Wordless Wednesday: Spring in a Bowl

Wordless Wednesday 29 July 2015: Busy Bee

Summing Up Sunday: July 5th

Best Event: It's A Knockout - J got covered in foam, soaked in a thunderstorm, climbed some plastic mountains, jumped through hoops, dressed like a Telly-Tubby and did a four person sack race, all in aid of Pet Savers charity BSAVA! Despite the rain, a really fun day for both participants and spectators. AND Coombe Cottage hay from Maidens' Piece for the first time - really exciting!

Best purchase: A's new sparkly shoes from Rieker! Even more sparkly than they looked online!

Enjoying: 'The Gilmore Girls' - somewhat to our surprise. It's pretty old, and has surpassed our expectations. Rory and her mother, Lorelei, are an odd American family muddling their way through life and work with mostly funny, sometimes touching energy.

Reading: 'Flight Behaviour' (A - reread of a brilliant novel), 'The Miniaturist (among others, E - one of Mr B's reading spa books, good read), 'Gut' (J).

Best things in the garden: the rose tree (again), and the first beautifully stripy courgette!


Travels: London for a 90th Birthday (J), RSPCA to see cats and kittens (A/E), visiting J's mum bearing flowers and playing Scrabble.

Best News: Lacey has a new home!

Crafty things: painted runner bean poems afoot, hats being tie-dyed, pots being painted, more bunting being made, cross-stitch still being crossed...

Happy July xx

Summing up Sunday 28 June 2015

One Molly Tunnel anniversary and the first potatoes from the garden (the Molly Tunnel is our polytunnel put up by J and little M last year. It has housed sheep, hay and tomatoes so far and was decorated with flags as thanks on its birthday, the 22nd.) 

Two birthdays remembered (Cand R share the same birthday - we just managed to get in the post their gifts, garden twine for R and 'The Miniaturist' for C) 

Three unexpected days at Glastonbury (because of an ill RSPCA vet J was offered a place at the very last minute)

Five friends met to Wivvie walk around Pitminster ending up at the Queens Arms (wonderful walk through fields and wet grassed lanes with some beautiful Charolais cattle watching us)

Six bunches of sweet peas picked and given during the week (amazing tower of sweet peas in full flood sown in January and planted out in March. It's great having flowers you have to pick to keep them coming...) 

A moderate amount of rain (at last!)

Seventeen bunting flags made for a new baby (the baby is not here yet but he or she has some great duck bunting to go to her mum S next week) 

Millions of flowers on the Rose tree (a cutting of Cedric Morris, taken by Mickey in Suffolk in 1997, now taller than the house and completely covering an old ornamental crab in white and yellow centred sweet blossom. An amazing sight.) 

Summing up Sunday week 6

Best outings...

J and A's cycle ride along the strawberry line to Axbridge and the Lamb for supper on Saturday evening.
A and E's visit to see Lacey at Brent knoll RSPCA cattery, though sad she hasn't yet been re-homed.

Achievements ...

16 pieces of Raku pottery sitting on the windowsill glinting in the sunshine.

Singing in a Joyful spirit concert with A in an octet on 'I heard the voice.' 

Most exciting happening..

A badger visited in the night and dug a small hole at the side of the drive to find and eat a wasps nest. The debris, and the poor old wasps were scattered across the driveway first thing in the morning. 

Visitors...

Sue and David came to train game - great fun! 

Best thing in the garden...

The wonderful sweet peas and the night scented stocks. Come and see more over here!

And something we want to remember...

Sarah Raven's seed range of flower seeds for cutting -looks fantastic so we are disappointed we didn't discover them a few weeks ago, but there is always next year.

And the score in the guardian quiz was ... 4 out of 15. Did you know that Mick Jagger had six children, and yet none of them had silly names?

Happy June x

Summing up Sunday: Week 5

We've been growing: borage, love-in-a-mist, squash pumpkin things, polyanthus tuberosa pearls (came free with the dahlias, which are doing well!), and remaindered carrots and sweetcorn plants from 'Sandra's' World - pretty good stuff! Most things doing well, although lots of aphids on the broad beans...

We've been reading: 'Life After Life,' Kate Atkinson (A - enjoyable after a few false starts), 'Ancillary Justice' and 'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' (J - both very good, particularly AJ), bits and bobs (E): 'The Sandman,' (good), 'Stolen' (mediocre), started 'The Darkest Part of the Forest' (great fun.)

We've been going: busy week! Visiting kittens at the RSPCA (saying goodbye as they went to their forever homes yesterday...), drive to Uphill Beach (lovely, breezy and quiet), concert at Bristol Cathedral (not a great programme, but a good experience), J's trip to Devon to see a cousin, and Raku Pottery Take Two at The Walled Garden, including a slightly chilly picnic.

We've been doing: reroofing the garage! (J), practising spinning (A&E), finishing making a peg loom (J&E), sewing a present for a friend (A&E), charity shopping (A)...

Best part of the week: having T and H for the weekend, a real treat!

xx

Wordless Wednesday: Week 4, Do you like butter?

Summing Up Sunday: Week 3

We have been reading: 'Americanah' for book group. Positive all round, particularly when listening to Whispersync for Kindle to hear the nuances of each accent. Also very interesting and exciting to hear Adichie speak in TED talks: 'We Should All Be Feminists' and 'The Danger of a Single Story'.

We have been planting: Dahlias - lots of them! Pots: lobelia, gazania, Busy Lizzies and various other bits...

We have been going: Visiting Lacey and her Kit-Kats at the RSPCA. J and A to Lyme Regis this weekend for a well deserved seaside break, whilst E has a weekend with M and Little B. Beautiful Saturday sun for planting.

We have been making: kitten blankets! And very slow progress on E's cross-stitch...

Best Bananagram words: flawed, oxymoron, zeppelin, usurper, catabolism...

Guardian Quiz: 8/15 for M, Little B and E, but only 6/15 for J and A. Competition?

Growing

Flowers for Bethlem

We had to say goodbye to Bethlem royal hospital after a long association of three and a half years. It's been very sad but we've also done some lovely things along this  journey of bidding farewell to both the place and the people.

How do you capture all that it has meant to us? 

Together we made a collage with golden grasses from the meadows, bright parakeet found feathers, acorns to remind us of that amazing collective thud they made last year in the woods which we named the 'acorn drop', pictures of the woods bluebells, momentos of all the crafty things we'd made and places we'd been. J and W helped us as part of a final session with them and we circulated it around all the staff to sign next to their pictures. It's a very meaningful picture to take away as we all move on.

To say thank you and goodbye we also brought flowers from home. They have come every week for E but this time they came in bucket loads from our garden and our neighbour s's garden and allotment, and were even picked amongst the hedgerows around Coombe cottages. We made 18 wonderful bunches, set them up in a magnificent display in the conference room,  with not too much water on the carpet, and left them for everyone to find and take a tiny but of Coombe cottages home with them...

M's anemomes

M is away working in Czech Republic but today we have been reminded of her as the anemomes  she and E planted 3 springs ago are finally happy and coming through. The jewel colours are quite fantastic in the sunshine under the Bramley. They are extraordinary in other ways too as we are all convinced that they are Summer anemomes and not meant to be up for at least 2 months... At the other end of the garden under the holm oak some white and blue wild anemomes have also finally decided to be happy too - my memory is that I planted them over 6 years ago and this is the first year they have actually flowered. The stars of the white anemomes  in church woods are heralding bluebells and then the wild garlic of E's naming day.

A home-holiday

 

For the first time in many years E has had a week at home, J has been off work and A & T have been free intermittently all at the same time!

 E's project has been a quilted and padded bag for Tilly which has been a fantastic feat of manipulation of layers of fabric inside out. More to follow in a post by E herself! J and A have been the helper elves and we have looked at our amazing Spring garden, watched the tank of tadpoles grow and fitted in a couple of films on Netflix and some games of Settlers.

Coombe Cottages looking its beautiful Spring time self.