Wordless Wednesday 22 July

Brimming over...

Summing Up Sunday 19th July 2015

This was a week in which everything GREW: the first sunflowers, the first gladioli, the first tomato and LOTS more currants and gooseberries.

And today was Book Club (Flight Behaviour, Barbara Kingsolver) hosted by our members who have moved to Bath, so it's their turn to host once a year, and we visit for a summertime weekend lunch. 

We harvested the mini carrots and beetroot:

and pickled them:

and added a courgette:

and added vinegar, salt,  honey and fennel seeds:

and then had some of the soft fruit:

The book discussion was good too.

Apart from that, two family visitors over the weekend, lots of time spent in the sun, a private visit around a show garden! (... next door's), and frantic crocheting as one baby came a little earlier than expected!

Happy Sunday.

Summing Up Sunday, 12th July

A went to Cambridge to visit T and H (and to a VetEd conference) for a few days. Looks like they had a good time!











J and E played a mean game of Scrabble with M and J's mum (and another with A on return); sat in the field and felt the space around us; spun/crocheted/cross-stitched; read in the garden, and enjoyed it being summer.

Everyone has been reading lots; the garden has been grow-grow-growing, and A found two cauliflowers she never knew about! These are the Persian buttercups (thank you Mr FX):

Everyone been to see new kittens (!), amidst worry about our 13-year-old Kirry-cat who has a mass on the side of her neck. J removed it on Friday, so it's a bit of a waiting game...

No Guardian quiz - we're rather out of the habit!

Looking forward to: book club for A and J next Sunday; a potential party for A on Saturday night; a YA binge for E; the peas being picked; the long summer evenings, and a new edition of The Train Game.

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 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

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?

Summing up Sunday 17 May

Our best Banagaram words - whacked, equestrian, hoity and warbler

Best TV - Julie et Julia was a great Meryl Streep film we borrowed from Jean. Surprisingly engaging.

Best gardening - the sunflowers have gone out! And the flower project blog started with Sue.

Best animal - Lovely lacy and her 6 kittens being fostered by Rita for the RSPCA. We got to name them after garden things - calendula, chicory, juniper, huckleberry, fennel and alder. Sadly they are off to be early weaned and find homes from Brent Knoll.

Best outing - ice cream on Clevedon seafront

Best purchases - 20 dahlias on line and some blue flower gardening clogs...

And what we've been reading - The City and the City by China Melville (7 stars out of 10), The Tiny Wife by Andrew Kaufman ( a solid 8 stars), Americana (not finished yet....) (among others...)

Growing

"Our field"

Hello Readers!

I haven't contributed for quite a while, though I have been collecting some pictures of the field in anticipation of writing this.

To back-track: we acquired the field in the legal sense on the 15th February, having spent some time arranging with two of our neighbours the proportions and shapes of the pieces we would have.

Our section is shown here outlined in red  on the plan prepared for us by our friend David the architect.

For the previous many years (19 that we know about) the field has housed our loca dairy farmer's dry cows and baby calves from about March to October. So the edges and fencing have not needed to be kept in a secure or tidy state.

Here is some of the debris we collected:

We burnt a lot of old brambles and rubbish:

Here is a shot that gives a perspective on the size of the blaze!

Then neat and tidy new fence:

and finally, sheep!

We like the sheep. The white one butting A is Wendy, a last-year's bottle lamb, who is a Texel. The rest in this picture are Herdwicks, and there are also Blackface and six of this year's lambs. They all belong to someone else, and are temporary grass eaters, pending us organising some of our own. A is going to the Bath and West show tomorrow to choose some! And goats?