SPINNING WITH SEASONS

Sunday -
Time passes so fast now I am getting more decrepit. Soon it will be time to organise the garden for next year.

I went out this morning to cut sweet peas for R. She is going to fill a vase in the church porch. The plants were so wet that I came back soaked. Yet, this morning the sun is out and it is warm. The seasons seem to be two steps on and one step back. We all thought winter is nearly here as it was so chilly but suddenly it is summer all over again.

Monday - To a tale of two plants.

First Hydrangeas - we have three types in the garden but two are outstanding especially Annabelle. It (she?) has huge heads of white and I planted it beside the Utility door - the one we always use.
I have not yet got the knack of using it as a cut flower - it droops alarmingly fast. It is time to search Sarah Raven's book for advice.

The other Hydrangea is pointy and I cannot remember the name off the shiny top of my head (under a number two cut). Its flowers have a more greenish tint and it grows on the banking below the house. I transplanted it there from a flower bed when it outgrew its situation.

I am still waiting for the grass to dry and may well have to use the small mower anyway as the turf is so soft - as was the rain - soft rain, an expression I first heard in Donegal in 1968. Here we call it mizzle - misty drizzle, and so wetting.

The second plant is the Japanese Anemone. The pink has grown so large it has encroached on the agapanthus which has produced only leaves this year - some serious sorting out is needed.
This photo is from last year showing the two together.
I am not sure I like the garish pink very much - I prefer the white even if the petals do go brown at the edges as they age.

The flowers have a very yellow centre which is all right with white but clashes with pink.

To a tale of five courgettes - of the plants I put in two have gone on to have big marrows, one is still cropping and two have snuffed it - the leaves went brown and crusty.

The butternut squash is fine and has taken over the place - ten feet across in any direction and has two, yes, just two, squashes.

I'se doin' summat wrong.
Have pollinated and stuff but just get greenery growing over the tomatoes, the sweet peas, gooseberry and rosemary cuttings, everywhere.

Toosday - Figgy picking - and here they are - so now?
No one much like figs 'cept me.
Somehwere in the recesses of my cerebelli (cerebella? cerebellums?) (latin declension of war) is something with cream cheese - somewhere.

Also up ladder getting in the rest of the damsons - the freezer awaits until I can decide what to do with them.

Today must be the beginning of the dividing and replanting and thinning and pruning and weeding and wishing for a single small flower pot on my concrete patio.

The man who strims has not come back to me on the phone - perhaps he hates doing it too. The difference is he gets paid to do it.

And what else have we reaped -

Just these - that's shallot.

DAMSONS, CAWTHWAITE, CARROT

I have just finished making our first batch of damson jam. I have picked our first fruit but did not realise how tall the trees we put in when we came are growing. I will need a ladder for some of the fruit.The plums have come to an end but courgettes are still cropping. The cut flowers are battered and tatty.

Damson Jam recipe -
2.5 pounds of fruit washed and destalked,
add 0.75 - 1 pint water, simmer until fruit soft,
add 3 pounds sugar (I warm it in the bottom oven a la R.),
stir till sugar dissolved then boil hard for about 10 minutes.
Test by taking off heat and putting a bit on a cold saucer (bung the saucer in the freezer a la Delia Smith),
let cool a bit and then push with finger.
Wrinkles when ready.
Pop into preheated jars and pop on hot lids (I stick them in the bottom oven on a baking tray),
label,
EAT!

(0.453592 Kilo = 1 pound)

One of the writers on Cawthwaite, the online soap, has let the map out of the bag so here it is courtesy of the ?artist, royalty free unfortunately. Find more at http://cawthwaite.com.

I have not mowed the lawn for two weeks so it is long and wet. The only decent day we were in Herefordshire with family. Whilst there we visited Canon Frome Court as I mentioned in my last blog and had a trip around the collective's kitchen garden - makes mine look like a window box.
This is one of their apple trees.

The weather forecast for this morning, last night, was for a dry day with sunny periods. It stopped raining at 3 pm!

And the rain it raineth every day, every day, all day and every day. Back to our usual weather then.

Soon I will have pick the crop off our Conference Pear tree. Here it is!

And so to the carrots which are distorted and not supermarketable, and indelicate, but taste so sweet.

SUMMER OVER, HARVEST HERE

Off we nip for a few days to the delights of Orcop Hill and the garden sneaks up on
us with its carrots, damsons and so on.
I picked the last of the broad beans before we left and took Victoria plums with us (they were eaten within 36 hours.) I have just picked another 3 pounds of fruit but the wasps have arrived and gave me a nasty shock. They were right inside a plum and had virtually hollowed it out.
The damsons are coloured but not yet ripe so they stay unpicked.
Even the roses with hips are laden and have twigs bowed to the ground.
The asparagus fronds are good and there is hope for next year. (There is always hope!)

The rhubarb has been in for 6 years and needs dividing and replanting to reinvigorate it. I will dig up each plant and look to see how many growing points it has. Then I will split the crown so each piece of plant has at least one growing point and then replant in rich soil 18" to 2 feet apart and water in well. They could be planted father apart but I am limited for space, (because I have transplanted the wallflowers to where I wanted to put the rhubarb), and they will get a big feed of well-rotted manure to give them a boost.

We have had gales and the cosmos are leaning
over, many sweet pea flowers marked
by the rain. I have had to pick some, dead head any going over and hope that they will recover.

Mowing has been difficult because of the wet weather (and because I have not been here). The stream is full and I have not completed the dig out of the bed.

Whilst we were away we went to Canon Frome near Ledbury, a community living in a mansion, and I bought a big planter by George Thomas.
http://hot-metal.net/2013/08/17/planters/

It is a splendidly original galvanised creation and will make a great change from the usual garden centre stuff.
The plan is to have yellow winter flowering pansies in it  around the perimeter and deep plant it with dark red, purple and orang tulips. The pansies will be encouraged to hand down through the gaps between the petals.
It was made from an old water tank the site above says.

The kitchen garden at Canon Frome was enormous and had fruit and veg going over. It did, however, look a little like, as the year has gone on, attention to maintenance has lapsed, a bit. One joy was a large mulberry tree with its delicious fruits. Much of the crop was sadly on the ground.


This is one of my marrows with a pen to show scale. I love them - sadly alone - so it will be marrow and mint soup by the bucket load. Some people say marrow has no flavour and I agree the taste is subtle, but lovely - stuffed with lamb mince and cut in rings - yummy!

I have brought in green tomatoes from the outside plants and put them on the windowsill with a banana to help ripen them. the lowest fruit had been attacked by slugs.

The last broad beans are picked and in the freezer. It is always a surprise that the large heap of pods on the kitchen island becomes a few small bags of beans.
I cannot be bothered with shelling them - fine dining rubbish - as long as the beans are fresh and not too big they are wonderful.

Autumn is with us, leaves are staring to turn, temperatures are falling (R will not let me put on the heated bathroom floor yet) and the last swallows and martins have gathered and many are gone.

The view from The Nook has a distinct end of year feel even though it is only September.
R is about to put away her summer clothes and dig out the wooly combinations.
There is a sense, already, that the garden needs preparing for the winter to come so it is time I got of my backside and did something -
                                               like have another cuppa tea.

STAIR RODS, GNASHERS AND PLUMS

Fancy having wire cutters in your mouth!

Well, that is what our squirrels have. 

I have just thrown away a bird feeder for the wee grey beasties have chewed through the wires to get at the peanuts.

Here are the stair rods, wet ones courtesy of an Auntie Cycling in the Atlantic and depression here. We are fed to our teeth as another autumn AND WINTER loom.

The Vicky Plums have been great and we have sticky chins - they are so sweet and juicy. I went down the garden yesterday and had to robble ( a cross between run and hobble (those with knadgered knees know what I mean)( 3 ks - is that alliteration?)) back to the house through a downpour.

We are Sweet Pead, if you know what I mean - inundated this year, wonderful - I think I have dealt with this before but they are so fantastic I am mentioning them again.
Some fruit is abundant - blackberries, plums, some is a wash out - apples and pears. I can only assume that it was the cold spring that got to the blossom and the bees.

Last blog I rabbited on about yellow and orange flowers at this time of year so, just to show you what a load of rubbish a prattle here are some pinkies.

Cosmos, clematis and Japanese anemones top to bottom.

R is in her shed and all is well with Cawthwaite.com, hang on - we are being assaulted by felines and canines (not teeth) again - and the sun is out - cannot see a rainbow though.

Does one prune buddleia or not? Well, one could but not this one as we have so many around the garden that it would be a horrendous job. (an horrendous?)
What is needed now is thinning and dividing and replanting and stuff. I hate to throw plants away but sometimes there is no choice. I will stick them on the banking and in corners but there are still barrows full of them even after that.
A note on our willow that would not weep, had two stems, got the dreaded lurgi and all the leaves fell off. Thought it was dead - well, one stem was but the other has sprouted and the new growth is bending over a bit - perhaps a weeper after all! (Good writers do not use exclamation marks)(so now you know about me.)

And Syria - Putin is still puttin' it around but more deviously, Obama's cavalry are humming and ha-ing, fidgeting with their stirrups and looking uncomfortable, Cameron is less Churchillian and more Blairite, Assad is just sitting and waiting for the hoo-ha to subside so he can get on with eradicating anyone who disagrees with him (I wonder if Assad has some spare weed killer?) and the sweet peas need picking again. And the plums. And the carrots. And the weeds definitely need eradicating.

So I just suck on a juicy plum, stare at the garden, realise that I cannot do it all and ring the man. The man, however, is giving up doing his gardening job so I shall have to find another man.

Shall I go gardening?
No just Skype the hyper grandchildren.
Much better idea.
But not for the garden, alas.

COUCHES AND COLOURS

The phone is dead, the mobile reception is poor and anyway I was out in the garden mowing uphill. I am a bit wary of slopes with the sit on mower, especially side on, but straight up and down seems ok and the more I can do sitting down the better my couch potatoes will grow.

Speaking of potatoes - they have flower typical of the Solanums -

Colourful and beautiful?

Yesterday, with the rain coming, I mowed the lawns and then cleared out, cleaned and reorganised the shed. The day before I had been ditch digging, and stream digging and back aching and belly-aching.

I have been growing some oriental poppies from seed so these have been potted on and I went around the garden collecting trees from 6 inches to four feet tall to take to Orcop Hill for my daughter and her husband. They are pruned and potted.
Having attacked the blackcurrant bushes I made ten bundles of ten cuttings for R's coffee morning, and made another load of blackcurrant jam.

We are eating Victoria plums - so juicy straight off the tree - yum! They are so sweet (a bit like me!)(and sickly?)

Have you ever truly looked into the heart of a flower - this is a rose backlit by the sun.

Many flowers at this time of year are, like in the spring, yellow like this helianthemum. They can get out of hand though - eight feet tall and spreading by underground runners.

And then there is orange like this day lily, also out of hand.

So much to do and so many potatoes in my couch!
My cousin J sent me copies of family silhouettes today and I was glad to see that the older ancestors fed themselves well, some too well. Few were shadows of themselves - Oh! Ha Ha!
In fact the one of Great Great Great Grandfather Robert's double chin just looks too familiar.

Enough - back to the couch and a can o' lager and salted cashews.

Now it is another day and I am still couched - the heavens have opened and water is cascading over the gutters. Do not think I will dig the stream at the moment.

Did you see fantasy land in Russia with the 20 G strings? Putin posing and puttin' himself about, Cameron Churchilling and Obama trying to bring up the cavalry.
Look lads, come up to The Nook, I'll put on the kettle and we can have a chat in the scent of sweet peas and a juicy Victoria plum off the tree.
As for Assad - as said - sad.

OF MARTINS, MUIR AND SYRIA

House martins, I mean. The other day there were at least 40 whirling around the garden plus the odd swallow that had joined in. I went out to find about 10 clinging to the gable wall next to the nest the tree sparrows had appropriated this summer.
Amazing - so I emailed the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) and got the reply that this happened and was probably older birds showing prospective nesting sites to young birds before the left for Africa.

This is a composite panorama of eight images taken from the seat by the table at the west end of the house. The distortion, a sort of fish-eye effect, is not how it really is - the seat back and paving edge are straight. The thug on the left, so pink and splendid, will have to go. Unfortunately it is another one that comes back from a tiny root.

Now to a family portrait. This is Ewey.

Ewey was found when clearing the jungle in the early days of the garden, was neglected on top of a rhododendron stump and has now been moved to a feature position on top of a post.

I talk of figs and courgettes/marrows, plums and damsons (they are ripening) but other fruit are wonderful such as these Rosa rugosa hips - enough itching powder for a whole village!

Other things in the garden are much more delicate, especially the flowers on the eucryphia - so pretty, and on a tree.

I have mowed the lawns and went out this morning to find they need doing again. 
We have rats under the feeders by the shed - yet more wildlife but not  so welcome, especially to R.

And then my day is ruined by the mess in Syria. I have a copy of TE Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom - nothing much changes out there - tribal, religious, political conflict and no regard for human life outside their own narrow grouping. When there was the trouble in Libya I offered Gadaffi a cup of tea and a sensible chat in the garden (he did not come sadly)(could not make it) but I am not sure I want Assad here. Mind you he may well be just a figurehead for his tribal group.
There you are - someone who knows nowt about it pontificating profusely.

And there are fires threatening Yosemite. I suppose that is nothing new. Sequoia need fire to germinate their minute seeds.

Time for a pome - 

JUST VISITING

Somewhere around four thousand years ago

the Great Bonsai was born of flame:

a seed fell two hundred feet onto charred earth

and germinated.

As time turned, the tree grew - massive, magnificent, 

though not the tallest. Man came, felled other timber 

but the huge trunks shattered when they dropped,

became useless.

Then, John from Dunbar spoke fire for the sequoia,

saved those pillars that held the high Sierra sky,

stopped that blue cathedral roof from falling,

being desecrated.

And now we can stand, heads back,

and stare up at its many immense limbs,

and gaze into the forest canopy at its crown

and wonder.

And I am here, and I am gone,

seventy or more rings of the Great Bonsai

if I am lucky, of no roots, born of a different fire,

just visiting.

So we are here today, almost gone yesterday.
John from Dunbar is John Muir, born Dunbar. second cousin of my grandfather John Hay. I know - a big boast - but why not. I am chuffed to bit to think we share the odd gene or two. Mind you it might be an ODD gene.

I have cut some blackcurrant sticks for a friend PB to give to him later and must dig up any small unwanted trees I can find to pot up and take to Herefordshire for the Orcop Hill plantation. 

So much to do in the garden and so little will to do it. 
Actually my first name is Will and I do not think I would be described as little.

A NAKED GARDENER AND THE END OF AN IDEA

So, I have been clearing longer areas of grass - around the white birches, on the upper banking - and gradually clearing out the stream. I was cutting back some overgrown vegetation near the cloud tree when I revealed a large hole. Pushing my hand into it I found it forked and went further than I could reach. This, I concluded, was bunny business. It was not fox - too small and not smelly enough - same for badger. There were no droppings (black currants) at the entrance though we had had heavy rain. I was not sure it was being used so a temporary blockage to the entrance was made to see if this was moved - thus it would reveal habitation or not.

The sweet peas just get better and better - three vases full now twice a week. The scent pervades everything.

The eucryphia flowers are beautiful and delicate - strange on a tree. 

I have made a plan to move a large quantity of the pink Japanese anemones, montbretia and the orange day lily. They are out of control and clash like a giant pair of coloured cymbals. Hang on that is three plants clashing like a pair . . . ?

All right, I will explain the title - For two years R has wanted to take our wedding rings, melt them down and make two new ones - hers not so reddish coloured and with a matt finish. We just have not got around to it - until yesterday.

I had got a thorn into my fat finger just above the ring and it got infected. I managed to get the ring off - yaroo!! - and have been wearing it on my little finger. I have worn my ring continuously for the last - hum hum - years and this had left a deep impression on my finger, which now is gradually fading. 

So - I could not get my ring back on after the problem cleared.

Off we went to Tewitfield and R has her wish.

Meanwhile I am a gardener in the possession of a NAKED finger. It feels strange.

And the end of an idea - firstly I cleared out the end of the Willow path and removed the blue bench which fell to bits. This is just as well as no one ever sat on it. Then, a little further up the lawn, I removed the circle of logs around the fire pit - also never used - and moved them to form a semicircle where the seat had been. This is then the end of two ideas. I am not accurately numerate today but what the . . . 

Some things will not get changed -as yet - like the wonderful white Japanese anemones - much prefer these to the pink.

Yesterday morning I walked out to the feeder by my study window and caused havoc amongst the small birds.

One cock greenfinch fled into my window and I wondered if I had another fatality on my hands.

But I did not. It took half an hour to recover an fly away. I picked it up - so incredibly light - an placed it gently under an overhanging piece of catmint. Perhaps, on reflection, not the cleverest of places!

And finally, a magic moment - in the afternoon, yesterday, I walked down the lower banking to the bottom lawn and, as I did, a cloud of peacock butterflies rose and surrounded me. There must have been thirty or forty.

In June we thought we would never see anything other then whites but now the garden is full of colour.   

And, to top it all, we had a clouded yellow!

DECLOGGING, SLOGGING AND . . .

. . . flogging an old gardener. I have been in the far boggyland digging out the streams. They were clogged with vegetation and not draining anything. As I splattered through the mud, sodden turf and jungle of plants a big nettle side swiped my cheek - lovely! Ah! The tribulations a gardener must face.

Other tribulations emerged this morning - a fat rabbit on the banking eating, at first I thought the ground elder, but only grass. The the squiggle-monster on the peanuts. It has chewed through the wire of the feeder! Now there are proper teeth for you!

It poured with rain yesterday and we awoke to another downpour. The stream is clogged lower down and has decided the lawn is a much preferable course to take - more clearing to be done.

Autumn is approaching - the rowan has berried and the hips and haws are ripening. One of the mature hawthorns in the far wood has died - do not know why, just turned up its roots and withered.

What are these you may ask - well they are lovage stems, cut and dried. To make what you may ask - the pea shooters is the answer, light hard hollow tubes. The perfect gift for a bored irritating man (child). Just need a bag of dried peas and look out!

One of the eight foot teasels at the end of the flowerbed path has fallen over, such shallow roots. It must have been the gusty wind last night.

I have just noticed our tall thin eucryphia is coming into flower - big white cups at an unusual time of year for a shrub.

At this moment there are six juvenile bluetits on the feeder outside my window. They have been breeding like rabbits this summer (except rabbits would find it hard to get up a tree and into a nesting box?) Flying rabbits - now there is a thought!

This is one of our small courgettes. They have such a great personality. The two marrows continue to grow, too late for most of the shows but not my kitchen table. I love marrow (unlike the rest of my family and most of the people I know) because, I think, as a boy they were a once a year event. Marrow stuffed with lamb mince and onions and baked in the oven - yum!

So much is not seasonal any more - tomatoes, salad veg, rhubarb, damsons and plums. Before freezers it was all bottling and clamping, racking and drying. Fresh herbs in winter except for the evergreens were dried, spuds, carrots and swedes in clamps, fruit in Kilner jars, those were the days.

Panic outside the window as the pigeon squadron zoom in and scatter the smaller birds. They are great lumps of birds, clattering about, stuffing their crops.
A pheasant wanders by - a title for a book? Must go and write it.

PECKING ORDER

Not grandchildren, children, wife, myself, but blue tit, coal tit, great tit, chaffinch, greenfinch, greater spotted woodpecker, squirrel. Then all scatter for sparrow hawk. And other things - chaffinches often on the ground with dunnocks (very shy but promiscuous), pigeons, collared doves, robins, blackbirds and thrushes; greenfinches virtually never on the ground, wrens in the shrubbery and pheasants plodding around, burbling away looking for scraps.

This is Mrs Pheas, very quiet and reserved unlike her husband in all his finery. He fusses around her like a mother hen (? that sounds a bit odd) clucking and so on.

So why am I inside typing this blog - well, believe it or not, it is raining! I have tidied the flower bed by the shed and recovered a pair of gloves from beside the veg beds that I left out overnight.

Yesterday I weeded all the veg beds and carefully placed the big marrow (two feet long now)(2/3 of a metre)(66% of a metre)(why can't we use cubits and els and all such things like pecks and bushels?) If we used bushels I could hide behind one - where was I, yes the marrow has been placed on a plank to take it away from the soil.
I wouldn't want it to rot.

I have done the same with the lowest trusses on the tomatoes, except on a flat stone. We have baby butternuts but I am not sure if their pollination was any good - must keep and eye out for end rot.

Talking of rot (as usual) the wisteria are both still alive, barely. One lot of leaves on each. We watch and pray.

I have heard it said that one cannot have too much of a good thing but the sweet peas are all over the place and so many flowers - lovely scent though.

One plant that has flowered all summer and continues so to do is the catmint, nepeta. yes it gets a bit straggly but such a good space filler and looks good under the roses that are now in a second flush, especially Emma Hamilton.

I have hacked back the giant lovage and carefully cut the hollow stems to make pea shooters. They are on a sheltered window sill drying. One of the stems/shooters is bent. I wonder if it will fire around corners?

R continues to disappear off to her writing shed and Cawthwaite.com carries on fuelled by tea and biscuits during long sessions from yours truly.

The garden seems to be waiting - it is motionless and silent. The trees hang leadenly and only occasionally a leaf twitches from a drop of water.

I have dead headed the anthemis and we will get another show of flowers. Even the geraniums and alchemilla will recover from their shearing. I have also topped the big creamy scabious but that is the lot this year with that plant, I think.
Shallots hang up outside the kitchen door, small bulbs selected for next year and the scruffy bit put out to compost. Oh! Yes, I turned the smaller compost heap in an attempt to get it maturing.

The grandchildren and daughter, I, have gone, my sister I is here with us at the mo' (what a lot of Is) and C and P (son and d-in-l) are due at the end of the month. Our niece A has had a little girl on Sunday night - it is all go!

So I will go and put the kettle on.

THIS AND THAT AND HABITAT

I put this image of an opium poppy onto my Flickr site - http://www.flickr.com/photos/8662878@N02/ - and it was put onto something called Flickr Explore. In three days it has had 4000 hits! I wonder why. Perhaps it is the unusual angle of view, perhaps the word 'opium'?

The roses continue to flower sporadically - dead head and hope. The Japanese anemones are coming out - the sign of autumn to come? Some of the trees are looking suspiciously yellow of leaf.

The last of the black currants are picked, the old raspberry canes removed and the few new ones tied in.    I am not too hopeful for next year's crop. We now have our first butternut squashes coming and loads of courgettes. We await the plums and damsons.

R has sheared off the alchemillas and deposited them on the compost heap.
I have planted a selection of stuff around the garden - clematis montanas to grow over the willow tunnel, a rose to grow up a buddleia on the top banking, tansy in the wildish bit by the veg beds, a line of small 'senecios' below the main path. R has wanted a grey hedge there and so I took cuttings, grew them on and have now obliged. The pot from Viet Nam has blue grass in it and a stone from Piel Island beach with an inclusion shaped like a cross.

To habitats.
The garden has formal and wild areas, woodland and a small stream, ponds and bog, a hedgerow, dry bankings and a very old log pile. This has wood no longer much good for the log burner but insects love it. it is full of beetles and bugs, woodlice and so on. Holes provide hideaways for bumble bees and, through the winter, places to retreat from the cold weather.

Over the year the bonfire has gradually grown and is now six feet high, wet and rotten and probably not flammable. It has been inhabited by a nesting blackbird and possible hibernating hedgehogs. So, the dilemma is when to light it. Last year I moved it to make sure the fauna was safe.

We have also had J and W here with their mother I. Voices coming from the wood and their den are a delight - I love to hear them playing. There are demands for ropes and swings and things so that will have to be seriously considered.
I have my orders from they who must be obeyed - well, you know what I mean.

Time to take a new load of soup from the bottom of the Aga and liquidise it.
Just noticed my keyboard is a bit grubby - soily fingers.
I am glad I do not moult - there is a very moth-eaten sparrow on the feeders outside my window - very scruffy.
A bit like me?

HARVEST AND RAIN

It has rained for 24 hours, straight down rain not soft refreshing showers and still it rains. Where, before, was a shelter under a tree is wet, drops slide from leaf to leaf, twig to twig and soak all underneath. The deutzia by the shed is full of bedraggled blue tit fledglings. The birds avoid the feeders, hunker where shelter can be found, hungry and damp. Stones in the track to the house rattle in the rivulets, the stream overflows, the pond is brimming.

So -
I have not been out in the garden today! I have been reading and writing and things. R has been to the Gym and sat in her car in a roadworks jam for half the morning. The wait to get past Newby Bridge was an hour this morning. They only do major roadworks in the Lake District during the school summer holidays - a sort of sadism?

I have made cauliflower soup from a Cranks' recipe with veg bought locally, cheaply. I have made courgette and mint soup with our own veg. The freezer is filling up. Six bags of broad beans are now frozen. The sideboard in the utility room is stacked with blackcurrant jam.

Yesterday I cut the flowers for the house, all I could from the cutting beds but the photo does not show the sweet peas, hydrangea Annabelle and others. We are awash with blooms.

The other day R and I went for a walk out on the flatland below Hoad Hill. At one place there is a small industrial unit and on the fence beside the lawns was the following sign.

Some of us think life's a bit like that, don't we. (Commendations to anyone who recognises the quote). (See end of blog).

Today I. and the grandchildren are splashing their way north from Herefordshire - it will be some journey in this weather and then, right at the end, they will hit the roadworks! The den is ready (if wet), I hope they have brought their Wellies. Actually I hope they have brought my Wellies as I left them at their house the last time we were there. Actually R hopes they have brought her Wellies as she did the same.

At least I got the lawns mowed before the rain and family. I noticed that much of our lawn is not grass as one might expect, but clover! Still it is squat and green so . . .

And this blog - I am reading Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - when will they have a Booker prize for blogs? Not that this would win as the language is far from erudite (where did that word come from?)

Still falls the rain (apologies to Edith Sitwell).

Now it is tomorrow (or today depending how you look at it.)
Today I have been mainly weeding, have potted up eight pots of herbs and shrubs for my daughter I and discussing the attributes of Lego with J.

The rain has stopped and the day is fine, a bit floody and coolish. Up in the wood one of the streams is disappearing into its bed and reappearing lower down. On inspection a mole has made a run the full length of the stream bed whilst it was dry in the hot weather. With side corridors the water goes anywhere but where I wish!

I am courgetted to the ears and have now selected one plant to produce a gert marra (great marrow). This will be stuffed with mince and onions (I hope)(despite the vegan tendencies with the Mrs.)

So there you are - an ordinary day of grandchildren, trip out this morning to the wonderful Ford Park Kitchen Garden in Ulverston, gardening, chat, some small person wingeing and so on.

ps - no Wellies.

pps - Oh! Yes, and it was our 44th Wedding Anniversary! How on earth has R put up with me all these years?

(Quote - Alan Bennett, vicar's speech, Beyond The Fringe).