Bees in my Borage . . .

That sounds like the title of a book doesn't it? As I was working in the garden yesterday, I took time off to watch the bees and other insects visiting the bed in the stable yard, which is a mass of Nasturtiums and Borage, with pockets of Nicotiana. The bees love it there and I finally managed to get one at the right angle to include it in a photo. I have been clearing the snowberries around the wildlife pond, as they had overshadowed it so completely that you could hardly tell there was a pond there any more. It looks a bit bare at the back now but it will grow back.



We have finished painting the front of the old cart shed now, and it looks so much tidier. Of course, the fresh paintwork shows up the ancient falling-to-bits door, so OH set to this afternoon and soon had a prototype knocked up out of old scaffolding planks. He will recycle the hinges etc from the old door.





And of course there were one or two cats out sunbathing and keeping an eye on things. Gypsy:


And Lucy:



My no-knead bread has been a brilliant success. I only used a small amount of dough to try it out (from recipe on a forum I belong to), but now I shall try a much bigger loaf, which should expand better in my Le Creuset oval casserole dish so I will end up with a less-flat loaf. . .

Making bread - trying new ways

UPDATE: 'Yer 'tis! The BEST loaf I've ever made! SO tasty and crusty and I could go and demolish it if I weren't going to bed . . . Took all day to rise and it didn't shoot up in the Le Creuset casserole as that's oval and not taller and round, but hey ho - it's BRILLIANT bread. I will do the method on Friday - we're off house-hunting again tomorrow.



I first learned to make bread 40 years ago, when I went to a demonstration at Eling Tide Mill in Southampton. I wouldn't say I am an artisan bread maker but my bread is tasty, and filling in a good way, from good ingredients, rather than being "heavy" - not like the supermarket bread which only fills you up if you eat half the loaf at a sitting and has nasties in it such as hydrogonated or fractionated fats! Mine has only 4 ingredients - bread flour, salt, a knob of butter and yeast, plus warm water. I usually use fresh yeast for preference, but dried yeast works just as well. Yesterday I made Pizza dough, and the resulting pizzas were scrummy - even if not the thin bakestone type!

I have recently been reading rave reviews for bread made with a much wetter no knead dough, which I am going off to try now, having watched two videos on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_kmSalsNgM&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG6aAj4Oloc


Here's one I made earlier and I was quite happy with that!!!

Tidying up in the garden

Nothing particularly cerebral today, although I was reading the Henry Williams biography this morning in the car, and am now on page 50 and find it hard to put down. He is beginning to sound like a man who wasn't very confident (and indeed that is just how he looks in the frontispiece photograph of the book, when he was 19 and just going off to war) and so talked himself up a lot to compensate. So much in fact that he believed his own rhetoric in the end. It mattered so desperately to him to make it as an author, and to gain the approval of other - famous - writers. I will see how right I am as I progress through the book.

I took myself out for a walk at around 8 a.m. this morning - not far, just up to the junction and back, but I am pretty unfit as I haven't walked regularly for months. I am going to walk daily again now and hope to get my fitness levels back to what they were a year or so ago.

I spent two hours this afternoon painting the front of the former chicken shed, and the bottom half of the cart shed. OH then climbed the ladder and did the top half, but Sod's Law being what it is, ran out of paint when there was just a section about 6 feet x 4 feet to do . . . As he worked, I then dead headed/cut right back all my Alchemilla mollis which had been totally over the top with the sun and then rain. It will make fresh growth and hopefully soon it won't look quite so bare out there.

Whilst we were in town buying paint, I also bought a Verbena bonariensis which came about £1 cheaper than its marked price as there was a 20% discount. It has filled a very obvious gap where I had cut back a flopped Californian poppy and the purple of the flowers absolutely glows and looks even better because it is planted beside a Heuchera with deep red- purple leaves.

Tea has been made and eaten - a spicy risotto with turkey breast, frozen mixed veg. and curry paste, and now I am yawning . . .

I hope it will stay fine tomorrow morning as there is a Fleamarket on down on the showground, and that is always so much better than the actual Antiques Fairs they have. I am hoping to find some Henry Williamson books of course . . .

Deep breaths . . . and Henry Williamson

Flowers from my garden:



I have given myself the afternoon off. I am so sick of housework and Doing Things and I need a break. Plus one of the books I ordered for a penny from Amazon has arrived, so I have been sitting down reading it.

My bedtime reading recently has been a Henry Williamson novel I picked up (in a falling-apart paperback) in my travels. It is called The Dream of Fair Women and was first published in 1924, and is part of a tetrology under the encompassing title of The Flax of Dreams, which comprised: The Beautiful Years (1921), Dandelion Days (1922), The Dream of Fair Women (1924) and The Pathway (1928). The book I am reading feels autobiographical to a degree, certainly the character of Willie Maddison is a complex one, as was Williamson's.

He wrote a 15-book series of what are claimed to be largely auto-biographical novels A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight which tell the life of Phillip Maddison. For more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Williamson I can see I have a lot MORE books to be searching for now when I browse at car boot sales and charity shops and book shops . . . The latter series has just been reprinted, but at around £15 a book I think I will have to wait for books to turn up 2nd hand.

Is anyone else a Henry Williamson fan? It is a shame he is a forgotten author, apart from his works Tarka the Otter and Salar the Salmon. But perhaps no great surprise since he was a supporter of Oswald Mosely and an admirer of Hitler! His Fascism was ever held against him.

He was a contemporary of some of the writers I find so fascinating, having met Hardy right at the end of his life (Hardy might have been an Animal Rights activist had he lived today, as he took a dim view of Otter Hunting and told Williamson so), and corresponded with T E Lawrence, with whom he had a long friendship until the latter's death.

Attic view of my Kiftsgate rose as it has finally made it to freedom at the top of the Hawthorn tree in the corner of the garden.

Cothay Manor - the gorgeous gardens

A picture paints a thousand words . . . and I'm tired tonight, so just enjoy . . .

Cothay Manor

All these beautiful flowers were spilling over a big stone urn . . .

In our house hunting, we stopped in the idyllic village of Curry Mallet. This is the Manor House - just our sort of property!


This looks like a gigantic baptismal font . . .

A glimpse of the beautiful gardens.


This would have suited us down to the ground too. Recently on the market by the look of things, as it was being re-thatched and the garden had been flattened as recently very overgrown.


On Friday we killed two birds with one stone and combined a day out at Cothay Manor Antiques Fair with house-hunting, and viewed 3 properties whilst we were in Somerset. We had a complimentary ticket to get in the Antiques Fair, so we got to see the fabulous interior of the house as well as the gardens. I can honestly say, had we the money, and were the property for sale, we would move in tomorrow!!!

The gardens were absolutely amazing too, and I now long for some huge stone urns to plant up as they had - spilling over with sweet peas and all manner of beautiful flowers. I will do a special posting of just the gardens, and can only say, if you have the chance, visit Cothay - you won't regret it.







The houses to view were an interesting mixture. We were told, the moment we arrived at the first property, that it was now under offer . . . Just what you love to hear when you have travelled all the way from Wales to view it! It would have suited me, on my own, as it was a smallholding, and the neighbour over the lane sold eggs, home made jam and marmalade and garden produce - I just knew we would get on! OH didn't care for it at all - cottage was too small unless you added an extension(he had a point - OK for us but no room for the larger pieces of our furniture!), but the views from the land across the Somerset levels were amazing. I'd get no work done . . .

The next house was big enough, had a nice atmosphere, and had a fabulous garden (similar plantings to mine, but more formal, and how I envied her Banksia rose) but the compromise was the closeness of the M5, and sadly that was too big a compromise especially as the house needed re-rendering and chimney work done by the look of things . . .

The final property was the "sensible option" for us approaching-geriatrics, as it was a nearly new barn conversion, the end property and with a bigger garden overlooking fields. It had a fabulous kitchen, and was nicely presented, BUT when I asked if the land around was green belt, the agent had to confess it wasn't and indeed, there was further building work scheduled the other side of the courtyard. Sigh.

At least we have ironed out some more compromises which we would accept (attached properties if the right sort, and much newer property with character) and those we wouldn't (too small though in lovely spot, and proximity to motorway). Until you actually view, you can't know for sure what you will compromise on.

Anyway, I have finally got the area by the front gate just about planted up (two new beds). I went a bit mad yesterday and got a HUGE Fuschia to fill a gap and give instant colour, and a lovely red Achillea with yellow centres to each flower, which backs up the Fuschia and compliments it. I bunged in a couple of dozen Stocks which were still languishing in small pots too. Then we had several hours of rain which watered everything in, and this morning we are back to gorgeous sunshine again.

I think this could be Raubritter though it seems like a climber rather than a scrambler which Raubritter is meant to be. One for the next garden methinks . . .

De-cluttering . . .

I overdid it with the painting this morning, as I had to tackle the ceiling in the Utility room(s) - one bit leads into another bit and they are as much bung-it places as a Utility. Not smart or anything - they're just THERE! Anyway, my old neck problem flared up and beause I had compressed something with the looking up and putting my arm up to paint, I got a stonking tension headache. I had to decamp to the other junk room, where I have now cleared, tidied and put away in good order what SHOULD be in the stationary cupboard . . .

In the course of my sorting, I came across all sorts of stuff I'd ever forgotten we had kept. Old letters from penpals (binned); old photographs of my kids taken about 12 years ago (D looked about 8 and so wee!) I found his Pokemon-training certificate (!!!) and just about every Easter and Christmas card they'd ever made at Junior school, and school projects (What I did in the Holidays) and the many drawings T had made of ladies in beautiful period ball gowns . . . (All kept). Somewhere in my sentimental box, I have a letter to Santa from one of my girls, imploring him not to give her sister anything for Christmas as she was being HORRID!!

I found the coloured paper that they used to make collages with; the pencil case made in DT using some flash computer-sewing-machine imagery for the motif; the top of a spear that my OH made for D; the crabbing lines we used to use on holiday; brochures for all sorts of historical attractions we'd planned to visit - many of them from our Scottish holidays back in the 90s.

I gave up about 3 o'clock as I was so weary and achey. Working double time yesterday didn't help as I spent 6 hours preparing fruit for cooking for the freezer, plus getting the peppers thinly sliced. I got 20 peppers (red or yellow) for £1; box of (7 lbs) small peaches (£1) and 2 boxes (11 pounds) of apricots (£2) as they needed using up FAST, and the freezer is now bulging, but gosh, preparing all that took forever.



I even polished up a battered old Victorian brass jam pan, and planted it up with two reduced potted flowers from T*sco . . .



Yesterday was also when our son returned from Denmark, where he'd gone to the Roskilde Music Festival with a couple of mates. He came home browner, leaner and more bearded than when he left . . .