Wordless Wednesday 29 July 2015: Busy Bee

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...)

Window Sill Gardening

I don't live at 2 CC most of the time, and there isn't a proper place for gardening where I live. But flowers and greenery area a must for anyone's life! So, this is where windowsill gardening takes place.
I have a changing collection of flowers and plants that live on my windowsill. It's not the ideal place for most flowers, as I have learnt over time - it's mostly too hot and stuffy in my room even with the window open (and don't worry, the radiator is kept off!) But there are certain plants that do pretty well.

Let's introduce you to my plants. From left to right, I have:

A Christmas poinsettia. Now, this one is looking a little sad. Almost all the red has gone from the leaves. I know that you are supposed to keep poinsettias in dark for something like 16 hours a day in order to keep the differentiation in colour, but it seems like far too much effort to me. But, it does mean that you end up with rather sad looking plants like this one...

This basket is doing a lot better (although not a great photo!) There's still a lot of red on the leaves - although all the new leaves have come out completely green. It's a lovely basket - poinsettia and ivy (which you can't see very well.)

Now comes the start of my newest addition to my windowsill garden. It's a beautiful planter, covered in birch bark with a variety of little plants in it. I don't actually know what this one is! But it seems to be doing fairly well. A very nice vibrant yellow.

 

Next along in my planter is this beautiful gerbera. It's coming along really nicely - lots of buds still to come out, and a lovely colour.

Grape hyacinths! I love grape hyacinths - one of my favourite flowers I think. They don't have the same intenseness to the smell that hyacinths do, but they are completely beautiful in miniature. I often have some "real" hyacinths in my windowsill garden, but they go over so quickly, and I don't have one at the moment. When these are over, they will be sent home to 2 CC to plant out in the garden - there's a whole row of plants that have been "donated" from my windowsill garden over the past few years!

Also, you can see in the background two little wooden tulips - very sweet!

This is my peace lily - it's doing okay, although a few of the bottom leaves are a bit yellow. No flowers this year - not sure how to make it flower again. This was a present from A's choir about two years ago, and it's very special to me.

And this is my Cambria orchid that was an Easter gift from A! We (unknowingly) bought each other the same orchid for Easter! Sadly, it's not doing very well - I'm not sure if it's the environment in my room or what, but the flowers are just shrivelling up. I'm doing everything I'm supposed to (according to that oracle, the internet) but it just doesn't seem very happy... Cambria orchids are notoriously hard to care for, apparently, so maybe next time we should just be a bit less adventurous...

So, there we have it! Without a garden, go for windowsill gardening - it's a lovely sunny day here, so I hope that the flowers are all coming out at 2 CC.

How the anemones survived!

And here they are, a week after being almost buried in logs:

Playing Catch-up: Scenes from Easter Sunday

 (The camera cable somehow lost itself, so here is playing catch-up from last weekend. We didn't find the cable, but E bought a new one from Amazon - only £4.95, so it didn't seem too bad!)

Beautiful forsythia coming out on our Easter morning walk. 

Blue skies over the Orchard.

Planting seeds in the conservatory - too cold outside! - giant sunflowers and also 'Little Leo' sunflowers.

The Easter bunny came - gold decorated dark chocolate egg, dark Lindt bunny and a lovely sheep paperweight for the non chocolate fiends.

Chicken candles! (technically from Christmas, but they're very Easter-ish)

More seed planting - orlaya, candytuft and larkspur - new ones on us, so let's wait and see...

The traditional Saturday Guardian Quiz - not quite our worst score, but pretty poor!

Afternoon outing to the RSPCA to see...

CATS! (Coombe Cottages may be getting a pair of kittens, so watch this space!)

A very low scoring scrabble game... fun all the same.

And just to remind us that Spring is a-springing!

Happy belated Easter everyone!

A delayed Spring

It's weird to realise that this time last year the cows were out grazing green fields across the road and I'd already planted onions and beetroot in the spaces between the forget me nots in the veg patch. This year the seeds are still in the joe-built conservatory either in dormant packets or cold seed trays, although some are transformed to slightly leggy seedlings with the low light of this grey and cold non-Spring
I do love the new greenness and expectancy of just sprung plants. These lovely little ladies will be sea-shell edged pink cosmos in August...