mid-month photo and October in the garden...

If you visit here regularly you'll know I've been taking a photo of my garden on 15th of each month to try to get a feel for the changes that happen through the year. I've tried to take it from almost the same place but have to admit that has probably drifted a bit because in January I hadn't anticipated the amount the trees would grow over the year! I am not feeling very inspired by this little project as, to be honest, I realise now that, at least from a distance, my garden looks pretty samey much of the time! So I've tried each month to add some snippets of colour or interest from around the garden and, because I'm not very good at letting things go part way through, I will persevere until the end of the year!

October 15th was bright and crisp and surprisingly difficult to photograph! The sun was very low in the sky and from the house, casting long shadows down the garden which made the light have strong contrasts.

The leaves have gone from several of the trees already and much of the borders are looking a bit tired and tatty. I am working with the theory that its much better for the insects to have somewhere to hide out in the cold weather so am not going to go out and tidy until the spring! I get much more pleasure out of the wildlife than pulling up weeds so it can just stay as it is!

There is a bit of colour out there still...

The late September burst of heat has meant that almost all the tomatoes have ripened this year. Given the huge glut of plum chutney from earlier in the year, probably good we don't have a glut of green tomatoes too!

The sedums are always good value...

and the creeper and the holly berries add a splash of red to brighten things up...

From the bottom of the garden the sun was just beginning to appear over the top of the roof and the sun was streaming down...

I'm not good with this time of year. I hate the approach of winter with its dark mornings and evenings and am permanently cold. It makes me feel as though I'm meant to go into some dormant state somewhere until the sun comes out again (this could be 6 months in the UK!). But when I look at these pictures I realise that even on the cold days there is sunshine and colour and that lifts my spirits. This year I am going to try very hard to look for the lovely bits to keep me going - there are things I love, candlelit evenings, crisp winter walks, snuggly blankets, warming winter soups, family time... I just need to keep reminding myself its not all grey and cold!

Sx

garden in August...

I have been trying to take a photo of the garden on the 15th of each month, just for comparison through the year. If I'm honest, I've kind of fallen out of love with this idea and am slightly bored with it - they've just made me realise from a distance, with the exception of the trees, my garden looks pretty same-ey all year!

However, I am a creature of slightly obsessive habits and I can't not finish the year now I've started - especially now we are over half way (actually, that's a bit of a scary thought - at risk of sounding like my mother, where on earth is this year going???!!). So here goes, my back garden in August...

Up close there is a bit more colour again now, having gone through a bit of a 'green' phase last month. Lots of 'shouty' flowers in the pots... 

The window box, R planted earlier in the year but most of the others are rejects he has collected; he works at a private school and, can you believe, they plant up loads of tubs for the school open day then they are neglected afterwards! The pots will go back at the end of the season but in the mean time we are 'looking after' the plants! 

I'm loving this bright lobelia...

And these pretty pale-edged sweet peas...

And in the flower beds, dwarf sunflowers...

...I'm taking the au naturelle approach to gardening this year - hence the weeds and slug damage! But still enjoying these aptly named flowers.

Clashing colours...

My Mum's always been one for 'themed' flower beds - you know the kind of thing, a 'hot' bed, a 'cool' bed, one with 'pinks' etc etc... Don't get me wrong, her garden looks fab with drifts of coordinated colour but mine's a bit more random than that! Lots of it has put itself where it wants to be - I may have planted things over the last 18 years but most of it has upped sticks and shifted to a different bit of the bed or even the garden! (quite a few have just 'left home' altogether but we won't dwell on those, I'm guessing some plants can't manage my level of neglect combined with R's passion for hefty pruning...). R grew the Coleus plants with the pink centres to the leaves from seed in the greenhouse and ended up with loads so planted them randomly all over the place and the orange crocosmia have just grown through them. I know orange and pink is a bit 'ouch' but actually I quite like it!

Can't remember what this pale pink flower is..?

Yarrow, maybe? (think the proper name is achillea?) Anyway, even though its flopping all over the place, I think its pretty.

My little apple tree is covered in fruit...

...even after trying to shake a fair number off to reduce the crowding a bit. They are not the biggest apples but very crisp and tasty.

There are shiny berries that the birds love on the honeysuckle...

Tomatoes in the greenhouse...

I haven't bought tomatoes in weeks - fantastic!

And loads of crab apples on the tree...

I'm amazed that this tree has done as well as it has this year, given that it clearly has some kind of lurgy (these were the leaves earlier in the year...). There are still quite a few dead looking branches and several leaves with odd looking red patches on them but there is masses of fruit and most of it looks pretty unblemished.

I'm not at work today, and meant to be studying, but it is son 3's A level results day today and I can't quite settle to anything so am going to faff about with crab apples instead... so far, thinking crab apple and chilli jelly (prompted by several people out there in blogland who say its delish), crab apple schnapps (I wouldn't want anyone to think there is a booze thing going on in this house but just was very tempted by the recipe!) and crab apple juice... will update another day!

Thought I'd just show you another view of the garden...

I don't know if you can just about see a bench in the far corner in the first photo? Well, there is a sheltered sun-trap in that corner first thing in the morning and I love to just sit with a cup of tea when I get the chance. And sometimes I get joined by one of these...

Ok, need to stop prevaricating now and get on with something useful...

Til next time

Sx

Midsummer garden...

Funny, I don't really think of June as mid-summer, but we are racing towards the longest day and we're not far off summer solstice which I think is meant to be in midsummer, so I suppose it is. The garden is a bit ahead of itself, I think, maybe because of the early warm weather we had in April so a lot of the early colour has gone but we have had some lovely bright evenings when the shadows are long and the air is heavily perfumed with honeysuckle.

So...this month's photo...

I have to confess to cheating a bit and shifting the angle as the hazel tree on the left (with the bird-feeders) has grown so much that if I stand in my original spot I can see nothing else!

Looking at these photos, it feels a bit like the garden is just full of greens and makes me want to go and plant sploshes of colour all around! Up close there is some colour...

The fences are clothed in honeysuckle, the delphiniums are a gorgeous blue-purple and there are odd patches of pink and purple geranium and bright red nasturtiums but, if I'm honest, I'm a teeny bit disappointed with the flower beds this year. My hopes are pinned on the hollyhocks that are budding up - always a surprise as they have seeded themselves around the place so I never know exactly what colour to expect!

I seem to have a lot of plants that have appeared largely by themselves! Some I might have just encouraged through the fence (its ok, I know they go the other way too!) and some I think have just arrived with the wind or the birds. I'm quite happy its this way; if I really think a plant has chosen the wrong home I try to move it, but often I quite like where they have turned up.

I'm sure I only planted one honeysuckle; a white and yellow, later flowering, semi-evergreen variety...

But I have another two versions as well - I'm not sure if they are really the same variety but they are slightly different colours and the flowers have been a bit staggered. 

This is the earliest to flower and the opening buds are deep deep red initially - this one definitely is a shared plant with the neighbours! The other has a much paler, more orangy bud and I'm pretty sure migrated from my Mum's as a little rooted stem in the pot of another plant...

The fragrance from these is quite intoxicating and they are buzzing with pollen dusted bees at the moment. Not so good for hayfever sufferers, as we discovered when my friend was here at the weekend! But lovely for me!

I have a big patch of architectural thistles at the end of the garden..

They are almost perfect globes of spikes which, as yet, have just a tinge of blue but will soon open out.

In the pond, I am enjoying these tiny blue water forget-me-nots...

The paperbark maple glows in the evening sunlight...

It really is this colour - it kind of 'sheds its skin' with a think top layer of bark peeling off to reveal a smooth shiny surface underneath. 

In the greenhouse, dainty yellow flowers ...

...are turning into these...!

Yum! Looking forward to picking these once they ripen!

Looking back through this post, there is colour out there; you just have to get up close and personal to appreciate it!

Whereas this splash of brightness...

...is difficult to miss! This is 'my' little corner where I am making slow progress on what I hope will be a Big blanket eventually! Am just mulling over another little project to have on the go...I'm hopeless with just one thing, need a bit of variety now and again!

Hope you're enjoying a bit of colour in your life too!

Til next time

Sx

garden in May...

Just realised that I have lost a couple of pages in the Blogger 'outage' (is that a techy term?!!! that's what it seems to be being called!) last week. I had added a couple of pages which I'm sure were published but now seem to have disappeared. Silly blogger - how irritiating; and silly me 'cos, as always, I'm a bit rubbish at backing anything up so hadn't kept copies - darn! Can't decide whether to try to remember what I wrote and redo them, wait and see if they reappear in the next few days or just forget it... hedging on the fingers crossed that it reappears at the moment...

Time for this month's garden photo...

It was a pretty dull day yesterday with just the odd patch of sunshine. This was snapped in one of those, early in the day when the house throws long shadows over the back garden. It dawned on me that this is probably not a great spot to show the changes in the garden - for one thing, from this distance you can't really make out the colour in the flower beds (there is some - honest!) and also the hazel tree in the foreground on the left obliterates everything down the left hand side now its got its leaves! Didn't think of that in January - dur! However, for the sake of continuity I'll carry on for this year - might have to come up with a different vantage point next year with the benefit of hindsight!

I did just take one more sneaky one...

If you move out of the shade of the hazel you can see the paperbark maple on the left of the garden; this tree is alway the last to come into leaf but has the most beautiful bark and lovely autumn colour later in the year.

I have days when I think I'd love to live in the city where there's a bit more of a buzz but then I look at this and realise I'd miss it...

Sx

loving daisies!

Very quick post, 'cos it is ridiculous o'clock and I really should be in bed as I have to get up for work tomorrow!

I am nearly there with my daisy blanket! I have started the border so expect a Finished! post anytime soon! This blanket has been a bit of a learning curve so it is far from perfect but I am still happy with my happy daisies - hence the new blog header...

The garden is really moving on a-pace now...

This was taken early yesterday morning before the day brightened up a bit - the daffodils have finished and the leaves are coming on almost all of the trees now. That little splash of white near the greenhouse is a Spirea that my mum gave me that she says is called "Bridal Wreath". I should really take a closer pic because it is beautiful this year.

Enough for now, bed beckons, just a few more daisy pics...!

Yum!

Til next time, 

Sx

connecting in blogland...

When I started writing this blog at the beginning of the year, it was primarily for my sanity - somewhere for me to place my thoughts and document the little things that fill my days. I wasn't really writing it with anyone else in mind and not expecting anyone to read it especially. But I have to say the whole 'blog-thing' has become a bit more than that - I have found it somewhere to connect with others with similar interests, somewhere to find crafty inspiration and there has been something quite affirming in that.

So I would especially like to say thankyou to those of you who have left lovely comments on here - it really gives me a happy feeling to know that there are people who are enjoying what I am doing. And a particular big thankyou to Heather at Little Tin Bird (whose blog I really love - full of colour and reminds me of the value of the 'ordinary' things in life) for linking to my daisy blanket!

I have been a bit distracted on the crochet front, so the daisies have kind of gone on hold! (I am a bit rubbish at concentrating on one thing at a time... cause of constant frustration to R that I always have multiple projects on the go!). I came across Sarah London's 'Crochet a Rainbow' appeal a few days ago. A bit belatedly, I realise, but I discovered it on a day when the news from Japan was particularly bleak and I felt I must do something. Maybe I've missed it but there don't seem to be have been any direct appeals here for Japan (or Christchurch for that matter) so I figured if I could make some little contribution that would be a good thing.

Sooo.... I have been crocheting granny squares in the little bit of spare time I have had this week. 

The colours are not at all true on here - I am using some balls of wool I have had hanging around for ages (just in case... does anyone else have these? I just cannot quite throw out yarn or fabric cos it might come in handy one day!) and the colours are not really what I would usually choose but I figured if people need blankets they won't mind too much what colour they are! But on that photo it looks like black, white and a kind of orangy pink - actually its navy, white and a sort of deep magenta.

Anyway, I feel a bit of a 'must get on with it' about these so am going to try to do 20 or so, then get on with my daisies! 

This has been a really hectic week at work and at home and there feels as though there has been little time for anything - I worked an extra day (and circumstances conspired against me taking my time back - the joy of working for the NHS means that when that happens you work for free!!!), home has been a bit frazzled with son 3 and the whole A levels/uni/new girlfriend saga (another story entirely - suffice to say that dealing with the love interests of your offspring seems to be fraught with pitfalls!) and my relationship with R seems to have reached an all time fragile state. I am very aware that a lot of the blogs I've read seem to depict an ideal, rosy home life... mine is far from that at the moment and in a way this gives me a small space to escape from the chaos of day to day life. I managed to get away from work in daylight on Friday so took the time to have a wander round the garden and enjoy a few moments of lovely things...

Time for 'mid-month pic' - you can't see very well but there is a big patch of daffs under the plum and crab apple trees at the bottom of the garden which are about to come into flower; I may have to cheat and sneak an extra pic in as I suspect if I wait til next month they will be past their best again! Most of the trees are beginning to come into leaf and my pot of tete-a-tetes is flowering merrily. And had you noticed a new arrival in the flower bed? R snaffled an old greenhouse that was in pieces and being thrown out by a neighbour. He rebuilt it, cleaned it all up and replaced a few panes and it is good as new! I am expecting great things of the greenhouse/allotment partnership this year! (and only a little disappointed that the greenhouse has been placed on the site of a patch of lily of the valley that had just got established!)

On closer inspection... early daffodils are like small patches on sunlight and the forsythia is a mass of tiny  blooms.

A patch of hyacinths are about to reveal their full colours. These were all originally in pots indoors and have gradually been added to the garden where they seem to come through stronger each year.

Leaves are beginning to unfurl on the crab apple tree, with just a hint of the blossom which is to come.

There is something very satisfying about trying to capture the little details in the garden - makes you realise how much things are quietly changing under our noses all the time and provides definite evidence that we are moving towards warmer weather!!

It was really cold when I took these photos - I think the temperature dipped below freezing again that night - and I had a spectator as I walked round the garden...

Basil obviously decided it was too chilly to venture outside and peered around the conservatory door! He sat there for an age just looking; posed for a few shots then retired to the warmth of the sofa!

This morning did see a much brighter, sunnier day and I think we reached the dizzy heights of about 14C in the sunshine this afternoon. First thing the sun was streaming through the front windows and Jemima had found the perfect spot to relax in...

Tomorrow, R and I are taking a couple of days in London - he has won tickets to the Ideal Homes exhibition so we are leaving the boys to themselves and heading down on the train. Maybe this will give us a chance to talk properly - so difficult to find time and space in a busy house where we rarely have uninterrupted time. Not sure IH would be my preferred choice of destination; we went 25 years ago when we were setting up our first home and all was very exciting, not sure it will be quite the same now. But my memory is of lots of lovely things to look at so I'm sure it will make for a change for a couple of days.

Will let you know!!

Til next time

Sx

musing on motherhood...

I have the feeling that my 'mothering' responsibilities are almost done - well, not 'done' exactly - of course I will always be there for my kids - but my desire and obligation to get them safely through childhood so that they can start their adult lives as happy, confident, caring people...well that bit, I think we are nearly there.

As I think I've said before - I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. Somewhat torn between relief - after all what I absolutely want is for them all to be able to be successful, independent grown ups - and panic about where that leaves me now! It is the oddest feeling - I suppose its a bit of a transitional thing and once they are all settled it will be easier to adjust. Just now, I feel in neither one place or another.

My biggest 'baby' has turned 22 today. That hardly seems possible! How can it be so long since we came home from the hospital with this tiny child that I felt protective of but if I'm honest, didn't quite know what to do with! I was only 22 myself then! I think part of my dilemma is that by assuming such an important 'grown-up' role so early I didn't establish Me first - so now I'm having a slight crisis about what I want out of life now.

Perhaps I need to stop over-analysing everything (as R says I have a tendency to do) and just let what will be happen?

Anyway, for now - mothering duty is still required!

Not too big for birthday cake yet! This is a squidgy chocolate roulade - not a traditional birthday cake, but a bit of a favourite as it contains no flour so a good gluten free option.

And although I couldn't quite manage 22 candles, singing and candle blowing still obligatory! I wonder if he still made a wish?!

Have felt oddly emotional all day today - the memory of 22 years ago today is as clear as if it were yesterday and I do so love the person that baby has become!

Currently waiting for a summons to collect him from the pub - taxi duty still required too!!

Tried to do a bit of 'proper' academic work today - I do need to give myself a proper talking to! I am finding it so hard to keep focussed! Have resorted to copious amounts of this...

I think I would struggle to get through the day without caffeine at the moment! I love this little mug - it is a sweet old bone china one that used to belong to my mum. Its a bit faded from 'Mr Nobody' keep putting it in the dishwasher (do you have one a Mr Nobody in your house too?!!) which I'm sure it doesn't like, but I like the size and the quaintness of it. And I do like to drink out of bone china!!!!

Tomorrow, I have a day off in lieu of having to work at the weekend so I am challenging myself to get a chapter of my dissertation at least drafted - NO excuses!!! I keep promising myself little treats - if I get a good chunk done tomorrow, I will allow myself some uninterrupted hooky time in the evening!! 

And one more photo for now - time for mid-month garden picture...

I'm not sure it looks very different from January's pic from this distance - apart from the uncharacteristic bit of blue sky yesterday - but there are a few little changes happening and it will be interesting to look at the gradual changes at the end of the year.

Have just reread this post and realise it is a bit disjointed and bitty! Not functioning very well today - time to call it a day I think!!

Sx