Fun in the woods and a gift

 On Valentine's day I received a beautifully packaged little heart gift - no not from Mr M although he did buy me a card - but from Ann who blogs over at Love Making Things and who had a little giveaway recently to all those who commented on a particular post.

Inside the little package was this dear little wooden heart - isn't it cute?   Thank you so much Ann - a letter is in the post to you.

I decided to walk to to the post office to post the letter to Ann, as I also had one to post to Australia and it would need to be weighed, and to take the route through the woods, it had been raining this morning and it was very muddy but it was lovely - I noticed the different barks on the trees and the moss and lichen and what with the birds singing and it not being as cold as of late I really didn't notice how muddy it was at all and didn't want to come home!  On my return I passed a granny (I assumed she was his granny by her age) with her grandson a boy of about 6 and she commented on the mud and she said she thought they probably shouldn't have come to which I replied that it was lovely and worth a bit of mud and she agreed that it made a nice change from staying indoors.  I noticed she was holding the lad's hand and wondered why he wasn't dashing about sliding on the mud and getting filthy as boys of his age should!!  Maybe his mother would not be best pleased if he got his wellies dirty.  I do sometimes wonder if there is a generation growing up with no real contact with the natural world and what a lot they miss out on if so.  It's not just knowing that milk comes from cows but how to make dens in the wood, scooping up mud and making it into pies, playing houses or shop in the roots of the trees and learning to whistle with a blade of grass or how to climb trees ripping one's clothes in the process - or am I remembering my childhood through rose tinted glasses?  There is something about being in touch with Nature that fills a need in many of us I think and I fear for those children growing up indoors and not being allowed or perhaps able to get muddy and to play in the woods as I did this afternoon - no I didn't actually make mud pies nor did I climb any of the trees but in my memory I did!!

Coffee in the garden - yes really!

One thing about having double glazed windows and doors is that it cuts out the sounds from outside - sometimes this is a good thing but I love to open the back door when I come down in the mornings just to hear as well as see what is going on outside!  This was the view this morning about 8.30 am - the frost was white but the sun was shining and the sky blue.  We've had some lovely bright days here recently but the north easterly wind has made it bitterly cold but this morning the wind seemed to have dropped and the birds were singing in the wood and all was well with my little world.

I had a wander round the "estate" and noticed that the snowdrops were almost in flower and there were also a few brave primroses in bloom (and a lot of tidying up needing doing too!)

 Back indoors the daffodils I had bought at the Trading Post when I did my shopping there over two weeks ago are still looking lovely and fresh out in the unheated conservatory where I put them on the table so I can see them from the living room.  They wouldn't have lasted long in the house in the warm but seem to be happy out here.

 I also bought these little irises from the same place the following week and they too are looking good.

And the geraniums seem to be happy enough even though the temperature is rarely above 7 or 8 degrees in the conservatory and often almost freezing at night - in the summer when the sun is higher I have to move the plants or they would get burned to death but just now there is no danger of that! The daffodils in the background are the remains of a pot of tete a tetes I bought before Christmas which lived out on the table till recently.  Once they have properly died off I will plant them in the garden.  All these flowers gave a real lift to my spirits and made me feel happy.  I am no Pollyanna and can be a miserable as the next person when I get one of my grey blanket periods but it's hard to be "down" when the flowers and birds are sounding and seeming so bright and happy and there is a real feeling of hope and that spring can't be far away now.

By 11.00 o'clock the sun had a certain amount of warmth to it although the frost remained where the sun didn't reach and when I noticed that the blue bench was in full sunlight I wiped off the damp and took an old cushion and my mug of coffee outside and sat there for 20 or 30 minutes.  Sheer santosha moments as I closed my eyes listened to the birdsong and felt the heat of my mug bringing warmth to my hands, my sleeves pushed up a bit to maximise the Vit D I might get, my mind wandered and for those few minutes I was truly in the moment and at peace with the world!  I checked the temperatures and discovered it was 15 degrees on the bench in the sun and only 5 in the shade.  When I came back into the kitchen there was a welcoming smell of casserole wafting from the oven as lunch was cooking another moment of happiness and I felt a sudden urge to make some flapjacks since the oven was on and they would take but a moment to make.

The washing had finished by then and I put the sheets and towels on the line - I did manage to get a couple of big bath towels dry outside last week in the wind and wondered if the sheets might dry today.  There's something so pleasing about seeing washing blowing on the line knowing that when it comes in it will have that wonderful fresh air dried smell I think.  I really can't imagine not being able to line dry my washing although I know not everyone can. By the way that isn't one of my sheets on the ground but some agricultural fleece in an attempt to warm the soil a little in readiness for the spring planting - looks filthy as cats or badgers seem to have walked all over it leaving muddy prints!

As I write this I have just had a cup of tea - not outside as there is no sun in the garden now - and a piece of flapjack and then fetched the sheets (dry) and towels (still damp) in from the line.  It gets cold very quickly once the sun goes down but it is so lovely to have the daylight till 5.30 or so now.  I don't think I would cope with living any further north where although the summer days would be very long winter would be so dark.

During the time that I haven't been blogging nor using the computer as much I have had more time for other things and have completed a crochet shawl started some months back. I used yarn I bought to make a bolero years ago and never finished!

I have been reading too and this was one of the books I read.  It was a well researched book at times shocking, frightening, horrifying and many other similar adjectives and not an easy read but one that maybe should be read widely as just becuase we don't see or know about what is going on in our world doesn't mean it isn't happening.  The book is about climate change and capitalism and whether or not one shares the author's views there is no doubt that climate change is happening.  There is a blog too under the same name if you are interested.  If you have read it I'd love to know your views as it is a book that cries out to be discussed.

 As a bit of light relief to all this doom and gloom I also read a book I'd bought in a charity shop just before Christmas thinking that if the Wanderer who was to visit then wanted something extra to read it might suit - she didn't read it but I did and I loved it!  It tells a story of a friendship between two very different women. There have been others, books I mean, but none I can particularly recommend or perhaps it is that I can't remember what they were!

Same view at 5.40 and I'd better stop waffling on now especially as it's Sunday today and not really one of my 3 days a week computer days!

A January walk

I've been on a bit of a retreat!  My laptop which I told you about here and which I had eventually got to grips with threw a wobbly just before Christmas and I could neither shut it down properly nor turn it on and thought it would have to go back to John Lewis under guarantee.  As my nearest John Lewis is in Exeter it was likely to be a couple of weeks or more before I would be able to take it.  I took this as a sign and decided to give up on using a computer so much although to give up altogether would not really be feasible now that my friends all know I can be e-mailed and I speak to a French friend on Monday mornings via Skype but I decided that a 3-day week (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) might be sufficient and give me more time for other things which has indeed proved to be the case.  It's been more like the old times using the computer only to e-mail friends and for Skype and I have not felt inspired to write a blog post nor to spend much time reading those of other bloggers either I'm afraid - sorry!

However now that the computer is feeling rested - it ran down completely since it couldn't be shut down properly and then Mr M had a look at it and it seemed to be OK - to tell the truth I was half hoping it would stay in the cupboard for ever - and having just returned from a walk which I thought you would like to share here I am again.

 It has been very chilly today and the frost hasn't melted all day in places where the sun didn't get to it but the sky has been blue and the sun shining so having some letters to post to France and not having the appropriate stamps I set off to walk to the post office going the long way round.  I set off up the hill towards the A30  This is a busy road and I seem to have managed to capture it with only two vehicles on it here!

At the top of the hill I joined the A30 which I walked alongside for a while and then turned off  here.  The noise of the traffic was soon left behind as I walked along the sunken footpath ....

.... listening to the birds above and noticing this tiny violet in bloom in the bank.  Yes I know you will need your glasses on to see it but it's these little things which always get my attention!

I wondered what the view would be from here and clambered up the bank to find out.....

... and was glad I had as it was lovely!

 After a while I came to these steps and once again wondered what the view would be so climbed up for a look....

 ...and once again was glad I had.

 It was so peaceful down in the shelter of the path and I stopped for a moment to look up - not wise to continue walking on a path like this if not looking where one puts one's feet- as I could hear a robbin singing above me.  This was such a moment of santosha - I was absolutely in the moment just me and the peace and the birdsong that I actually said out loud "Thank you God"!! 

See how the yellow catkins are already on the trees too.  The path eventually comes out onto a residential road but still quiet and peaceful and I continued on my way eventually coming out at the post office on the busy main road.  Having posted my letters I made my way home via my usual route through the wood - no pictures here as by now the sun was lower in the sky and it was all in shade though....

 ... the town was still in sunshine. 

Monday afternoons for the past 5 or 6 years have always been my time to don my volunteer's hat and go and visit an elderly partial sighted lady on behalf of Somerset Sight but since she has been moved to a nursing home which is a round trip of 40 miles instead of the 3 miles I used to cover I now go every other week which is how I was free today to do this walk.  My thoughts went to last week when I visited the nursing home and to the contrast between that day with all those old dears (some may not be any older than me of course!) sitting in their armchairs waiting for someone to bring them a cup of tea or to take them to the toilet, two televisions on which nobody seemed to be watching (why do they think old people want to sit in front of the television all day I wonder?  It would be my idea of hell!) many without visitors and today when I was free and able to walk in the countryside and I thought that if I ever get to the point when I can't put my coat on and go for a walk then I'd rather die than spend my last years institutionalised like my friend Rosa who hates it too but has no choice!  I thought then of my great aunt - my maternal grandmother's youngest sister - who had lived in the house in which she had been born and lived most of her life which had no electricity, no mains water just the pump outside the back door and no mains sanitation either let alone an indoor toilet or bathroom.  She was a sensitive soul I think and when she died I inherited some exercise books filled with poems she had written - not particularly good poetry but she obviously liked to write - so maybe that's where I get the gene from!  I often think of her sitting by the range which was her only form of heating and cooking on a dark winter's evening with no more than a candle or maybe a paraffin lamp and wonder whether her last years might not be preferable to Rosa's even though she is at least warm and dry and there is light and even if having electricity does mean all day television! Perhaps if I ever reach that point I will think differently but at the moment it is my one fear, needing to be in a home one day and I remember my great uncle (brother to the great aunt I am speaking of ) saying how he feared ending up in the workhouse so I guess it is not something any of us would choose!

However I will not dwell on such things but rather think of the dainty little violet and my moment of pure santosha listening to the robin's song this afternoon and let the future take care of itself.

Tale of Two Gardens

If you think of London what do you think of I wonder?  Red buses, Buckingham Palace, London Bobbies, Big Ben ... I guess this sort of thing is what springs to mind first but do you ever think of gardens?  We are lucky that London has many green spaces and parks you only have to look at a map to see this is so but there are also gardens filled with flowers too and on Tuesday Mr M and I went up to London to meet up with a couple of Guildford friends to visit one none of us had seen before.  Mr M and I had heard about it when we were on a guided walk last February which took us round Old Kensington and the guide mentioned this particular garden which should have been included in our walk but said that sadly the day of our walk it was not open to the public but that we might like to visit on our own sometime.  We needed to find a day that our friends and we were free, that the garden was open and that the weather was at least likely to be dry - so Tuesday was the day.  We met our friends at lunchtime at the Albert Hall and walked along the High Street to a cafe called Maggie Jones which we'd discovered on the internet.

A country style cafe and not at all the sort of place you'd expect to come across in Kensington being decked out with all manner of country artefacts - real ones not the sort of ersatz stuff that pubs can buy from companies who make such things for decoration.  The tables were scrubbed wood and lit with candles and the ambiance was lovely.  My photo doesn't do it justice but it really was delightful (do check out this link for better pics in their gallery) and the service and food were excellent - we all loved it.  Don't go here if you like fast food and want a quick burger or pizza, although I am sure they could do that for you if you wished, no this is real food freshly prepared and not microwaved and was ideal for us as it gave us time to chat together and catch up on the news. an hour or so later nicely replete we wandered along towards our chosen garden:

The sun was shining....

....the sky was blue and it was beautiful.  We wandered round having the place almost to ourselves - this really is a secret garden!

 A Moorish style "tent" where one could sip mint tea whilst looking out over the garden perhaps? Or even have a nice lie down on the day bed perhaps!

A formal pond with fountains viewed from the "tent".

A pretty stream with fish.

 Yes that is a flamingo - there were 4 of them called Bill, Ben, Splosh and Pecks in this garden.

Those round "windows" in the walls had views of London (including the ubiquitous cranes!) to be seen through the wrought iron work.

Lovely shaded covered walks.

Hidden corners in the English woodland area and here we came across a mother duck and her adolescent youngsters who'd found a quiet and safe area of a small pond to live.

As you will see, if you read this plaque, this was no ordinary garden but is set 100 feet above Kensington High Street in central London.  Originally atop Derry and Tom's department store which opened in 1933, now no longer trading, there are three themed gardens, a Spanish garden a Tudor garden and an English woodland area too with over 70 full size trees, a flowing stream stocked with fish and the resident flamingoes. Hard to believe that below was the busy noisy street filled with traffic and shoppers!  An amazing garden and the roof must have been capable of taking an enormous weight to have all that going on up there but it was beautiful. Well worth a visit especially as it is free to look round the only difficulty is in trying to find a day you are free when the weather is good that they are actually open but if you are interested see this link for the number to contact and for more info.

Having had our fill of this amazing place we descended to street level and found it was raining - just a short shower but how lucky had we been that it was so lovely whilst we were above in the roof garden - or maybe we were above the clouds!  We wandered round to Kensington Square where this enclosed garden is the oldest such garden in London having been founded in 1685.  This one is private (photo taken through the railings) and belongs to the residents of the Square so we wandered on .......

..... past this lovely building with its box and geranium planters - pretty isn't it?

We crossed Kensington High Street and into our second garden at Kensington Palace.  As you will see the sun was back and the rain all finished - the shower had lasted perhaps 5 minutes so barely worth mentioning!

 Here is the Italian Garden which you can only view from the edges - no entry allowed!

There were herbaceous borders and covered pergola walks but too many people for decent photos here.

 The Round Pond which has recently been refurbished apparently.

 Having explored this garden we were ready for a sit down and a cup of tea and afterwards we then realised it was time to go if we were to catch our respective trains.  Our return to Waterloo was not without its problems though as we stood waiting at the bus stop for ages and ages watching number 9 buses going the opposite way but never coning back before we discovered a notice on the far side of the bus stop pole informing us that due to road works the route had been altered and the number 9 bus would not come this way!  We caught a bus to Victoria instead thinking that we would surely be able to get a connecting bus from there but Victoria was a building site where multi-million pound improvements are being made and we had to walk some distance before we found a bus stop at which a bus for Waterloo would stop!  We did of course get to the station eventually and bade each other goodbye before boarding our respective trains. Another lovely day out - I do so love being retired and able to do such trips. Truly summer 2014 has been a fabulous year for outings.

Many thanks for your kind comments on my previous posts - maybe if I stay home for a few days I might get the bag finished and some more sketches done!