Just found in drafts! Whatever happened? Who knows, just forgot to press publish I guess.
February 21st
‘The rain it raineth every day’ as the Fool says to King Lear – and so it goes, but in a dry moment, I managed a photo of a primrose with raindrops.
I was looking at some photos of knitting that I’ve done and found this delightful balaclava I made for LiveWire no 3 ten years ago.
The last of the blooms on our Amaryllis is almost gone. The plant has been remarkable, two stems and nine blooms in total. I hope I can look after it properly so that it’ll do the same next year.
Spring is on the way, more rain and mizzle but also Catkins. The image is a bit blurry as it was windy and all five photos I took were out of focus!
I wish I could show you the daffodils lining the lanes all over the place. The yellow blurs by as I drive around to choir and it makes me smile. There were some in the car park too so here’s a taste of the loveliness.
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.
After a lovely sing this morning, I drove to Porth near Newquay to meet with a young colleague whom I haven’t seen for maybe 30 years! It was a delight to hear all about those years and even to feel a sense of pride in her success as a prize winning podcaster. Do have a listen to Weird in the Wade especially if you are interested in history and the slightly spooky. . N is on holiday here so it was lovely to catch up and have a very windy walk on the beach together. I enjoyed the evidence of youngsters playing in the sand.
Here we are singing. https://www.facebook.com/reel/25793568737001908
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.
The flowers on the first stem of the Amaryllis have finished and the second stem is so top heavy we’ve had to put it on the floor to lean against the arm of the chair! It is still remarkably lovely six weeks after planting. I’m hoping there’s at least another week of loveliness in it.
The Tête à Tête miniature daffodils are appearing all over the garden. I love the ones in the monkey planter.
Photo from 2018
I’ve been browsing again through an old paperback about life in Cornwall 100 years ago and was amused by the description of the wet weather in Cornwall – plus ça change!
From “Exploring Cornwall 100 Years Ago” Selected and Edited by Stuart D. Ludlum
These aren’t in fact buttons but they were in Granny’s button collection. I don’t know what they are – any ideas?
Another Christmas jigsaw finished. This was fun.
I should have given you this word yesterday on Valentine’s Day as it is a term of endearment for one’s sweetheart! It means literally, “cute little pig’s eye” and comes from Chaucer.
From my pack of Forgotten English Knowledge cards
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.
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.
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.
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