A day in my garden

I 've had a day in the garden today and it was a struggle, don’t know why but my knee hurts like mad. So I have just gone slowly and managed to dig out all the new daffs I put in last Autumn and weed and pull out all the self seeded forget –me -nots, they do look very pretty but they spread every where so now it all looks tidy and neat. Mike has dug up some comfrey that had taken over an area and we have planted it outside our gate. It grows like nobody’s business and we have it all over the place. In its place he planted my cosmos that I have grown in the green house, so a bit of planting got done! As well as that my nicotiana and some bizzie-lizzies were tucked in under our little tree, so the garden is beginning to look rather nice.

I still have petunias, rudeckia and geraniums to go in, all grown from seed. And each year I grow dahlias in pots in the green house and then when they are ready to flower I pop them into a shady spot behind some growth
My lupins are amazing and have grown even bigger this year, these were grown from seed three years ago so now are great big bushy plants.

 We had a glass of wine sitting outside and now I am ready for dinner, I had forgotten we had bought steak for tonight so that will be very nice with our own lettuce and some bought salad bits.
The bamboo cane is there so I can show it to Nell when she is on the plants, it works I don't have to use it!! You can see our poor grass where it is yellowed from her wee... but we are working on it!! We are now giving her tomato joice every day as well as dog rocks in her drinking water!
We need more rain!
Weather has been over cast but warm, so quite pleasant to work in. Hope everyone has enjoyed your day too

Stitching 'n Sewing

I have been stitching my lovely 'Golden Gate Houses.' I have started a second house although there is all the back stitching still to do on the completed one, I love the fence and all of it! I so love stitching this I have problems doing anything else, but  I have had to put it to one side as I have my next Round Robin to do for Stitch and Stash . Six of us taking part in this and this is my third one. I can say this about this one, as the person it is for doesn't blog, because I am not enjoying it at all.

It is a very loose even weave with funny little half stitches,  a Margaret Sherry Design, so if anyone has stitched one of these designs you'll know what  I mean

It never occured to me that I may not like what it is I had to stitch, as I love cross stitch and all sorts of designs. So I am stitching it every evening to get it completed and I can get it ready to post on to the next person.

I had also ordered a whole lots of turquiose and blues threads to start the Grand Marquoir as Julie's in all different colours looks gorgeous.

As well as this I have actually got myself organised to start a patchwork quilt. I have found a super quilting forum with lots of hints and tips and one was how to stitch HST  ( Half square triangles)in the easiest of ways, so I have had a practice and am very pleased with the results. I have  a quilt pattern I want to do and have washed and ironed my fabric, so on the rainy days in this coming week I shall be sewing!

And here is my fabric all washed and ironed and ready to go!

I have been promising myself for ages to get started and as I am over loaded with gardening, some writing projects, the decorating of our hall stairs and landing, I decided this was the time to sew!! We have a big dining room table so there is room to leave my machine and fabric on it and room for us to eat, although when the weather is nice we eat outside in the garden.

I like to keep busy!!!

Happy Stitching everyone and hope you have the opportunity to sit and stitch in your garden too.

Tweeting or is it Twitching???

This is one of the Great Tit fledglings that Nell found yesterday evening down the side of our conservatory.

It was quite safe with Nell as she is afraid of her own shadow and was dancing around it barking. It kept tweeting for its mum and we could hear her answering.

We grabbed Nell and came in. Later on, DH saw it up in a hawthorn tree that borders our garden. This morning there is another one on the veg patch and one of the parent's with it, while the other parent is still feeding one inside the nesting box. One was lost to a horrible magpie thursday afternoon, I know is nature but so cruel! I just saw it too late land on the top of the nesting box and with a flurry of wings it had the little one in its beak and was off.

Just look at this perfectly formed little bird, his little feet with his long claws and cute little beak, don't you just love it?

We have spend hours sitting in our conservatory watching these being fed over the past two weeks, the parents have been so busy, I was worn out watching them! Its lovely to see the little ones starting to fly, what a wonderful world we live in

The Wedding, a very happy day!

My eldest son Simon and Tracy on their wedding day 30th April

To show her beautiful dress, I think they are both looking down at Asia, Tracy's dog who was present at the wedding with flowers in her collar!

With his best man my youngest son Michael and my two grandsons. Theo who is trying to look bored and Christian. They both had a great day though probably wouldn't admit to it!

My grand daughter, Saskia is at the black eye stage being now a true teenager in all sense of the word, so her Mum tells me!!

And here I am in my big wedding hat with my daughter.. we all had an amazing day and I loved every minute of it. The food was delicious, asparagus and hollandaise sauce, breast of guinea fowl with crushed new potatoes (which I had never had before and just melted in your mouth) and lots of green brocolli spears, snow peas and julliene carrots. Desert was Eton mess and I could have eaten two or even three! The champagne flowed and DH had a far bit, well truth be told, several glasses added to a very very nice merlot.

After the wedding a whole crowed of us and the bride and groom met up in a country pub, more food!

.. Back view of my hat to show the matching feathers to my outfit!!  My SIL here as well in his bow tie. Lovely to have all the family together.

The cake was layers of lemon sponge and chocolate filling and covered with white chocolate. I did have more than one piece as Tracy said it had to be eaten up!

The table centres were a mix of greenery which had rosemary, eucalyptus, roses, fern, pinky blue anstracanthus  figs and grapes. This was given to me, hence the photo at home. I ate the figs and grapes and very nice they were too!!

We all had a wonderful day and weekend, Tracy's parents, sister and hubby, and friends were all staying in the same pub as us, in on of those pretty little villages in Surrey and we all had such fun.
Tracy and Simon looked very, very happy, a truly glorious day.

We have just gotta keep going!

I just haven’t had much heart to do a lot this week, the whole business about our allotment shed being raised to the ground just about kicked me so far down I didn’t want to make the effort with anything. But as people have said, don’t let the bastards win.

Thank you to everyone who left comments here and those of you who emailed me, its nice to know that you all care.

I haven’t been there since, but DH went today to plant some strawberries as our plot gets lots of sun and there isn’t enough room in our garden here. After all I have claimed half of it for flowers! In spite of the snow and long winter all of my lupins have survived and I now have huge plants all in bud. The plants that we did lose were the ones that survive in hot dry conditions, carnations and pinks, half the curry plant and my Rose Campion which is a shame as it had spectacular bright red flowers and really stood out in the borders.

I have a lot of seedlings to plant at the allotment, so I will be there next week although I don’t know if I want to sit and stay there as we used to, its not the same any more.

Yesterday I really had to shake myself to get going, for some reason I had the hump all day.. we were late going shopping as Mike takes his Dad on Friday mornings now, which I don’t mind at all. It was late Friday afternoon by the time we hit Tesco’s and I was very, very unhappy at the prospect of a busy crowded store. Then I saw a couple, he was pushing the trolley and she was looking along the shelves. She had one of those scarves wrapped round her head, you know as women do who have lost their hair through chemo treatment and it made me take stock of how blessed I am. I grabbed that trolley with a renewed vigour and suddenly the shop didn’t seem that crowded, my mood lightened and we were no time at all before we were back in the car driving home.

Because we haven’t been to the allotment this past week our back garden has had a clean sweep. All the flower beds weeded, seeds planted, veg plot dug and plants in, pots of carrot seeds already germinated and salad crops growing. A great boost to us has been that next door has had her huge ash tree cut down and so we have late afternoon sun on our green house now.

And a great joy is that the Great Tits are back and fro feeding their young in our nesting box, this is the first year it has been used, it has only taken three years for them to find it! They are lovely to watch and we can hear the little ones tweeting as we walk along the path.

Life is not so bad after all in fact its good!

Mean, mean, horrible, horrible people!!!

This is the remains of our shed at our allotment....

We had a phone call from the allotment supervisor just after 9 this morning and rushed up to it.. we were absolutely gutted when we saw it as it was a large shed and housed all our tools, fortunately all mine are kept here at the house but we had bought new for Mike as mine are Ladies weight. Mike's were really expensive stainless steel spade and fork so cost about £50 so a lot to lose. 
There is nothing left! Just some metal bits and the asbestos roof sheets! All our tools, petrol grass cutter, and new bought strimmer our table and chairs, everything, including Mikes hiking boots that he wore up there... so we are pig sick so that's that. We have decided to call it a day and just harvest what we have there. I will plant some tomato plants and if they grow they grow and if they don't, they don't!

This is it, said to Mike it is another sign to move away from here, as the job he was offered never materialised so nothing to keep us here! The allotment was a strong pull to keep us here and now..... who cares! We are gutted!
We just couldn't believe our eyes, just raised right down to the ground and the grass cutter was a real loss as we used it to keep down the grass and weeds at the side of our veg beds!

Who is so mean to do these things, such pointless vandalism. They didn't even take anything just torched it. It must have been burning for a good hour or two as it was a big shed and as it leaked it would have been wet.
The police have been and taken details and have phoned this evening to say they have been there all day checking things out, bit late I said, its done now!
Its not just the cost of things lost,  but all our hard work we have put in over the past three years and the money we have spent on it all. It has taken all our enthusiasm and now we will just plant our seedlings and leave the grass to grow!
What a horrible saturday we have had!

Serious advice!!!

..............Don't chose a design that you so love that you can't stop stitching it!!

I get up in the morning and pick this up and at eleven o'clock I am still in my dressing gown and stitching!!

Monday we decided that we would get started on the decorating, so we can make inroads into putting the house up for sale.. and what have we done?? Nothing, but we do know what is to be done because we  have talked about it so much!

But at least we have discussed what is needed, and for us who hate DIY that is a big step.

I just love this Houses design!

Three years today.....

...........since Madeleine was taken from their family holiday apartment in Portugal.

I can't imagine how her parents feel at their loss.. her mother had said she wished they could all be killed in a car accident so the hurt would stop.
If all you kind women out there could post this on your blog, who knows some one some where might see it and tell the authorities.. no one should have  to go through this pain.
Their logo is...
Don't give up on Madeleine
Its not a lot to ask, please just post this some where where you use the internet... I shall leave this on my side bar so it will remind us all.
Thank you...