happiness, Postaday 2026, Redruth

Tags: The Lamb and Flag

Happiness Calendar, Community Roots and St David’s Day

01 Mar

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

22 Feb

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 Tête à Tête

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

11 Feb

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.

2 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on February 11, 2026 in antiques, art, Cornwall, Happiness, painting, Postaday 2026, Uncategorized

Tags: F. Robson

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

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.

5 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on January 31, 2026 in art, Celebration, community, friendship, Happiness, nature, Postaday 2026

Tags: cake decoration

Buffet, Cake and Games

12 Jan

Still catching up about my birthday

1/1/2026
All catering for the whole week has been taken on by the family and tonight there was a wonderful buffet for my birthday celebration.

Yet another cake!

Delicious roulade

The games I had found turned out to be a real hit – excitement, learning of strategies, shrieks of delight and just the happiest of evenings.

Magnetic chess, strange name but compelling and great fun to play.

There was present giving too, gorgeous stationery, delicious chocolates, a subscription to National Theatre at Home and an “Adventure Fund!” Aren’t I the lucky one?! Now to dream up the adventure – what shall I do?

6 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on January 12, 2026 in family, Happiness, Postaday 2026, puzzles, Uncategorized

Jigsaws, Another Jigsaw and A Poem

07 Jan

We have had the most marvellous week having hired Hellfire Jack’s at Trengove Farm for the family to stay so we could celebrate my 80th birthday all together. There have been treats and delights every day and one of those was the set of four beautiful Christmas Jigsaw crackers I bought from Wentworth Puzzles, one for each family. These are tiny wooden jigsaws that each fit in a cracker and which are really quite hard to complete. The competition to finish first was fierce!

Today we have started on of the three jigsaws we were given for Christmas.

I have shared poems from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer from whom I get a poem every day in my inbox. She gave me permission some time ago to share whenever as long as you all know who the poet is. I love her work and would share even more but it seems greedy.
This one is very powerful recognising that we all have power to build the good, that we can and must stand up for each other, even more important in America right now.

Building the World We Believe In

I haven’t given up on humans yet.
Though here in America where masked agents
pull women and men from their homes–
people who build our communities, our country–
we are so far from the goodness I imagine.
In second grade, I remember making forts
at recess with small snow balls we’d
squeeze in our hands. So carefully,
so gently, we would place them, one on top
of another to create a small home.
And then, maybe every time, when
the recess bell rang, a group of boys
would linger and at the last moment
they would kick our snow walls down.
It is in all of us, the bully, the one
who enjoys destruction, the one who
wants to feel powerful, strong.
But it is also in us all to speak out
for each other, to stand up for each other,
to say no, this is not okay. It is in us all of us
to gather the way we did in second grade
with our small mittened hands, going out
the next recess, and the next, and the next,
to build together again. Because we can.

—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Thank you for all the comments while we have been ill. We are bettering but not yet better. I will reply to all comments in the next day or two. To enjoy the family visit we slept most of the day and joined ithem for the evening meal and fun every evening.