Marigold Jam

Looking up!

2012-01-27T15:51:00.001Z

Where does the time go - it's been almost two weeks since my last post!

Whilst I have been away from blogging I have been out and about - firstly I had a day out with a friend here last week.

The sun caught the windows on the west front of Salisbury Cathedral turning them to gold although that doesn't really show up in my photo.

As we wandered round I looked up and my eye caught these little gems - aren't they fabulous?

And the detail in the carving on the columns too.

This is the roof of the almshouse in the Cathedral Close isn't it beautiful?

Yesterday we went up to London to meet up with some friends over from France and though the wind was very cold we were lucky to have a bright and dry day - apart from one very brief shower in the afternoon.

Flower stall outside the Underground where we met.

London has some amazing architecture if one looks up though you do need to keep an eye on the pavement in front too as with the numerous works taking place - maybe in readiness for the Olympics? - you could easily break your neck!

This is the church of Notre Dame de France near Leicester Square which another friend had suggested might be of interest to our French friends whom we were meeting. I hadn't known it existed before and it was a real oasis of peace and quiet inside after the noise of the city.

The Church was built originally as a panoramic playhouse which explains it's unusual round design and became the French Catholic Church in London in 1865 but was bombed out in 1940 and almost entirely rebuilt in 1955 when the artist Jean Cocteau was commissioned to decorate the Chapelle de Saint Sacrement - his work is a depiction of the annunciation - see here

But what really struck me was the beautiful tapestry above the altar which reminded me of the tapestries I saw when I visited an exhibition of work by Dom Robert in Aubusson with the ladies of the patchwork group I belonged to in France. It turns out that this tapestry is in fact one of Dom Roberts works too. I was allowed to take a photo but as it didn't come out too well in the dim lighting I bought this postcard instead.

After lunch in what turned out to be a not very wonderful pub - we did though have time to sit and chat with our friends - even if the food wasn't that brilliant - we decided to go to the National Gallery - looking up I noticed this wonderful rainbow just after the short shower we had.

Situated alongside one side of Trafalgar Square

With St Martins in the Field almost next door it was a stunning building.

I hadn't ever visited it before and being the art philistine that I am wasn't expecting to enjoy a visit here that much, it being our friends who suggested it. Well never mind the paintings - I was blown away by the building itself - sadly no photos were allowed and I didn't get time to see if there were any postcards showing the details in the shop before we left. Am I the only person who could visit this gallery and see some of the most wonderful art work in the world and be struck not by the paintings but by the beautiful mosaics on the floor, the wonderful gold and coloured painted columns and ceilings, the fabulous fabic wall coverings the glass, the ....?!! Oh and the perfume of two enormous vases of lilies in the front entrance. I did so wish I had been able to take some photos as nowhere on the web have I found any images to show you what I mean. You must go and visit for yourselves. One series of paintings did take my fancy though and that was the Mariage a la Mode paintings by Hogarth done in the mid 1700s and which tell a story of a marriage and its problems when the wife takes a lover and were full of amusing details. My French friend and I agreed it was a sort of 18th century bande dessinee - a genre popular in France and which we might call comic or graphic novels perhaps.

Just look at that sky! See it isn't always raining in England after all! We left our friends as dusk was falling and made our way back to Hammersmith for the bus home as always wishing we had had longer and planning to go again soon.

Earlier in the week I had received a package from Louise - we had agreed to exchange magazines and this was what was in my pretty jiffy bag. It is a lovely magazine filled with ideas I will want to have a go at....

...and along with my magazine she had sent the lovely little red quilt shown in the photo above and which hangs well with the navy one which came from America too at Christmas time.

Louise had suggested it might go in the back of my cupboard! Not at all - it is lovely and it hangs on the side of my cupboard Louise and will be enjoyed by all. Many thanks.

I am also looking up this week because I finally got the results of my retinal scan done back in November and it is all normal. The problem has more or less resolved itself and it seems it was nothing to worry about though my glasses seem to have been underprescribed - I mention no names but it seems going to the cheaper chains is not to be recommended! I will now need new glasses but have otherwise been discharged. Thanks for your concern.

For those of you who commented on the fingerless mitts and shawl on my last post I have posted the patterns on a separate page which you can access by clicking on Patterns in the section headed Extra Pages at the top right side bar.

She's gone!

2012-01-15T16:14:00.002Z

Who's gone? My muse that's who. I can't think of anything to say lately - can you imagine me not having anything to say? Well neither can I but it's true!

I think blogging is something you need to do regularly otherwise you lose the inclination. However all is not lost and in the time I have saved by not being on the computer all the time I have been busy making things. This little dear is for a friend's little girl for when her new baby brother or sister arrives. I'm afraid her hairstyle is a bit like mine as the pattern (from an old Woman's Weekly) says "cut strands of yarn and stitch to doll's head" but it doesn't say how!!

The cushion above on the left is one I made earlier and have in my guest room so when a friend admired it I decided to make one for her too - not quite the same but then each piece is unique!

I've made 3 pairs of these in different yarns and given two away and kept this one for myself as I find them so useful and the pair I already had are getting tatty.

A mohair shawl with a corsage. Using up some yarn given to me by a friend.

And finally my proudest achievement the beginning of a little lap quilt! Spurred on by the news that my wanderer is to return within weeks instead of months and she will feel the cold after 2 years travelling in Australia. Made using up fabric I already had - see I CAN do it!! However now comes the difficult part the wadding, backing and finally the quilting . I'll let you know how I get on!

Postscript added 16/1/12 - Spent yesterday afternoon quietly cutting up oranges whilst listening to Classic Fm to make marmalade and now have 9 pots of Seville orange marmalade to add to my "makes"!

New Year - Fresh start?

2012-01-01T13:59:00.001Z

Do you make resolutions at New Year? I decided not to this year as I don't remember what I've resolved and even when I do I don't manage to keep them which brings a sense of failure. Why is it only at New Year that we feel we can attempt to do all those things we always meant to do I wonder? Surely each day is a new start and brings the chance to begin again if we so wish? So my resolution - if I made one - would be to take each day as a wondrous opportunity to start again and not feel that once I have got to 2nd or 3rd January and failed then I must wait until the following New Year!

I have just read on Simone's blog Linden Grove that she is having a word for this year and hers is to be "create" - a word - now that sounds like something I could handle. On second thoughts maybe I could have a new word each month so it didn't get boring. Let's think what shall it be for January? Hopefulness seems to fit the bill I think What word would you choose I wonder?

We had some crackers at Christmas and as well as the usual hats, silly jokes and riddles each one had a topic for conversation and one of these was "If you had one day left to live how would you like to spend it?" Although there were only 3 of us round the table this one provoked some very different responses. My sister-in-law said she'd have a huge party, my husband said he'd do as he always does and I wanted to go for a long walk in my beloved countryside and then catch up with all my friends for a chat on the telephone. I wonder what this says about our various personalities? What would you do?

The photos were all taken recently - now if that isn't hopeful I don't know what is!! Wishing you all best wishes for 2012 .

Christmas Greetings

2011-12-24T13:52:00.000Z

I have just been for a short walk along a road near here to take these photos - these early daffodils seemed to me to epitomise the hope which Christmas brings.

The sun was shining and although it was chilly I enjoyed these few moments on my own.

Happiness comes in many forms and for me this was one of them - on my own, in a place which I love, noticing Nature at work evein alongside a busy road!

I had earlier been listening to carols on Classic Fm and the last few lines of this one resonated with me which is why I wish you all Peace as well as happiness and hope this Christmas. See you in the New Year!

And man, at war with man, hears not

The love-song which they bring;

Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife,

And hear the angels sing.

Counting down the days!

2011-12-15T16:06:00.002Z

I'm counting the days - only 7 left to go. No that is not a typing error I mean Thursday 22nd December. Why? I hear you ask. Well that will be the Winter Equinox this year - the shortest day and longest night of the year. After that the days will begin to lengthen and the mornings and evenings to become lighter. Now that is something worth celebrating! The above photo was taken this morning at 8.00 am - how thankful I am that I no longer have to leave the house to go to work at that time.

Same view at 4.00 pm today!

Winter Solstice is a largely forgotten celebration coming as Christmas preparations are taking place, which all too often focus is on the commercial aspect of the festival. The Solstice is however, the complete antithesis of the commercialised Christmas celebrations. Also known as ‘Yule’, the Solstice is generally celebrated on the 21st of December, (although the astronomical date changes from year to year – this year the actual Solstice takes place on the 22nd). It is the traditional time to celebrate the truly important things in life: family, children, home and looking forward to a good year to come. Surely this can tie in nicely with the Christian celebration which after all takes many of its traditions from the pagan festival. Yule is a time that honours love and new birth, as well as the collective unity of man. Just as Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, Yule celebrates the birth of the Sun God - child of the Goddess in the Pagan belief system. It is however primarily the celebration of the rebirth of the Sun and I can't see why, whatever your religious persuasion, this cannot be a time for celebration especially for us living in the northern hemisphere where the lack of sunlight at this time of year is so depressing. It seems to me that religion is not a one size fits all sort of thing and I don't see why we shouldn't pick and mix taking those aspects of other religions which appeal to us as individuals and incorporating them with our own religious beliefs. I am sure there will be some who throw up their hands in horror at my suggestion but I am going to celebrate the shortest day and Christmas!!

Thank you all for you kind comments on previous posts - all much appreciated. I now have an appointment for 25th January when I will discover the results of my scan.

Me again!

2011-12-04T15:43:00.000Z

Once again I must begin by thanking you all for your kind thoughts and comments - all much appreciated.

I had my scan done on Wednesday but needless to say no results were given and I now have to wait to see the opthalmologist at the hospital in Yeovil again for her to tell me what if anything has been found and who knows when that might be. I am glad to say that the problem is not as bad as it was and most days I am OK now. I am also glad to say my virus has pretty much gone now and I am feeling like my usual self and not so tired or depressed. End of health bulletin!!

I have been lurking round blogland occasionally and reading a post here and there but I have realised just how much time I had been giving to blogging and am resolved to cut back on both posting and reading and commenting. According to Blogger I follow over 100 blogs and I have 169 followers - now in real life I wouldn't/couldn't correspond regularly with that number of people and so I think I must reduce it all a bit otherwise nothing else gets done.

I haven't been taking many photographs lately and have nothing exciting to show you but these are from a walk I did with a friend on 18 November. It was the first real walk I had done since the start of my cold 4 weeks earlier and boy was I glad when we reached the pub where we had left our cars and we went inside for a pub lunch and a nice sit down! Those sheep in photo 2 saw my friend opening the map and I think they thought it might be a feed bag as they made a bee line for us only to be disappointed when they discovered we had nothing to eat!

Thank you

2011-11-09T19:42:00.003Z

I don't know how to thank you all so much for your very kind and supportive comments and especially to those of you who e-mailed me with your good wishes. It is true that it is when you have problems that you find out who your friends are! Thank you all so very much - I am deeply touched.

Just after my last post I went down with a horrid cold virus when I completely lost my voice - some might say that was a good thing but I have enough difficulty communicating with my husband, who is deaf, at the best of times and you can imagine how frustrating it was not to be able to raise more than a whisper! My voice soon returned but then I was coughing day and night for over a week and it all seems to be taking forever to go and has left me feeling tired and a bit sorry for myself - not helped by the weather here in our neck of the woods where it has been grey and dismal with plenty of heavy showers! The clocks going back an hour recently means that it is now dark enough to need the lights on soon after 4.00 which doesn't help lift the spirits either. I want to curl up and hibernate till it's all over and the Spring is here and I feel better.

I now have an appointment for my scan to be done on 30th November and had planned to stay away till I had something to tell you - I am feeling something of a fraud now though as the eye problem seems to have improved somewhat although of course I still don't know what caused the sudden deterioration in my sight and hopefully will know more after the scan.

I wonder if Kate at Harmony and Rosie who commented that perhaps it was "bloggers eye" might have something as I have realised just how much time I had been spending on the computer reading and posting and it is strange that the problem is much improved - might it be due to my leaving the blogosphere for a while?! I will be back - you won't get off that lightly ! - but I will stay away for a bit longer as I don't want you to catch my low mood nor to undo any good that the rest may or may not have done for my sight.

The above photos are 1) of the lovely walk we did one Sunday at the end of the Indian summer round Milborne Port 2) and 3) of the walk we did on the Quantocks just before I went down with my virus.

See you all again in a few weeks and once more my heartfelt thanks for your concern and support.

Update

2011-10-14T11:45:00.000+01:00

I am deeply touched by the number of good wishes I have received following my last post. I knew I had a good few blogger friends but hadn't realised quite how many of you there were! Thank you all so much. I managed to read all your comments by leaning close in to the screen and closing the left eye!!

Just to update you on the situation - I spent nearly an hour at the optometrist's on Tuesday afternoon undergoing a barrage of different tests and it seemed likely that the problem was a cataract and an appointment was made for me to see the consultant at the hospital. That was 5.00 pm Tuesday evening and on Wednesday mid-day I received a phone call to offer me an appointment for 9.00 am this morning (who says the NHS is rubbish and the waits interminable?!) Today I had further tests and the opthalmologist says that although there are cataracts (yes in the plural!) they are not causing the problem and she could find nothing to account for it so now I am awaiting a further appointment for a retinal scan to be done at Dorchester hospital. We must wait and see what that shows. In the meantime I can still drive as I can see but just not the fine detail - phew!

I am fine and we went for a lovely walk on the Quantocks yesterday with our neighbours - the views were amazing (would have been even better if I had been able to see clearly!). I am still finding using the computer hard work - typing is fine as I don't need to look for that though the proof reading might be another story. I will look forward to catching up with you all again soon.

Thank you again for all your good wishes.

In the pink? Sadly No!

2011-10-11T14:10:00.001+01:00

Am going to be taking a break from blogging as I have a problem with my sight. I noticed very recently that my sight was blurred in my left eye and in spite of an eye test last week and new glasses I still cannot see clearly - it's very frustrating and makes me feel in some way disconnected as things are not as they should be!

A visit to the doctor this morning has resulted in an appointment being made to see the eye specialist (probably in a couple of weeks' time) and a further eye test this afternoon as the doctor doesn't have the necessary equipment to check out what is happening himself. Mention was made of cataract though he couldn't actually see anything like that.

Since I cannot see properly - good job I am a touch typist eh? - it seems best to give it up for the moment. It's all so frustrating as I was in the pink just a couple of weeks ago and now I am unable to read, to see the television clearly and the computer is blurred too! The good news is that I am NOT diabetic - this was seemingly a possible cause but apparently all is well in that department!

These photos were taken a couple of weeks ago for a post which never got written so I will use them now. Hope to be back with you all soon.

Wish you were Here!

2011-10-03T20:24:00.001+01:00

Last week realising that our diaries were unusually free of commitments we decided to take an on the spur of the moment holiday. So where did we go?

The Mediterranean?

The Amalfi Coast?

If I tell you we needed no passports or visas, no dilema over what to pack, that there were no foreign currency requirements and that we spent no time at the airport waiting in a queue, that our self catering accommodation was a real home from home perhaps you will guess that we didn't actually leave home at all!

We did however shop in colourful local markets

Eat delicious lunches!

Visit delightful gardens

Enjoy several great walks...

And perhaps the highlight of our week was a ride on the bus! Not just any old bus you understand but the X53 which runs along the Jurassic Coast and through some of the most stunning scenery along what is a World Heritage site and linking Exeter with Poole. We had been meaning to travel some of this route for ages and somehow never got round to it so on Thursday we set off for West Bay through the countryside on a lovely summer morning (Yes I know it was Autumn but here it was summer!)

Having parked the car we had a wander round West Bay whilst we waited for the bus - our bus passes at the ready! (There are many advantages to being elderly and the free bus pass is one of them!)

We had decided to travel to Beer - a little town on the South Devon coast - and from there to walk to Branscombe on a circular route which would bring us back to Beer in time for the return journey.

Rather like Wells the street in Beer has a stream running along either side but in Beer's case it is lined with pretty flowers although you do need to look where you are going! After a cup of coffee we set off up the hill on our walk to Branscombe Mouth. The distance in miles is not far but it was an up hill and down dale sort of walk which made it seem further.

After clambering down a steep flight of steps through the woodland we finally arrived at our destination where we had lunch - a sandwich and a drink at the cafe on the beach.

Then of course we had to climb again on our homeward route this time inland. I don't have many photos of the return walk probably because I was concentrating on actually making it to the top as I found it really hard going!

We did of course make it back to Beer and this was the final straight! We had a welcome cup of tea in a pretty cafe and rested our feet before having a wander down to the beach - we had made good time and had an hour or so to wait for the bus which runs every two hours.

Although it felt like a summer's day the days are getting shorter and the sun was going down by now and we wandered back up the street to the bus stop which had a welcome bench on which we could sit.

The journey back to West Bay was good and the scenery in the evening light was lovely.

This is Seaton. We got home just after dark (about 7.30 now) after a fabulous day out and feeling very happy after our walk and all that fresh air.

Sherborne for shopping at the market - see photo at beginning as well. The flower displays everywhere are still very summery.

And in the afternoon a visit to Kilver Court Gardens which were lovely

Yesterday we did our longest walk yet but I will save those pictures for another time. As you will see we had a wonderful holiday at next to no cost (I think the most expensive thing was the entry fees to Kilver Court and they were reduced for Seniors!) Cost to the environment = negligible. Enjoyment factor = enormous!

Today at yoga the watchword was Santosha which means contentment and as I lay there at the end of the class relaxing with a soft warm breeze coming in through the open French doors I was, I really was content - content to be living in such a fabulous part of the world, content to have stored up some wonderful memories of a lovely week, content to be me and at that particular moment I wouldn't have wished to be anywhere else! Just as well as this evening whilst I wasn't looking the grey clouds rolled in and it was dark before 7.00 - the weather man tells us we will not see such high temperatures now till next April or May so I will be glad to have my memories to feed off during the colder months.

Desirable residence?

2011-09-28T17:56:00.001+01:00

Charming lodge with original features set in beautiful countryside.

Two main rooms - probably 8 x 8 feet and 12 x 8 feet - plus tiny kitchen - needs updating!

Bathroom/kitchen requiring modernisation.

Roof (what roof?) needs repair but look at that sky! It wasn't for sale but oh how I wanted it!!!

Out and About

2011-09-24T20:24:00.002+01:00

It seems ages since my last post - my feet don't seem to have touched the ground lately so apologies for not having visited as many blogs as I would wish nor leaving as many comments as I like to. I did post a quick post earlier in the week but changed my mind about it as it had been done in a rush so appologies to those of you who found it on your dashboards only to find it gone!!

The day after my last post I spent the day in Salisbury with friends - plenty of gossiping but no photos I am afraid!

Then on Friday 16th a friend arrived to stay till Monday and we were busy exercising our tongues most of the time but we did also go out and about and on Saturday we were here at Montacute. Luckily we dodged the showers and were inside the house when it rained. I loved the bark on this amazing old tree - could it be used in a knitting pattern perhaps?!

See the sun did shine some of the time. Having finished here we had a cup of tea in the village and then went to Ham Hill to see the views although as it was by then a bit cloudy we didn't stay long and got back to the car just as the heavens opened.

On Sunday it poured with rain all morning but on Sunday afternoon we went to Barrington Court and again luck was with us as we were able to enjoy the gardens and were in the house when it rained!

Cyclamen seem to be doing well this year and I have seen loads of them recently - I love them growing naturally under the trees like this don't you?

We finished our tour with tea in the restaurant overlooking the garden and then had a poke about the craft shops in the old barns - there was a new (or new to me) patchwork shop there which had loads of lovely books and I bought some ribbon with Love, Live, Laugh woven into it and another with Follow your Dreams. I shall use them in my crazy patchwork (if I ever get enough spare moments to do any crafting!)

Then on Wednesday we did another walk again from Sherborne but this time in a different direction - north towards Sandford Orcas. Again the path was along grassy lanes...

under the trees...

and along an old drovers' road. I imagined the drovers with their flocks or herds making their way along here in all weathers and could almost hear their footsteps.

Much of our route was sheltered and quite warm and there were a lot of flowers here and there including this clump of Michaelmas Daisies which the butterflies were enjoying.

Sometimes it was cloudy but..

sometimes the sun came out too.

After the heavy rain we had had the path was often muddy!

But we were wearing our walking boots so we managed to pick our way through the puddles.

Here you might be able to make out Glastonbury Tor in the distance if you can enlarge the photo?

If berries are a sign of a hard winter then I guess we are in for one of those!

We stopped for tea as before but this time we were within earshot of a B road so it wasn't quite as fabulous as the previous week's tea break but enjoyable all the same.

On the home straight now - wind blowing in my hair and making it more like a demented poodle than usual but how lovely it felt!

Not much further and we were back to the car tired but feeling very righteous and pleased with ourselves after another great walk in the beautiful countryside - this time just under 5 miles I think

Next day I said to my husband "I don't think I could do another 5 mile walk today even though the weather is good could you?" and he replied "Maybe not but we could do the short one round Milborne Port"! So we set off after lunch on a short walk round the nearby village this time in Somerset rather than Dorset. The county boundary is a wiggly line round here and we had travelled from Somerset into Dorset and back into Somerset to get here. Here is the church.

This used to be the pump house (and to think I had always thought it was just a bus shelter!) and alongside it the well now beside the busy A30.

This used to be the school.

This part of the village was all buil tbetween 1818 and 1822 and is called Newtown! Many pretty thatched cottages but no more photos as there were too many parked cars for a decent view!

These two little dears were enjoying themselves in their little enclosure and wanted to know if I had anything to eat - which of course I didn't although a little further up the lane we passed a table with boxes of apples of various types and a notice saying "Help yourself" - sorry piggies! Everywhere I am able to help myself to apples round here as it has been a good year for apples this year and everyone who has a tree has more than they know what to do with!

Yesterday I did some much needed housework, washing and ironing and a trip to the shops to replenish the stores as today I knew I would be out all day doing a scrapbooking day!

If I take as long to do all my family photos I will be 100 before I am half way through but it was an enjoyable day and I can now breathe a sigh of relief as the diary for next week is comparatively empty!!

What did I see outside the village hall in Broadwindsor where we were to do our scrapbooking but another box of apples with a notice to take what you wanted so tonight we had apple sponge for pudding!

Hope to have a bit more time to visit you all next week but don't hold your breath as life often has other plans I find!! Enjoy the remainder of your weekend.

Tea at the Ritz? No thanks!!

2011-09-14T21:12:00.001+01:00

Tea tastes best if made fresh and drunk from a porcelaine cup doesn't it? Well not necessarily - my cup of tea this afternoon tasted like ambrosia (whatever that is?!) in spite of being a little on the strong side, having been in a flask for several hours and being taken in a plastic cup complete with little insect!! Want to know why?...

Well this afternoon we decided that we didn't need to wait for our neighbours to return from holiday to take a walk with us we would go on our own. So after a lunch we set off to Sherborne where we followed the path suggested in a leaflet we had picked up in the Tourist Office there a while back.

The route led us through some stunning countryside and covered about 10.5 km (according to the leaflet).

Sometimes the path wandered through woods,

sometimes deep between the hedgerows,

and sometimes along country lanes - we knew they were proper country lanes as there was grass growing down the middle! Here we are together taking the photo! After we had been walking about an hour and a half we decided to stop for tea and this time we had come prepared. We sat on the grass bank in a field gateway alongside this lane and drank our tea and ate the Chelsea bun I had halved (I only had one and anyway we didn't want to undo all the good the walk must have been doing did we?) and brought with us and I wouldn't have swapped places with anyone in the world at that moment. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, all was quiet apart from the wind soughing in the trees, the mewing of the buzzards and perhaps an occasional pheasant making their peculiar coarse cry in the distant woods. Nobody came by we were completely alone and I was aware of one of those magical moments which live on in the memory for I felt so completely content that I wanted it to never end. I fished the little insect out of my tea and never has a cup of tea tasted so good and the shared bun too seemed even more delicious than when eaten at home. SHEER BLISS!

Tea over we packed the empty flask and cups back in the rucksack and set off again. The sky was so blue - this photo could have been taken in some foreign country don't you think?

And what about this one?!

The route took us through Sherborne Park and this is the little hunting lodge there - obviously not used now as it was shuttered up!

Here it is looking back and just look at the colour of that sky - and to think I had fetched in my washing before we left home in case it rained!

The path led us alongside Sherborne Castle grounds and goes up across the ploughed field - you can see it as a green line. By now we were walking into the sun which was getting lower in the sky so this photo looks a little dull but it wasn't!

Looking back...

Here is Sherborne New Castle - am I envious of the people living there? Not at all as I can walk the parkland enjoying the wonderful vistas without any of the responsibilities and return to my own little home afterwards! I was so happy I could have skipped but my arthritic toe prevented me going quite that far!!

Here you can just see the Old Castle on the other side of the lake. It is a ruin but it does date back to Norman times so I guess that is not too surprising! The New one was built by Raleigh so is not exactly modern!!

That's the castle in the background - I just loved this tree's shape and seeing it against the blue sky.

Nearly finished - the path leads us back to the car park past this view of the Abbey the other side of the railway........

... and up this slope and when we reach the top we will be almost back at the car park. We got home at 6.30 having had a fabulous walk and perhaps now you can see why I would prefer my cuppa out of a flask and in a plastic cup than to be all dolled up taking it in a china cup at the Ritz.? If we don't sleep tonight it won't be because we haven't had enough fresh air and exercise will it? Hope you enjoying coming with me on our walk today?

Let them eat cake!

2011-09-12T16:03:00.003+01:00

Having visited Su over at Living on the Edge and seen the cute little cupcake she had made for Gina's Pink Friday Party I decided to have a go and make a cake or two myself. After all they are non-fattening and in a very good cause. So here is my first attempt:

However when I looked at it I felt it needed that little je ne sais quoi if it wasn't to be misconstrued as something a bit dubious!

A little angelica I felt added a soupcon more class - what do you think?! I plan to make at least one more and maybe several if I can find the yarn - strange isn't it how even with a basket filled with yarns one never has quite the right one for the project in hand?!

In memory of our friendship Trudi this one's for you. (3 years ago almost to the day my friend Trudi died of this horrible disease)

England and the English!

2011-09-09T16:56:00.004+01:00

I read an article recently which spoke about England and defining "Englishness" which made me think.

England as a country is not all thatched cottages or rolling countryside I know but I think that the author of the article is correct when he says that t"he countryside is fundamental to the idea of England and national identity". Even though most of us don't live in the countryside we love to imagine that we could and what it might be like there. Look at the popularity of Country Living magazine and many others in similar vein.

In our country we don't have any majestic mountain ranges nor wide open plains, we have no volcanoes and we rarely have extremes of weather, no amazing storms when the lightning cuts out the elctricity, no massive snow falls (though we all know how little is needed to bring our country to a standstill!) No England is a much more modest place - a small island within whose confines we have an incredible variety of landscapes and a coastline which ranges from sandy beaches to rugged cliffs. Within a days travel we can see a vast array of different scenery and nowhere are we ever more than 70 miles from the sea. Perhaps it is this very modesty which has shaped our characters?

When I think of England what do I see? Well:

narrow country lanes with banks of primroses,

cricket on the village green (it matters not that I know nothing at all about how the game is played and what the scores mean!)
crumpets dripping with butter eaten by the fire (what fire now many of us don't have a real fire any more?)
somnolent villages with yellow stone cottages clustered together roses climbing round their doors
gardens filled with flowers and vegetables in neat rows
tea as the solution to all life's problems!
history and pagentry
quirky traditional celebrations like wassailing and Morris dancing etc

What says England to you I wonder?

I once had a discussion with my French friend about how it was that I could spot another English person in the supermarket before they opened their mouths and what it is that makes us different from the French. How others see us too is interesting as the French shops often had displays of items and fashions with the title "So British"! Now I have never seen an English person dressed in the fashions they displayed and neither have I seen an English man's home decked out in the items they seemed to think we favoured. Do they really think that we all wear tweeds and pearls and decorate our homes with lurid union Jack cushions?!! But are we not guilty of this stereotyping too and don't all Australians wear hats with corks dangling from the brim and call ladies sheilas? Or aren't all French women slim and incredibly smart and don't they eat frogs legs at every meal? Or are the Irish not a bit ditsy or the Scots mean with their money whilst we ourselves are blessed with a stiff upper lip and are lacking in emotion. How did these ridiculous ideas come about I wonder. Let's hope that by blogging we will learn more truthful aspects of the countries and characteristics of our blogging friends eh?!

Of course people are people wherever they live but there do seem to be certain characteristics which apply more to one race than another and maybe we do seem to be unemotional and cold at least on the outside but do we really love our pets more than our children? We are considered polite (especially as drivers) according to my French friends and our sense of humour is different - I had a small procedure done by an opthalmogist in France and when he had finished I jokingly said "I haven't died then!" and he commented that this is a particularly English humour this poking fun at ourselves and the French take themselves and particularly their health much more seriously!

I think then that we as a race are perhaps:

tolerant (I know this isn't always the case of course),
fair (play up play up and play the game)
polite,
eccentric (in the nicest possible way of course!)
self effacing (were we not taught never to blow our own trumpets or to get too big for our boots?)
stoic (I am thinking of the Blitz mentality here and our attitude in the face of a crisis)

What do you think of as our national traits I wonder?

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my previous posts I read each and every one and appreciate them all. For those who asked to see the schooldays post I have added it as a separate page so go to the top of the right hand sidebar where you should find it but don't say you weren't warned about its length!

Doing my bit for the environment

2011-09-07T15:06:00.001+01:00

I had prepared another childhood memories post about schooldays since this week all the children seem to be going back to school but it was a bit on the long side and I thought you'd probably not be that interested in settling down to read 5000 words and that something less wordy might be better so here goes......

I recently signed up for a weekly vegetable box (actually a bag in our case and you'll be pleased to learn that the bag is used to line our under sink bin and not tossed away) from a local farm whose produce we have been buying regularly at farmers' markets and at the farm gate too. This was today's offering -all organic and mostly grown locally on the farm with the carrots coming the furthest being from a farm in Devon - see the lovely red earth still clinging to them?! The invoice that accompanies the selection has the dates of all the local farmers' markets at which they will be along with an article written by the farmer's wife and also a poem - this week's article was about consuming less and whether or not economic growth requires us to consume more and if so at what cost to the environment and the poem was Unharvested by Robert Frost (last week's was Ode to Autumn by Keats - I think this is a lovely touch don't you?

Lunch today was a cauliflower/courgette/broccoli and carrot cheese with wholemeal scone topping and very nice it was too and the air miles involved - zero! It made a pleasant change not to have runner beans as a vegetable today!!!

I got this book from the library on Monday and have enjoyed reading the essays as well as looking at the patterns but it seems it is not easy being green not even when it comes to knitting which might be seen as the ultimate green past-tme using only a couple of sticks and no energy other than that of the knitter!

Is it better to use cotton which is produced using tons of pesticides but which will rot down when the garment is no longer needed? Is wool the best option but then think of the noxic chemicals that sheep are regularly dunked in to prevent fly strike and so on. If you were able to obtain organic yarns what would they have been dyed with even vegetable dyes usually require some sort of chemicals as mordants to endure the dye takes to the yarn. I wonder if it is possible to be green in the twenty first century - we can't go back to the stone age and even if we could would we really wish to do so?

Love this little teddy with a buttoned back so that you can insert a rice filled bag warmed in the microwave (but is a microwave a green option or not and would the rice be organic?!) I guess what it all boils down to is doing the best we can in whatever small ways we can and hoping for the best! So I will continue to support local farms with my veggie box and will use up the yarns I already have rather than go out and buy eco-friendly (or not) ones.

Thought you might like to see a recent visitor to our garden - sorry the photo is a bit blurred but I didn't dare to open the door first! This chap was just outside the back door taking a drink from the bowl of water which is there to disguise a drain cover and which Thomas likes to drink out of and the blackbirds to bathe in. He is the second fox we have seen in the past week or so the other one was a younger fitter looking one in his prime - this one had a back foot missing but it didn't seem to be bothering him at all. The badgers will soon be in the drive crunching the hazelnuts every night if last year is anything to go by so you can see we are doing our bit for wildlife here too!!

London buses!

2011-09-02T14:01:00.001+01:00

Sunny days are like London buses - first none come then several all at once! This picture above was taken on Wednesday afternoon....

This one yesterday morning....

and this one in my garden this morning! How lucky we are to have these wonderful pellucid blue skies and sunshine and we are revelling in them!

On Wednesday afternoon we did another walk with our neighbours (not the dog this time as he had gone to the kennels as our friends were off on holiday early on Thursday morning) and this time we went to Melbury Osmond. Here are some of the views en route...

As we walked along our friends told us that unfortunately there wasn't anywhere on this walk to stop off for a cup of tea and some cake but we were enjoying the walk anyway so it wasn't important.

The footpath finally emerged here alongside a very pretty thatched cottage and what did we see but a little notice (can you see it in front of the pink plants?) saying that the gardens were open that very afternoon and tea and cake would be being served in support of the WI! Well how serendipitous was that?

This is the very pretty cottage - isn't it beautiful?

And here is part of the garden....

By now the sun was shining, the sky was blue and the tea and fruit cake eaten outside overlooking the delightful garden was delicious. The owners - an elderly couple were lovely and told us that the cottage like many in the village was leased from the Ilchester Estate and they had lived there for 15 years and worked hard on the garden. It was my dream sort of garden with lots of little corners and tiny old buildings including a little brick built shed with leaded windows! My photos don't do it justice as it was quite the prettiest garden I have seen in a long time)

Having refreshed ourselves we pottered on into the village - lots more pretty cottages and gardens and many more open - we could have had tea at each and every one of them had we wished! Our route then took us towards Melbury Sampford House ...

The photo on the above link will show you that the house isn't really tilted but I was getting tired by now unless there was more to the tea than I had realised!!

Nearly back to the car now after a lovely walk taking in manor house and parkland as well as little cottages and including a lovely tea in the sunshine. Thanks to our neighbours for showing us this lovely place.

Yesterday dawned bright and clear again and we set off towards Devizes where we had arranged to meet some Guildford friends here - Caen Hill Locks. Somewhere I had never heard of I must admit.

We walked downhill along the tow path ...

Watched the canal boats navigate some of the 16 locks in this section....

The scenery was beautiful and the surroundings peaceful - canal boats make just a gentle puttering sound quite unlike the noise of road traffic!

How tranquil is this?! We had lunch at the little cafe housed in what was originally the lock keeper's cottage and ate it sitting outside alongside the canal.

A sandwich and a drink revived us and we walked a little way in the other direction towards Devizes but it wasn't as pretty as going downhill so we came back and had an ice cream before parting comapny to go our separate after a very pleasant few hours in good company. We were home by 4.30 and had a cuppa in the garden but I gather our friends got lost on their return drive and didn't get home till 6.00!

And as I said at the beginning today is yet another sunny day which we are spending at home pottering in the garden - tomorrow will be my husband's birthday I wonder if it will be another fine day?!

Thank you to all those lovely people who have taken the time to leave comments - all much appreciated and to those who have added my blog to the ones they follow - I still cannot see my Followers so I am afraid I don't know who you are unless you leave a comment or e-mail me but welcome whoever you are!

September song

2011-08-31T11:19:00.003+01:00

One of the coolest and wettest summers since 1983 (apparently) is almost over. Tomorrow it will be September and we can no longer kid ourselves that the weather we have been waiting for since May will actually arrive. The nights are drawing in already and even on a bright day it is dark enough to need the lights on by 8.30. This year autumn has arrived quietly - not the sudden realisation that it is here that we sometimes get but more a stealthy creeping with mellow fruitfulness coming early and berries on the hedges whilst the summer flowers are still blooming - quite strange really.

It has been more than 50 years since I last returned to a new school year in September and yet I still see September as a time of new beginnings! A time to turn over a new leaf and to start on some of the indoor projects which have lain undone during the lighter months.

It is actually very liberating to realise that all those things one had planned to do during the summer and not got done can now be shelved as it is too late!

September brings thoughts of cosy evenings - no longer need we spend the long daylight hours gardening and trying to keep on top of the weeds but thoughts can turn to quiet evenings knitting or reading, earlier bedtimes when the sound of owls in the black darkness replaces the final night-time chattering of the rooks in the soft grey darkness of midsummer nights. Windows no longer wide open but just enough for some fresh air during the night. Bedclothes covering us rather than pushed aside....

There is a slowing down - the pace of life is less frenetic during the autumn and winter and now that, for most of us winter doesn't mean real hardship and the possibility of not having enough to eat I look on it as a welcome interlude for Spring will surely come again and by then we will be well rested and ready to begin again.

I love our seasons here in the UK and would really struggle living somewhere where the days were always the same length and the sun shone most of the time. I enjoy hearing about sunny winter days with temperatures as low as 20 degrees in Australia but we here in UK are made of sterner stuff and that sounds more like summer to me!! I love the misty dampness of autumn days, the occasional clear bright day, when the sky seems an even brighter clearer blue than during the summer months, all the more appreciated because of its rarity, the wonderful colours of the leaves and berries and the general feeling of snuggling down for a pleasant nap!

"Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them thou hast thy music too .."

(Ode to Autumn - Keats)

Here we rarely have the extremes of weather that some parts of the world have - I am thinking of those poor people across the Pond who are reeling in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene - but our weather and our seasons are altogether more gentle affairs and whilst we often complain about the grey rainy days of February, the cold dark days of December and the lack of wall to wall sunshine in summer we don't usually have to deal with the devastation that these extremes can bring for which I am truly thankful.

I leave you with a photo of our recent tomato harvest!! We have been eating our daily portion of beans, have had several cucumbers and have been adding some of the nasturtium flowers to our salads (luckily no blackfly aagain this year) even had a couple of dozen apples from our little tree but our tomatoes have not ripened and when my husband said "I have picked 2 tomatoes - they will do for our lunch" I thought we'd be rather hungry!!!

Granny never looked like this!

2011-08-28T10:59:00.000+01:00

As promised a less wordy piece this time! Saw these in one of the weekend supplements and thought I'd share them with you.

Apparently this biker jacket is "one of the defining pieces of the new season" it's made from fine cashmere and will retail at £2,210 so who's going to be the first blogger to make something similar?!!

Looking Back

2011-08-23T15:45:00.003+01:00

It's a dismal grey and damp day here today and we are in the throes of having the kitchen floor tiles professionally cleaned and sealed so have no access to the kitchen and I am reduced to an electric kettle and the tea things in the conservatory and to washing up the cups in the cloakroom and as I was doing just this earlier today I thought that in spite of it being somewhat difficult it was a whole lot easier than our everyday life at Grandfather's where we didn't have the luxury of an indoor tap nor of electricity to boil the kettle. I thought it's been a while since I published any of my memories and that you might perhaps like to read a piece I wrote about our day to day living back in the 1950's whilst living with my grandfather especially if you too are having a dull dismal day with not a lot to do? If so read on..... Since I don't have any photos taken at the time I have illustrated this piece with some of the flowers I remember from childhood days.

Even everyday living was different at Grandfather’s. For a start we didn’t just get up, make a cup of tea and have a shower and eat breakfast. Before either a wash or a drink was possible the fire needed to be got going again – it would have been banked up overnight with small coal and maybe potato peelings or something like that. There was an art to banking up a fire – too much and it went out and too little and it burned through during the night and again went out both of which would mean waking up to a cold house and the necessity of starting a new fire from scratch. It takes time to get a fire going sufficiently well to boil a kettle so the last thing one wanted was for the fire to go out overnight! Then there were the ashes to be riddled out and disposed of – I think these went on the garden and the cinders were used on the path which wound behind the house to the toilet.

This range which I photographed at Sherborne Garden centre is similar to Grandfather's

Then of course there was no filling the kettle at the tap over the sink as we do without thinking these days. The big black kettle had to be filled with a jug from the bucket of clean drinking water and would have been refilled before going to bed and left on the hob at the side of the fire ready for the morning. Once the kettle had been put over the fire and had boiled and the tea made it could be refilled and boiled again before washing could begin. With no separate bathroom it was difficult to arrange for any privacy whilst washing. No showers then but a wash down with some of the hot water from the kettle topped up with some cold from the bucket on the table – being careful not to use too much or there wouldn’t be enough hot left for the next person. I remember Camay soap, Knight's Castille, there was Imperial Leather with its little rectangular metallic label or sometimes Pears since I was “preparing to be a beautiful lady” as their ads used to say!. For washing of hands during the day, in the bowl of cold water left for that purpose and probably the leftovers from somebody’s wash, a bar of carbolic soap would be used maybe Wright’s Coal Tar a deep yellow bar with a strong pungent smell or even a block of washing soap such as yellow Sunlight or green Fairy which could also be used for the weekly wash.

Bath night (usually only attempted once a week and on an evening when grandfather had taken himself off to the Royal Oak!) was a real ritual since it required that the tin bath be brought into the house from the shed and its complement of insects evacuated. The bath would then be placed on the mat in front of the fire especially in winter but even in summer since the hot water would be from the kettle on the fire so the shortest distance from the fire was sensible. Hot water would be added to a bucketful of cold in the bath and then we took turns at having a stand up wash in it. It wasn’t big enough for an adult to sit in but I was able to wash top down and then bottom up and finally to sit in the water with my legs over the side but Mother and my aunt had to make do with washing whilst standing in the shallow water. I am not sure when or how grandfather bathed – I certainly never saw him doing it!

Hair washing was no simple matter either and involved pouring water from a jug over your head whilst leaning over a bowl! The water was then scooped back into the jug and poured over again and again. I seem to remember a shampoo called Drene was the preferred one then. The only difference here was that the water used was often rainwater from the water butt as this was meant to be better for the hair and it was heated in a saucepan and not the kettle, which was kept solely for drinking water from the tap. It was obviously necessary to replace the water in the bowl at least once during all this procedure as there is not much point trying to rinse soap out of your hair with soapy water! The change of water usually meant that your soaking wet hair dripped all over everywhere as you attempted to pour the used water into the slop bucket and to refill the bowl with more clean hot water from the pan and add cold! You can see why hair was washed no oftener than once a week!!

After bathing or washing of hair the used water had then to be got rid of – no sink with plughole of course. Nor any drains down which it could be tipped. It had to be tipped into the slop bucket – usually several bucketsful and taken to the toilet for disposal or flung over the garden so again not something to be relished after a nice bath in front of the fire especially if it was cold and raining!

The only heat in winter was from the range in the kitchen so everything happened there and getting dressed or undressed at the end of the day was usually done in front of the fire where one’s clothes or pyjamas had been warming in readiness. In winter our beds were warmed with a hot water bottle – grandfather still had a couple of those old fashioned stoneware ones which were heavy as lead when filled and boy did they hurt if you accidentally stubbed your toe on one in the bed! Beds were thus warm as toast in a small area and like ice everywhere else! With no electric lighting moving from one room to another was also not straightforward since it involved lighting a candle and taking it with you care being taken not to move too quickly in case it went out in the draught nor to allow spots of wax to fall on the furniture or floor and not to let it catch light to anything en route. Just as well perhaps there were only 2 rooms up and 2 down then. When you are used to just flicking a switch at the doorway you cannot imagine how complicated it all was and how little light one candle gives!

There was of course no television and grandfather didn’t have a radio either since they required electricity too – portable transistor radios came in later in the 60s I think. We did however rent a radio in time for the coronation and this was powered by an accumulator – a big heavy type of battery made of glass which needed to be recharged at the shop regularly. Imagine carrying a small car battery to the shops every Saturday and you get the picture. So we did hear the news of Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tensing’s conquest of Everest on 3 June 1953 before going to a neighbour’s to watch the coronation on their television!

Cooking was done on the range and it was a real art since there was no temperature control – the temperature of the oven depended on the state of the fire which In turn depended on the direction of the wind and on what was being burned at the time, maybe best quality coal but more likely the cheaper nutty slack or even bits of old wood or rubbish. So making anything for which the temperature was critical, such as soufflés (fat chance!), was out – my mother used to make what she called a “rub up cake” or rock buns rather than a sponge cake for example. Casseroles and milk puddings which needed a lower temperature were easier than pastry although my Aunt Win’s pastry was legendary. Occasionally I find these days that the menu I have planned requires 4 saucepans to be in use on the hob at the same time – that would never have been possible since there was room on the fire for one and on the hob alongside for another and that was all. The oven was tiny – perhaps 12 inches square so no turkeys ever got cooked in it – not that turkeys were affordable or available anyway! I cannot imagine how my grandmother managed to bring up 6 children and feed them all with such primitive equipment.
Washing must have been a nightmare for my mother and aunt – no bunging it in the machine of course - it was all done by hand in the bath, the same one we used for bath night, using Sunlight soap or perhaps Omo or Tide washing powder and the whites were usually given a dose of Reckitts blue in the final rinsing water in an attempt to keep them white. There was a boiler in the lean to next door but that needed a fire lit under it and I don’t recall my mother or aunt using that. Mangles were in use then but I don’t think Grandfather had one so the washing was wrung out by hand – my mother had an incredibly strong twist - and was then hung on the line outside or spread over the bushes to dry. I don’t remember what happened in winter – I suspect large items like sheets and towels were not washed as often as would be the case now and then only if it was a good drying day as they would otherwise have had to be hung indoors and would have been in the way not to mention making the whole house damper than it already was.

Elderflowers were collected, dried and used to make a herbal tea by Grandfather which served as a cure-all!
Having got the clothes washed and dried – no mean undertaking as you can see - ironing was done using a flat iron heated on the range. No ironing board but a folded blanket on the end of the table, although this was my mother’s preferred option even when an ironing board was available to her later. Man-made fabrics were not in common use then so most of the items would have been made of cotton or wool and would have taken ages to dry and most would have needed ironing. Two irons were needed, one heating on the stove and the other in use. And unlike today when I normally start off ironing on a lower temperature and increase it as I go along then it would have been necessary to do the things that needed a hot iron first as the iron would get gradually cooler. I think one tested the temperature by spitting on the iron and if the tiny blob of spittle danced over its surface and disappeared it was hot enough! Very technical!

At least with no fitted carpets or rugs there was no need for a vacuum cleaner – just as well with no electricity! Carpet sweepers were often used by those who had carpets and when I was first married in 1972 we had one until we got a Hoover later. The flagstone floors were swept daily and washed regularly too although in winter they’d have taken an age to dry what with the damp in the atmosphere and the damp coming up from below due to the flagstones being set on the bare earth with no damp course beneath. With the only entrance to the house opening straight into the front room wet footprints must have been a constant problem during winter months but at least there were no carpets to worry about!

The range was black leaded regularly using Zebo polish – although as the fire was hardly ever allowed to go out I don’t know quite how this worked. With the coal fire and the need for everything to be carried through the house there must have been an enormous amount of dust and dirt and cleaning and housework must have taken up a great deal of time. And since all the other chores took much longer then without modern equipment it’s not surprising that women at the beginning of the 20th century didn’t usually go out to work!!

Spring cleaning – spread over a week or more - was a major undertaking and you can perhaps see why since winter cleaning was so difficult. First of all the chimney was swept with a long brush the fire having been allowed to go out of course. Then a bright windy day usually in March or April would be chosen and blankets would be washed and hung out to dry. Woollen blankets were used on the beds along with eiderdowns if available since duvets had not yet been introduced – I imagine they came in after holidays to Europe became more common. The floors were scrubbed and the wooden ones given a coat of something called permanganate of potash – whatever that is or was. I only know it was some sort of crystals dissolved in water and then sloshed over the wood and it gave it all a dark stain. (I checked this out on the internet and apparently it is used as an antiseptic as well as giving wood and other materials a stain) The walls were treated to a coat of distemper – mixed in a bucket and painted on with a wide brush. Sometimes we might be able to rise to a roll or two of border paper and then the walls would have a strip of this pasted about a foot from the ceiling to finish off the look. I remember one year we went very avant garde and painted the kitchen walls eau de nil which was a pretty soft green as a change from the usual whitewash. The woodwork was varnished so didn’t need doing every year. Curtains were washed, ironed and rehung and all the spiders who had been hiding in corners here and there were evicted! Pillows were taken outside into the garden and emptied onto a sheet spread out on the grass – obviously a fine day without wind was chosen for this chore and the feathers allowed to air in the sun whilst their cases were washed and dried and later restuffed with the now fresh smelling feathers. Presumably the sun was considered to act as a disinfectant in some way. Windows were opened as wide as possible and the front door stood open all day and there was a general feeling of thanksgiving for having survived the winter and an anticipation of easier days to come with the arrival of the warmer weather.

If you are still with me well done and congratulations on your stamina. Thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings. I know how many of you enjoyed my recent post about things remembered from the past so hope that some of you will have liked this post too. I promise my next one will be less verbose!

Paris weekend Part 2

2011-08-20T13:44:00.003+01:00

You did say you wanted more didn't you?! So here it is...

We woke on Monday morning to blue skies and sunshine and after a delicious breakfast we set off for the meeting place for our next walk.

This time it was to be the St Germain district and our first stop was the church of St Sulpice which features in Dan Brown's book The da Vinci Code. Unfortunately having picked a "jour ferie" or bank holiday we were unable to see as much of the interior as we might have wished as there was a service taking place it being the feast of the Assumption. It's odd that France which is a strictly secular country takes most of its holidays on Feast Days in the Roman Catholic church but that's France for you! You may notice that half of the front of the church has been cleaned but apparently money ran out so the other half remains as it was. You might also notice that the left tower is finished whereas the right hand one is not - again apparently when a building is unfinished it is left that way and not finished in a later century for some reason.

Our meeting point was this lovely square ringed with chestnut trees - just look at that sky too!

This was the ceiling of the porch - is that the right word? - as we entered the church - isn't it amazing all done in carved stonework?

Here is the church of St Germain-des-pres so called as when it was built it was in fact in the fields outside Paris rather like our own St Martins in the Fields! It is the oldest church in Paris having originally been built in 542 to house holy relics it then became a powerful Benectine Abbey rebuilt in the 11th century and although much of it was destroyed by fire in the 17th century it was restored in the 19th. It houses the tomb of the philosopher Descartes.

Another of the little secret hidden courtyards I love.

We had lunch here having finished our tour of St Germain - this is a famous restaurant which was much favoured by the Bohemian and literary circles in the 1920s. Much of this morning's tour included houses and hotels, bars and studios used by the literary circle including Oscar Wilde, Hemingway and so on. I must admit I can't remember too much about the various authors and their shenanigans and am not familiar with many of the books which were mentioned either so can't give you much information on this side of things.

The afternoon was free to do as we wished and having had our lunch we wandered round the area some more and came across this window display for the famous Laduree macaroons - it also had a salon du the (tea shop) and we resolved to return later and try it out but in fact we ended up further away and never did get back to it. I thought the window dressing fabulous - cup cakes eat your heart out eh?!!

Back by the Seine...

...looking very different in the sunshine. We did think of going to look round Notre Dame but in the end we decided we were too hot and footsore and so we took the Metro to Gare d'Austerlitz where we crossed the road to the Jardins des Plantes.

This proved to be a welcome oasis of greenery with seats under the trees where we sat and rested a while enjoying the sound of birdsong.

The gardens had an ecological area and I loved this little hotel a abeilles - hotel for bees. Not sure how many bees were actually in residence but it shows willing anyway! There was also a restaurant where we sat on a vine covered terrace and had a drink whilst being amused by some cheeky little sparrows who were doing a good clean up operation under the tables. Very relaxing it all was too and then we took the Metro back to our hotel where we had a quiet hour lying on the bed reading with the window wide open and a view of the Eiffel Tower (well let's be honest here it was just the very top of the Eiffel Tower seen between the chimney tops - we were on the 5th floor!) before getting ready to go and find a restaurant for dinner.

Tuesday morning our visit was to the area known as Les Halles which is where the markets had been held for centuries but which has been moved to the outskirts of Paris for ease of transport by air and train etc. Rather as our own Covent Garden has been. The area is still connected with food and shopping however and there are several of these lovely arcades left which were built so that the ladies who lunch could go shopping in safety and away from the smells and filth of the streets. Luckily there was no filth (well apart from the odd dog mess which France seems to be famous for!) to contend with and hopefully no real danger either!

We visited the church of St Eustache - a lovely church with stained glass windows and beautiful wall paintings. There was a young man playing the organ obviously practising for something or another and the music was a beautiful accompaniment to our tour round. The church is often used for musical concerts of one sort or another and it was here that Berlioz first performed his Te Deum in 1855 and Litz his Messe Solenelle in 1866 and today there are organ recitals during June and July - darn too late again!!

The actual market halls which were made of metal and glass were destroyed when the market moved out of town although just in the nick of time a couple of the buildings were saved and dismantled and can be seen elsewhere in the world (can't remember exactly where I am afraid!) On part of the site a new shopping mall has been built which is apparently the cause of much discussion as many think it is ugly and inappropriate.

This tower is all that remains of a chateau built for Catherine de Medici who was a firm believer in astronomy and this was where her astronomer would go to search the stars! Whilst researching the internet to make sure of my facts I came across this blog post which is about the same area and I thought you might like to take a look as there are some lovely photos.

This carving represents the motto for Paris which is "Fluctuat nec megitur" or in other words Battered but never sunk (like this ship I guess!) Something else I hadn't known before! As the French would say "Je me coucherai moins bete ce soir" or in other words I go to bed less stupid tonight or as we would say You learn something new every day!!

Inside the Bourse de Commerce which I suppose we would call the Chamber of Commerce are offices and this wonderful cupola ceiling with a painting which goes all the way round showing goods coming to the market from all over the world.

We had lunch at a pavement cafe just near Stohrer - the oldest patiserrie in Paris - whose sign you can see here along with some other decorative ones against the blue sky! It is said that the Parisien ladies don't make desserts when they entertain but just pop out and buy a gateau from such a patisserie. It is true that the window did contain some fabulous looking creations but at 32 euros for a cake big enough to serve at most 6 dainty slices you wouldn't want to entertain very often would you?! (Think how many of my apple crumb puddings you could make for that price!!)

It was getting too hot to sit in the sun and we had to get back to the hotel to collect our bags and make our way back to the Gare du Nord for the Eurostar home anyway so we regretfully left the rue Montorgeuil.

This tower which we passed on our way to the Metro we had seen earlier on our tour but that was before the sun broke through and now we were on the other side of the road so a better photo - it is all that remains of a mansion belonging to Jean sans Peur (John the Fearless) who had his bedchamber at the top of a spiral staircase in this tower so that he was safe from attack - not so fearless eh?! It's a long and complicated story but if you are interested in hearing about it you will find it all here.

We had enjoyed our 3 days in Paris but I have to say by now I was ready to come home - I am a country girl at heart and definitely not a born traveller so am always keen to get home after being away. I would certainly go again but I think 2 or 3 days is enough unless you intersperse it with trips to other areas perhaps. However if the South Bank is "our place" as I mentioned in my previous post then Paris also holds a special place in our hearts as it is where we came for our honeymoon nearly 40 years ago!

I leave you with a photo which certainly raised a smile or two amongst our group. Anyone who has ever seen French parking will understand why this Mini has a bumper tied to the back!

Weekend away

2011-08-18T22:15:00.000+01:00

I have been away and haven't been visiting or posting on Blogger for a while so please for give me if I haven't commented on your recent posts - I wonder if you would like to come with me to London and Paris for a wander round? Unlike us you will not need comfy shoes just sit back and join us on our weekend away...

Last Saturday we went up to London where we planned to stay overnight before catching the early morning Eurostar to Paris on Sunday morning. Having taken our bags to our hotel - a no frills budget place near to Kings Cross - we walked back towards Waterloo where we intended to go to the South Bank. I am happy to say that we encountered no signs of the violence of the previous weekend but thank you to those of you who expressed your concern for us which was much appreciated! I loved these buildings which we passed en route for Charing Cross Road where we caught a bus to Waterloo - free bus passes are wonderful and one of the perks of being over 60!!

The afternoon was dry though cloudy and we were able to visit the Festival of Britain exhibition at the Festival Hall before taking an evening stroll along the South Bank. This is "our place" since when I first met my husband I was living in Dorset and he in Cheam and I used to come up to visit every couple of weeks and he would take me back to Waterloo for my train home on Sunday evenings and if we had time to spare we would wander along the South Bank together but that's a very long time ago!!

The London Eye wasn't there back then of course!

This sign was on the side of a beach hut displaying a mosaic made up of bits and pieces found on the river bank which I showed you here and it expresses exactly what I love so much about London in a way I could never hope to put into words.

This pretty garden is part of the beach along the South Bank just now and is looking so much greener than when I last visited during a dry spell. Lovely isn't it?

St Paul's amidst the cranes!

We had dinner in a restaurant having watched some entertainers and looked at the booksellers' wares and so on and when we left the sun was setting and the sky looked so lovely

Not a fire simply the sun setting - fabulous isn't it? Our hotel was very comfortable and quiet in spite of our being on the ground floor right next to the busy Kings Cross Road! We slept well and left for the short walk to St Pancras about 7.00 am. Having checked in we had time for some breakfast before boarding the Eurostar to start our weekend called Secret Paris Revisited. We had been previously on a short break called Secret Paris on Foot and enjoyed it so this was to be a follow on from that. I posted about that trip here

Sunday morning in Paris: I thought how different the architecture is in Paris and how very French the buildings looked (well they would wouldn't they!) We made our way to our hotel and had time for some lunch before we made our way to our first rendez vous for a walk round the area known as the Mouffetard Quarter.

With a guided walk such as this we saw all sorts of things we might not otherwise have noticed such as this lovely courtyard set behind gates. This one was behind metal gates but sometimes our guide was able to open wooden gates and take us inside to see the private area behind.

We visited this church - St Etienne-du-cMont - which houses the shrine of Saint Genevieve who is the patron saint of Paris - something I hadn't known before - apparently she saved the city from attack by Atilla . She was born in 422 and died in 512 so she lived to be a good age especially for those days!

Here she is in her niche on the right of the door to the church. Unfortunately as it was a Sunday we were not able to wander round at will with our guide as a service was taking place inside.

St Genevieve had a street named after her but duing the Revolution all streets names with a religious connotation had to be altered and the Saint was deleted! It is now called something else entirely!

Another pretty courtyard hidden away.

Just next to the church St Etienne-du-Mont is this huge building originally built between 1764 and 1790 by Louis XV after he had recovered from a desperate illness and he wanted the church to honour St Genbevieve but during the Revolution it was turned into a panthenon - a monument to house the tombs of France's great heroes. It has been secularized and desecularized again since then and was finally made into a civic building in 1885. Again we didn't go inside.

After a supper in the Latin Quarter where the little cobbled street was filled with tables for all the many little restaurants we made our way towards the Seine where we had a wander along thinking that the previous evening we had been walking along the South Bank of the River Thames and how similar the evening was!

See even the same sunset!

By now we were ready to wend our way back to our hotel for the night. We got quite adept at using the Metro and with the Paris Passes we had been given as part of the deal we could use the underground as much as we liked so we did!

I think that by now you will have had enough so I will save the rest for another time. I hope you enjoyed our tour and that your feet are not as tired as ours were by the end of our weekend!!

Mixed Bag again!

2011-08-12T10:54:00.002+01:00

Today's post is a real mixed bag - first off here is another package I received in the Buttons and Bows swap organised by Barbara at French Village Life this time from Lorrie at Fabric Paper Thread who lives in Canada.

It contained some lovely bits of ribbon and a couple of sachets ingeniously made from the instruction sheets of old patterns and with pretty leaf shaped labels made of fabric backed with card. Sadly I had to tear the sachets to find the contents!

This beautiful selection of buttons, beads and even a tiny photo frame - just perfect for my crazy patchwork - Thank you so much Lorrie.

You may remember I showed you my hollyhock which was literally reaching for the sky back here? Well after a windy night it was brought low and I had to trim it back and a couple of days later this little pink hollyhock appeared. It had obviously been waiting for the moment when it could see some daylight!

But where did it come from I wonder - I bought the black one as a single plant so maybe this one had been a seed which self seeded in the pot for it can't be part of the same plant can it?

Yesterday we took another walk with our neighbours this time through Nine Springs which is our local beauty spot. The dog enjoyed himself scampering on ahead as you can see!

We finished up at the Gateway coffee shop (this is attached to the Yeovil community church and is another great place for a coffee/tea with helpful staff and tables outside (essential when walking with the neighbours' dog!) where we again enjoyed a cup of tea and a cake before walking home.
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I don't seem to have shown much in the way of cookery recently so thought you might be interested to see our dessert earlier this week when I hadn't been to the shops and all I had to hand was one left over cooking apple and a crust of bread! A quick whizz in the blender with the crust and voila - apple crumb! It's a simple easy recipe which I make often especially if I have any leftover bread - waste not want not and all that! All you do is to melt some butter and stir in the crumbs along with demerara sugar to taste and use the mix to top some sliced apple with a drop of water added and some sugar to taste. Bake in the oven till apple is cooked and the top crispy and golden and serve with ice cream or custard. Easy eh?

Finally some craftwork at last! I have been looking for a bag - I needed something large enough to take my glasses, purse, phone, umbrella, diary.... you know the sort of thing I'm sure?! I also need it to be capable of being worn cross body, as these days I pay for it with a painful shoulder the following day if I carry a bag on my shoulder, but nothing I saw was suitable. Many were heavy even before you put anything in them or the straps were too short or they weren't big enough.... so what did I do? Well I had this rather nice piece of upholstery fabric which I got from the Scrap Store together with several other small pieces for £1 along with some remnants of brown suede fabric left over from another bag made years ago, a couple of redundant curtain rings and look a bag which I hope will serve the purpose and carry everything I need on a day out. I have to say I don't think I will be going in for bag production any time soon though as I made this up as I went along and kept realising that I should have done A before I did B and having to unpick it - with hind sight I should have put a magnetic fastener on the pocket as well as the top of the bag but it was too late by the time I thought of that! Though of course next time - if there is a next time - I would hopefully have learned from my experience!

Have a good weekend and let's hope the streets of our cities are quiet this weekend especially as I am off to London- taking my bag with me - tomorrow!

This and That

2011-08-07T16:34:00.000+01:00

It's seems ages since I posted - don't know where the time goes! I haven't been spending quite so much time on the computer so if I haven't commented on your posts I do apologise. Yesterday I had this lovely card from Lesley as my last but one offering in the Postman's Knock swap. Isn't it great? See the swimsuits are hung against a background of a map of the Dorset coast just a few miles from us so very appropriate for me!

Not content with one card Lesley also sent me this one as it has a French feel which she thought suitable for me too - I love them both. Check out more about these cards and many others on Postman's Knock.

Then I also received this package in the Buttons and Bows swap organised by Elizabeth at French Village Life This lovely selection of goodies came from Sarah whose blog I have been unable to link to as I can't find it!!

The past few weeks we have been going for a walk with some neighbours who know the area better than we do - this was last week's walk on Thursday when it was so hot so luckily much of it was in the shade.

Look at that sky - amazing blue isn't it?

Our path took us alongside the fields and we stopped for a welcome cup of tea and a slice of cake in East Coker Tearooms where some of the students from Lufton College for young people with Learning disabilities work - a welcome rest and beautifully served tea before we set off on our return. Altogether we were out for about 4 hours!

On Monday afternoons I don my volunteer's hat and visit an elderly partially sighted lady in a residential home nearby. We usually go out somewhere for a cup of tea and a chat and it is most enjoyable and I learn a lot from her so it is mutually beneficial. Last week she mentioned having watched a film on BBC4 which she thought I would enjoy so when I saw the DVD in the library I got it and did indeed enjoy it. If you haven't already seen it I can recommend it. It's in French with English subtitles and is a lovely evocation of France back at the time of the First World War and tells the story of the artist Seraphine Louis of Senlis who is apparently highly thought of in the field of naive art - though neither of my French friends to whom I mentioned it had ever heard of her and neither I must admit had I!

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments on the previous post - we could put together a book of our own with all our combined memories couldn't we?! To those who asked what the title of the book I had used was it was this one - check out the link here to see inside!

Times past

2011-07-28T11:45:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I read a post on projectforty which spoke about Things gone by which made me think of my own list of things. Who remembers Spangles? Or sweets being rationed? I was 8 when I won a prize in a fancy dress competition as "Off the Ration" with my dress covered with sweetie papers!! then there were licquorice comfits at 3d for 2 ounces in a little paper bag twisted at the corners, toffee which the shop keeper broke with a hammer,sherbert dips which had a licquorice straw through which to suck it and which choked you if you sucked too hard.....

Toothpaste coming in a tablet in a tin like this one - horrid taste but there was a choice of blue, green or red tin!!

Liberty bodices with their horrid rubbery buttons - what was their purpose I wonder? And navy knickers - the add in the photo says that they wear like iron - who'd want knickers that wore like iron - not me!!

Waists - we all had one back then! Notice how tiny the waists always look in 50's fashion pictures made all the more so by the full skirts which brings me on to full net petticoats (mine was pink!)

Junket - I seem to remember it being a regular dessert and when I discovered some vegetarian rennet in Waitrose recently I bought a bottle and made some - it was delicious and just as I remember it especially served with a few raspberries!

Then there were milk jellies, spotted Dick, tapioca (glad that died out I must admit!) stewed fruit, treacle tart ........ and so on.

Other things I would add to my list include:

Steam trains with heavy leather straps to open the windows and smuts all over you at the end of the journey!
Fountain pens - no biros permitted at school so if you didn't have a fountain pen it was a dip pen and the inkwell usually filled with blotting paper by some boy to make pellets to be shot with a ruler!
Chilblains - treated with a Snowfire tablet (apparently still available but now in a stick form)
Telephone boxes with buttons A and B
School milk - horrid when tepid during summer and in winter frozen solid
Pixie hoods and scarves tied across the chest and pinned in place - people seemed to be so afraid of children's chests getting cold but never gave a thought to our legs in short socks!
Postal orders for 2/6 for your birthday - that would be 12 and a half pence these days!
Knitted bathing costumes!

I could go on and on but perhaps you've had enough by now!

Sweet peas are doing well though now very short in the stem - no prizes would be won by these little dears but they smell divine.

To those of you who think we are lucky to have badgers to visit our garden this is what we have been greeted with outside our backdoor every morning this week - good job we are not keen on striped lawns eh?!!

Living in the Slow Lane

2011-07-20T12:16:00.007+01:00

If you haven't already seen this post do pop over and have a look. It made me think about how many of us life our lives at such a pace we never really enjoy the NOW! It is something I have spoken about before but I am still trying to achieve.

I went with a lady from my yoga class to hear a talk by a Buddist monk recently and I realised how impatient I am since he was so calm and seemed in no hurry to begin his lecture and I found myself thinking "Oh get on with it "!! However when he did begin to speak he suggested that before we listened to the lecture we should all take 5 minutes to just be. We were told to shut our eyes and just watch our breath in and out not trying to alter it nor to make judgements about it but just concentrating on it and on any sounds which we could hear. It was a very long 5 minutes but it certainly did put me in a more receptive frame of mind!

One of his suggestions was that we might take just 10 minutes every day to sit calmly not doing anything - just being and although I was full of good intentions - after all how difficult can it be to sit still for 10 minutes?! - it's is often bedtime and I haven't done it!

It's not as though I achieve great things with all my dashing about and always being ahead of myself thinking of the next thing whilst doing the current one either. I am sure if I took more time to really think about what I am doing NOW and less about what I am going to do LATER I would enjoy life more and quite possibly achieve more into the bargain!!

I don't know if I have shared this little prayer with you before if so my apologies but it says it all really and was given to me years ago by my mother who knew me only too well!

Slow me down, Lord!

Ease the pounding of my heart
By the quieting of my mind.
Steady my harried pace
With a vision of the eternal reach of time.

Give me,
Amidst the confusions of my day,
The calmness of the everlasting hills.
Break the tensions of my nerves
With the soothing music
Of the singing streams
That live in my memory.

Help me to know
The magical power of sleep,
Teach me the art
Of taking minute vacations
Of slowing down
To look at a flower;
To chat with an old friend
Or make a new one;
To pat a stray dog;
To watch a spider build a web;
To smile at a child;
Or to read a few lines from a good book.

Remind me each day
That the race is not always to the swift;
That there is more to life
Than increasing its speed.
Let me look upward
Into the branches of the towering oak
And know that it grew great and strong
Because it grew slowly and well.

Slow me down, Lord,
And inspire me to send my roots deep
Into the soil of life's enduring values
That I may grow toward the stars
Of my greater destiny.

Wilferd A. Peterson

Pomona - thanks for the suggestion I have read both Peace is Every Step and The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh and found them inspirational.

Thank you all for you kind comments on my previous posts - all much appreciated by both me and Thomas!

Summer's Day outing

2011-07-15T20:33:00.003+01:00

Apparently yesterday there was an earthquake in the English Channel and the tremors could be felt in Portsmouth and the rain was falling in the south East but here in Somerset we had one of the best days this year with blue skies and warm sunshine so we decided to go off for an outing. We intended to go to the Challice Gardens at Glastonbury but we decided after all to visit Wedmore a pretty little town we have been through several times on our way to the airport at Bristol and always thought we'd like to look around.

It is indeed a pretty little town - pity about the traffic though! - and we enjoyed a wander round and a look at the little independent shops. There was a fishmonger/greengrocer, a butcher (called Baker!), a delicatesen cum cafe, several little shops selling gifts and things for the home and so on and a papershop/bakers where we bought some sandwiches made to our specifications whilst we waited which we ate sitting outside the shop on a bench in the sunshine along with a cup of coffee.

This chap was enjoying the sun outside a delightful little gallery - I didn't buy anything but I could easily have done so had I had the cash!

This was also outside the gallery.

Pretty houses at every turn..

Now why couldn't my hollyhocks have been content to be this size I wonder!

After lunch we set off for Wells - England's smallest city and not far from Wedmore. We had a wander up the main street towards the cathedral and the Bishop's Palace. This is the moat round the Palace - all very tranquil now but I am guessing that if they needed a moat and crenellated ramparts at the time it was built 800 years ago that it wasn't always so peaceful! I gather they had permission to pour boiling oil and molten lead from the ramparts on top of any marauders who might be attempting to climb the walls - not very Christian was it?!!

Nothing like that happening yesterday though of course and all was very peaceful. The cathedral looking serene in the sunshine from the gardens inside the palace.

This was one of the windows in what had been the Great Hall - only one wall left standing now along with a couple of towers which served to illustrate the immense size of the building when it was built 800 years ago.

Lovely clematis clambering up the wall.... Oops I have just realised it should have been turned through 90 degrees - as I will ruin the whole post if I mess about now I will just leave it and wonder if you would have noticed!

Hydrangeas everywhere with some beautiful big blooms but nearly all pink.

Under this tranquil pool lie the four wells which gives Wells its name and the calm surface belies the great quantity of water which surges up - the average flow being about 40 gallons a second and the overflow fills the moat.

This cute little building is the well house the original being built in 1451 by Bishop Beckynton and was perhaps his greatest gift to the people of Wells as it provided them with a supply of fresh water from the stone conduit in the market place which was fed by a run of 255 meters of lead piping. It was rebuilt in the Victorian period and the dog on top is a Talbot which was apparently a favourite hunting dog of the Bishop - so now you know eh?!

This is the high street with channels of spring water running along both sides. Take care where you are putting your feet if you don't want a shoe full!

We'd had a great day out but sadly on our return I received a call from the vet with the results of a blood test Thomas had had on Monday - it seems he has a weak heart and needs to go on medication. This had been picked up by the vet we saw earlier in the week when both cats went for their yearly check and vaccincations and poor Tom has yet another bald patch - this time under his chin so he looks like a scraggy plucked chicken when he lifts his head and you can see his skin! It is difficult to imagine life without him after 15 plus years but I guess the time will come when I must. This photo is very unusal since it shows both Tom (on the right) and Bambi sharing a resting place something they never normally do - do you think Bambi knows she has to be kinder to her brother now and wallop him a little less often?! Bambi too has her problems as she has harvest mites (no not harvest mice!) in her ears and I am annointing her with some noxious stuff along with giving her her arthritis medicine - it's not only humans for whom "getting old is not for wimps" is it?!

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my previous posts I really do appreciate them all and hope to be able to catch up with you all soon.

Sunny Sunday morning

2011-07-03T11:13:00.000+01:00

This is the view from my bedroom window this morning - aren't I lucky?

And this if I lean slightly to the right - see all those lovely rosebay willowherb so pretty with their pink flowers but less appealing later when their fluffy seeds drift everywhere!

I took a stroll round the "estate" to see what was coming along - these are a few of the marigolds I planted in our new raised bed - they seemed to like it so much they went mad and although I removed every other one they were still taking over the bed and the poor tomatoes were being suffocated so a few more had to go sadly. Thank you Lesley I have so many of these wonderful sunny bright flowers in my garden now and they remind me of you!

I love this little clump of campanula growing round the drainpipe - Nature will beautify the most mundane of places given half a chance won't she?

And this is the hollyhock I showed you a while back - it is reaching for the sky and is far too large for it's position sadly. I wonder if I can get it to grow a bit smaller next year?!!

Its flowers are an amazing deep dark colour - aren't they lovely? I think I might get some tall enough to see from my bedroom soon!

Here is our front path - do come and have a cup of tea with me and see it for yourself!

There are rosehips already in the hedge - oh dear does this mean autumn is on its way? Do hope not as we are only just beginning summer here!

But there are still flowers in bloom so maybe summer will last a little longer!

This lovely lavender is growing alongside the front drive and is usually full of bees - lovely isn't it?

And my sweet peas are in bloom too and we have a small posy on the table every day now. I have just had a cup of coffee outside at the little table by the back door and heard church bells in the distance and it was one of those moments when all's well with the world - one for that mental scrapbook of memories to bring out on a dull day if you know what I mean? Hope that you too are having a nice day wherever you are.

Not sure what has happened to Blogger but I can't seem to get the text left justified in places nor the photos centred so will just have to go with the flow and leave them as they are or I might be here all day and I need to get the lunch on the go soon or it will be teatime not mid-day we eat.

Friday outing

2011-06-26T08:49:00.004+01:00

On Friday I had a day out meeting up with a couple of friends from where I used to work. I wonder if you will be able to guess from these photos where we went?

This is a lovely peaceful garden...

.. which is part of a museum.

It is a really tranquil place and whilst wandering round the museum itself and these lovely gardens outside we were able to imagine we were somewhere quite different.

and yet as you will see - it is aurrounded by the noise and bustle of trains and planes and buses and traffic!

with a station right next to it and planes flying overhead! (I don't remember it being quite so cloudy whilst we were there and in fact the sun was shining for much of our day!)

But with all those wonderful old trees and the beautiful garden absorbing all the 21st century noise we could imagine we were back in the 18th century when these almshouses were built..

As you might be able see from this lovely gateway we were visiting the Geffrye Museum in London! Entrance is free and if it is unknown to you I certainly recommend a visit - it is a lovely place and the restaurant is excellent too! We did enjoy catching up over our lunch (roasted vegetables served with bubble and squeak patty and a drink) before we explored the museum and the gardens at our leisure.

After we had finished at the Geffrye Museum we got a bus (bus passes are so useful!) to the South Bank where there was a "beach" maybe not quite up to the same standard as the Paris Plage perhaps but a fun idea which the children we saw there seemed to enjoy!

Loved this little arrangement of derelict boat and seaside planting.

This interesting mosaic was on the side of one of the many beach huts along the South Bank and depicts the Thames and is made up of bits and pieces found along the foreshore of the river - fascinating stuff!

This fabulous creature is the urban fox and is made from straw! The sculpture is supposed to represent the link between the city and the countryside to be found in London is very apt for this particular post don't you think! He is part of an exhibition currently at the Royal Festival Hall celebrating the Festival of Britain back in 1951 which was also very interesting and which I want to go back and see again as time ran out before we had seen it all and we had to make our way to Waterloo to go our separate ways. I love London - there is always something interesting to see or do and I always come away wanting to see more and planning my next visit. As you know I love where I live and wouldn't want to live in London (unless I could afford some quiet square somewhere!) but I have always felt a pull to visit it.

A new slant on Bedding Plants!

2011-06-21T16:05:00.003+01:00

Thank you all for your kind comments on my previous post about living in France - it seems to have attracted more comments than usual for some reason - I seem to have touched a nerve.
Is anyone else having problems with seeing who their followers are? According to my dashboard a couple dropped off (don't know who or why) a while back and recently a couple more have added my blog to their lists but I have no way of knowing who these people are as the section headed Followers continues to be blank!. So if you are a new follower - welcome and thanks for joining me in my ramblings about life in general!

This is a roundabout near where I live and I thought it would amuse you and maybe bring a whole new meaning to the term "bedding plants"!

Roundabouts in the UK are often sponsored by a local firm who in return for their sponsorship are entitled to place a small board by way of advertising on their sponsored roundabout. This particular roundabout is sponsored by a firm who sell solid wood furniture. Certainly gets the attention doesn't it?

On my walk to take the above pictures I noticed this which made me realise that beauty is to be found in the most unlikely places as this is the lid of a dog poo bin!! Isn't that lichen something though?

Home is where the heart is!

2011-06-16T13:02:00.002+01:00

When people hear that we used to live in France they nearly always ask "Whatever made you decide to come back?". People seem think that it must have been so much nicer than here.

Yes it was lovely - we had a super house in a big garden and the people were all very welcoming. We had lots of friends and a busy social life BUT....

It wasn't where I wanted to be - I felt that I would never be other than an immigrant, my roots were not there and it held no history for us.

Just because it was France didn't mean we had wonderful weather all the time either and in fact the climate was very similar to here except that when it was hot it was hotter, when it was cold it was colder and when it rained it rained more heavily. The thunder storms were a force to be reckoned with and losing one's electricity or the computer modem was a regular occurence whereas in UK our storms are normally much less ferocious.

On my trips back to visit friends in the UK I never refered to where I lived in France as "home" and however much I felt I should it just never really seemed like home to me for after all home is where the heart is and my heart had never really left England!

I think I always felt that it was not a "forever" move and more of an interlude in my life and I doubt if I would have had the courage to go if I felt there had been no coming back.

Now that I have come home (notice how easily that word tripped off my fingers!) and am living where I used to live before my marriage all those years ago I have a real sense of belonging. Even though my husband never lived in this area he used to visit me here and after we were married we continued to come on a regular basis to see my mother so he knows the area too and we can say "Do you remember when..."

Living as I do now with scenes such as these practically on my doorstep the question I ask myself is not how could I come back but how could I ever have left!!

I didn't know how much my country means to me until I left it behind and how much I loved it. Now of course I miss the friends we made in France but I never miss France itself.

Sometimes heaven is right under our noses if only we realised. Perhaps what is need when we think we want something new is not something different but a different point of view instead.

Am I sorry we went? No! Not at all because I have made a few really good friends who I would otherwise never have had the priviledge to get to know, I have learned how different our two cultures and customs are but also how similar in many ways and now at least when we sit in our rocking chairs (metaphorically speaking) by the fire we shall never say "I wonder if we might have liked it"! We gave it our best shot - we integrated well ,in fact I made many really good French friends - we go back to visit and the cafe owner and the lady in the market rush out to kiss us (well me they just shake hands with my husband of course!) BUT... Home is definitely where the heart is!

Hestercombe

2011-06-14T17:33:00.000+01:00

As promised some photos of our visit last Friday to Hestercombe. Our visit to Forde Abbey last year with the same friends on a beautiful sunny June day was always going to be a hard act to follow and the fact that Friday was showery in the morning and downright wet in the afternoon made this visit less interesting than it might otherwise have been but nothing daunted - we are after all English and don't let a bit of rain put us off - we set off to walk the woodland walk...

It wasn't raining all the time as you can see here....

...but here we had to stand beneath a tree for a while watching the raindrops bouncing off the lake!

Those wealthy landowners really knew where to build their houses didn't they? What a view this would be on a sunny day.

Clouds rolling in now and we made haste across this field to the shelter of the cafe! Good lunch of soup and home made bread and we were ready to see the formal gardens - this time it wasn't showers but continuous rain!

You can see how dry it had been though by the brown grass. Sadly many of the plants were past their best and sodden in the rain so it wouldn't be fair to judge the garden on this one visit.

This was very pretty and I imagine in better weather the rest of the garden would appear more exciting too.

I loved these steps with their little decoration of ferns - but you can see how wet it was can't you?

Last but by no means least a big THANK YOU for all your kind wishes for Thomas - he was signed off at the vet's yesterday and though he will continue to need plenty of TLC and a bit more fattening up he had his first outing yesterday afternoon and seemed to enjoy a little potter in the sunshine - he is an old lad now being 15+ years old - so it will take a while to get him back to normal I dare say.

Hopefully his fur will not take too long to grow back and already has a velvety feel!

That was the week that was!

2011-06-12T10:51:00.005+01:00

Cliff top - West Bay (keep away from the edge!)

What a week we have had - good times and bad times all mixed! I haven't been to visit your blogs as often as usual so apologies if I have neglected you!

Cliff path - West Bay

Last Sunday we had to take Thomas to the vet as he was very unwell and being sick etc and I didn't know if it would wait till Monday. Sunday rates of course - but he's worth it!

Decent into the hamlet of Eype remember this little house form an earlier post seen from the other direction here?

To cut a long story short he ended up back there on Tuesday and stayed there for a couple of days. At first diabetes was considered then his glucose levels dropped to normal and a tumour was thought a possibility but an ultrasound scan found nothing. He was on a drip as he was so dehydrated and not eating - he is home again now looking a little the worse for wear with bald patches where he had the drip and blood tests and a bare tummy from the ultrasound scan but he is beginning to pick up and now he is eating better is less like a bag of bones I am happy to say - phew!

Meanwhile I was preparing for a visit by our French friends who arrived on Tuesday afternoon - after the trip to the vet we set off for the airport to collect them.

They are such easy guests and fit in like family, are easy to please and very appreciative of everything (they can come again!) They had a dog which died recently after a long and happy life so my friend understood what I was feeling when the calls were going back and forth to the vet's! She also made a fuss of him when he came home and spoke gently to him in French - "Comme tu es mignon" and so on and he lapped it all up and really took to her!

We were lucky with the weather on Wednesday and were able to go to West Bay for an outing . We did a walk along the cliffs before lunch - we introduced them to English fish and chips eaten from the bag in the open air and luckily although the wind was chilly the sun was bright and warm. Followed the fish and chips with a cup of tea in Sladers Yard sitting in the sunshine sheltered from the wind before setting off to Abbotsbury.

The cost of visiting the gardens there was higher than any of us wished to pay especially as it is not an English garden but a sub tropical one and our friends are keen to take back to France ideas from English gardens so we pottered round the plant centre in the sunshine and had a look in the shop before continuing to Chesil Beach which I hadn't visited for many years.

Chesil Beach is part of the World Heritage Site known as the Jurrasic Coast and is an 18 mile long strip of land consisting of 180 billion pebbles - I am not sure who actually counted them and there are a few less now that we have picked up one or two to bring home!!! Isn't this view amazing?

The remainder of their stay was lacking in sunshine although we did manage an outing to Hestercombe on Friday - I'll show you the photos of that later for those who are interested. Our visitors went on to London yesterday morning and we are missing having their company, I am still thinking in French some of the time!

I'M OUT!

2011-06-02T09:20:00.000+01:00

Have just discovered that I am able to sign in and out of my blog - feels like I've been let out of some sort of prison! Will continue blogging now - had almost decided to give up on it all!

Roses and Fish!

2011-06-01T08:39:00.013+01:00

Thank you all for so many kind comments and sorry that I cannot comment on some of your posts whilst Blogger is being such a B****er! I can only comment on those blogs which have a pop up box or a separate page for their comments. If you are not getting many visitors it could be that like me they can't get through and you might think of changing to a pop up box or separate page at least until Blogger gets its act together! I am seriously thinking of giving up blogging till then anyway as today I had the added problem of mixed fonts which I couldn't change (the font button has just returned!) and am still having trouble with spacing.

Spent a happy few hours last Thursday browsing round the little town of Beaminster with a friend. We both pass through Beaminster en route for each others homes but never actually stop there so we decided to meet up and have a wander round. In spite of the rain it seemed a pretty little town with plenty of golden stone cottages many of which were covered with roses like this one. That enormous rose was growning in the weeniest of patches of earth against the wall - amazing!

Here is another just next to the pretty church again with its complement of roses and some hollyhocks although their hollyhocks are nowhere near as big as mine which seem to enjoy where I have planted them and are far too big for their situation. (see below - pity about the ugly white meter box eh?!

There are many little individual shops and in each of the ones we went into we got chatting to the shopkeepers and so have decided that we need to go back another day to see the rest as time ran out on Thursday!
I don't usually include anything of a political nature in my posts since I know that we don't all think alike and don't want to cause any offence but I had an e-mail this morning from the Fish Fight people and in case any of those of you in Europe are not aware of what is going on I will post a link to the info here (it is available in several European languages) and you might want to consider joining the campaign if you haven't already. Hugh also has a blog which you may be interested in here.

PS Yiota's idea works as you will see - so anyone else having probs with spacing might like to take her advice too!

Maybe it's beacause I am English....

2011-05-30T13:55:00.008+01:00

... that I love a drop of summer rain!

I have been speaking to a friend in France this morning and it seems they have had no rain for nearly 2 months there - I'd hate that!

I went outside to the garage this morning and noticed the fennel in my herb patch all glistening with raindrops - it is a beautiful delicate plant at the best of times but covered in diamonds like this it was ethereal and I just wish my photography could do it justice. I decided to stroll round the garden to see what other treasures there were .....

Here is the lilac all freshly washed and shining - it is just under an ash tree where the birds like to congregate before coming down for the seed I put out and consequently it is often covered in "white stuff" but not today!

How pretty the montbretia looks with its dusting of raindrops.

And the marigolds racing away in the new raised bed - thanks for the seeds Lesley!

Isn't this beautiful? Brings a whole new meaning to the term rose water doesn't it? No loss of perfume either as I discovered when I sniffed it.

I am reminded of the childhood hymn - I wonder how many of you besides Jill will remember it

Daisies are our silver

Buttercups our gold

This is all the treasure

We can have or hold

Raindrops are our diamonds

And the morning dew

While for shining saphires

We've the speedwell blue

These shall be our emeralds

Leaves so new and green

Roses make the reddest

Rubies ever seen

God who gave these treasures

To your children small

Teach us how to love them

And grow like them all

Make us bright as silver

Make us good as gold

Warm as summer roses

Let our hearts unfold

Gay as leaves in April

Clear as drops of dew

God who made the speedwell

Keep us true to you

The new clematis planted on a trellis designed to hide the ugly green plastic water butt. I think it will do the job don't you?

Hope the weather will not spoil whatever you had planned for today - for me it is a welcome opportunity to give up on the gardening for a while and get on with some indoor things. Hadn't intended to take so long trying to get this post done though - this is my second attempt as the earlier one before lunch I deleted in the end as I just couldn't get Blogger to do the spacing and it was miles long and every time I did alter anything the fonts had all altered add to that the inadvertent deletion of photos and you can see why I deleted it and went to lunch instead!

PS I still can't get the spacing right but am going to leave it now and go and get a cuppa!

POSTMAN'S KNOCK

2011-05-28T15:20:00.003+01:00

Blogger will not let me sign out of my own blog so I can sign in to Postman's Knock so I can't post on that blog. So for the moment I will put my new postcard on here instead. I will try again later - I have not had any bother with doing it until this time but Blogger has been playing up lately so it must be something to do with that though why some of us can post and others can't I don't know!

Anyway here is my Coast/Seaside card number 5 which arrived from Jane (all these Janes it's confusing isn't it?!). The envelope was made from some paper with pictures of Blackpool Illuminations and I couldn't wait to open it and see what she had made for me.

I certainly wasn't disappointed when I discovered this lovely card inside which is a picture of a park in Richmond Yorkshire which is where Jane comes from apparently (Richmond not the park I mean!) and she has added cut outs of a seaside nature. As she says she imagined the seaside coming to Richmond - such a novel idea don't you think?

Thank you so much Jane

Monday Musings

2011-05-23T18:14:00.007+01:00

Monday morning and yoga day - time for some musings along the way and indeed even whilst I am supposed to be relaxing and letting go (something I find really difficult!) at the end of the lesson! I became aware as I walked along that the summer flowers were in full bloom and the leaves had lost that wonderful soft Spring green and were now the full blown darker colour of summer - I wanted to shout "Stop!" things are going too fast and I fear it will be all over before I have actually become properly aware of it all.

These flowers will be blackberries before we know it and autumn will be just around the corner! Life seems to rush by ever faster and I wish I could slow it all down so as to really enjoy it all!

I thought of the 5 senses and how we take them so much for granted and yet how wonderful it is to be able to SEE such flowers as these beautiful dog roses which carried me back to childhood days when I used to have all the time in the world to appreciate the flowers in the hedgerows as I meandered along. Why not now? I have no job to go to, no children to care for, I am retired so one might think my time was in even more abundant supply but it certainly doesn't seem that way.

I resolved to try and slow my life down a little - to take time to literally SMELL the roses to appreciate the perfume of wild bluebells, the smell of freshly roasted coffee or of the earth after summer rain (something I noticed when we lived in France was that the earth didn't smell the same as English soil after rain - now why would that be I wonder?) I plan to try and notice and record the smells I come across each day - well the nice ones anyway!

Another childhood favourite and I was transported to the meadows of my childhood and the feeling of grass beneath my bare feet. Then I thought of other things which I love to feel - the softness of cashmere, the smooth hardness of glass or polished wood, the texture of silk, the velvety softness of a rose petal or the hairy stem of a daisy in my fingers and again thought perhaps I could spend some time noticing such things and noting them in a journal.

Then came TASTE - I don't know about you but I don't really taste my food. I eat it and enjoy it but I can't say I properly appreciate it and eat mindfully enjoying the textures and flavours of each mothful. Perhaps if I slowed down my eating I might eat less as I would really notice what I was eating and feel satisfied sooner? Maybe then I wouldn't have to sit waiting for my husband to finish his plateful before I can dash on to the next! The tastes I remember as a child seemed much more distinctive and the sense of taste sharper - was that because it was all so much newer then whereas now I have tasted it all before? Or do the tastebuds lose their ability to taste? Maybe it would be a good idea to try out new tastes and recipes - to cook things that required more love and attention occasionally and to really notice what they taste like.

Finally came the sense of HEARING. I have written before of the sound of birdsong but there are so many other sounds that I hear but how often do I really listen? The sound of water rippling over stones, of the wind in the trees (today was really windy) sounding for all the world like the sea, favourite music, church bells, the sound of a bee in the garden and so on and perhaps most of all the sound of a loved one's voice (I haven't been able to speak with my daughter for nearly 3 months now that she is travelling in South America and what I wouldn't give to hear her voice saying "Hiya Mum" across the miles - an e-mail isn't quite the same!)

Yes I think it is time to slow down my life a little, to truly appreciate each and every day - who knows whether I will get the chance to HEAR the cuckoo next year, to FEEL the breeze on my shoulders on a summer's day, to TASTE the first strawberry of the season again, to SEE the first spring green leaves beginning to unfurl or to SMELL the delicate perfume of primroses. At this stage in life (or at any stage really since we none of us know what might be round the corner) I should be thinking of each day as a blessed gift and really appreciating it for all it brings and not dashing faster towards my destiny busy doing things that in the greater scheme of things are of not much importance.. Several of my friends have died in recent years and it ought to be a reminder to me to Seize the day! I mean to try anyway.

PS Anyone know why when I try to post a comment on anyone's blog it now asks me to select a profile whereas it used to automatically come up with Marigold Jam? Have been to several blogs and can't post a comment until I know what my profile is!!

Cat + mint = catmint?

2011-05-20T19:19:00.003+01:00

This is catmint (photo courtesy of Google images - hairy pot plants co.uk) and it bears no resemblance to ordinary mint the sort I grow for mint sauce....

but Thomas has taken a sudden liking to the ordinary kind and is to be found rolling in it

rubbing it into his face

and generally going silly in it!! He has never done this before so I don't know what's got into him and his sister Bambi thinks he's gone mad but he is obviously enjoying himself and happily the mint seems to recover from his attentions and in any case I have plenty of it this year.

Welsh weekend

2011-05-18T13:26:00.018+01:00

I wonder if you can guess where I went last weekend? The language on this rather eclectic group of signs might give you a clue! I had a lovely few days with my friend in West Wales. At least we had something to read whilst we waited for the red light to turn green!

My friend's garden was looking very lush and green...

After a welcome cup of tea we did a tour of the "estate" to see what had changed since my last visit - the banks and hedgerows forming their boundary were still carpeted with bluebells.....

The sheep in the neighbouring field were baa-ing and the birds singing - bliss!

As always a little posy awaited me in the bedroom - a tiny weeny little room with a sloping ceiling whose window sill is about 6 inches from the floor. Boy did I sleep well in there! (Apart from one morning when the cuckoo decided to wake up everyone at 5.00 am!)

On Friday we set of to visit a National Trust property and passed through a little town whose name I forget but this was the view.

Here is where we were headed. We were lucky in that although we had rain that day we seemed to be either in the house or in the coffee shop when it rained and wandering the grounds when it wasn't!

Pretty isn't it?

Like Cathy here I loved the kitchen - I know my place too Cathy and this reminded me of my growing up years below stairs whilst my mother worked in kitchens not unlike this one.

This Egg box took me back - anyone else remember these?! There was also a tin of Waterglass and a bucket ready to preserve the eggs for the winter months which I well remember from childhood. I am not sure I like the fact that so often these days the things in "museums" are things I remember but I guess age comes to us all eventually.

Even this wonderful old tree in the walled garden has aged and I bet it could tell some stories. I wonder if it has any fruit these days.

I returned from my few days of Welsh magic refreshed and revitalised as always (apart from the hour and a half it took me to get round Carmarthen due to road works!)

Another card to show you

2011-04-30T15:29:00.006+01:00

The postman has just been with this lovely card from Jill of Third Age Musings. Isn't it great and the little poem on the back too I love. To see more of the lovely creations pop over to Postman's Knock where we will be posting the cards we have received.

Hope you are all enjoying yet another long weekend? I wonder if I am the only one who wasn't glued to the TV yesterday? We went to the garden centre at Sherborne Castle and the roads were so quiet it was eerie and the staff in the coffee shop at the garden centre were pleased to see us as there were so few customers! This is the view from the car park - lovely isn't it?

This beautiful wisteria is also in the car park at the garden centre.

We did see the wedding on the news later on and even brought out a half size bottle of champagne which was given to me as a birthday present some years ago and which I had been saving for a special occasion (you can tell what a drinker I am can't you?!) and we toasted the happy couple with a glass of bubbly before our dinner. I think they make a lovely couple and wish them every happiness.

EASTER GREETINGS!

2011-04-20T07:37:00.000+01:00

Wishing you all a wonderful Easter - hoping the weather continues to be as beautiful as it is at the moment.

Since I last posted I have been so lucky - I received in the post a lovely giveaway from Kate at Bluebell and Rosie - a cute bunny card together with some blue fabrics just perfect for some crafting, a pincushion, a little embroidered owl keyring and a decoupage (is that what it's called?) wooden heart. All lovely and all much appreciated - Thanks Kate, hope your hand is fully healed now?

Then another package arrived this time from Sharon at Sharon Lovejoy writes from Sunflower House and a Little Green Island and containing some lovely notecards beautifully tied with green ribbon and a packet of seeds which I will be planting very soon.

And last but not least another postcard from the Postman's Knock group - this time from Jo at Things [Handmade] depicting the lighthouse at Flanborough Head where Jo has been holidaying with her family. For more lovely cards do take a look at the Postman's Knock blog website.

I am feeling much more caught up now and finding it really liberating not to be blogging so often - Normal Service will be resumed as soon as Possible! Meanwhile do hope you all enjoy your Easter break.

POSTMAN'S KNOCK

2011-04-03T08:13:00.006+01:00

Just popping in to share with you the lovely card I received yesterday as part of a project I am involved in whereby 12 of us bloggers exchange hand crafted postcards on a fortnightly basis. This was the one I received from Jo at Fiddlesnips - isn't it lovely? It sums up my chosen theme of Coast/seaside beautifully.

Do pop over to Postman's Knock and see what we are all up to - there are some lovely creations on our various chosen themes. I hope that the one I made arrived/arrives soon and that my recipient likes it half as much as I do this lovely card!

I am enjoying my "time out" and feeling more caught up already - thanks for your good wishes.