K's latest woodworking project and sunbathing cats, and a small garden roundup

A bit of a garden round up.  These beautiful Irises flower down at mum's (and I have some in the top garden too).  They are more purple than this but the camera insists it sees them bright blue!

Pretty pansies down at mum's, growing in an old cast iron pig trough.

This vigorous rambler, Rosa Bamksia normalis, also grows down at mum's.  It has a lovely perfume.  The recent gales sent it tumbling from its moorings and we need to put in some more vine-eyes and wire and get it back in place.

The cool air (due to the ever-present strong winds, mainly from the N-W) has allowed my Aquilegias to carry on blooming.

I took more photos, to show different petal types, but they were too blurred too use.  Much worse than this blurry one.

I love the deep purpley-black ones, and the William Guinness which have a white centre.

This is one of the things we bought recently, prior to my dear friend Annie's worldly possessions going to auction and finding new homes (much of the rest is in an auction today which we are going to).  This was a work in progress which, sadly, her late husband never got a chance to finish.  It is a solid Yew table.  The top is a slice of a huge old Yew tree, the the two supports, slices of a large bough.  It needs a little rejiggling, my husband says, so he has been dedicating his spare time this week to doing just that.  One hot afternoon we had to bring it into mum's cool kitchen, as the wood was starting to dry out alarmingly.  It will look stunning once it is finished, and will be a "forever" piece of furniture for us to enjoy and remind us of Annie and Mick whenever we look at it.

With those natural holes in it, the style is very reminiscent of George Nakashima table.

The reclaimed bit of the herbaceous border.  All garden thugs removed to a depth of 8", apart from to the right of the Graham Thomas rose . . .  Work in progress.

A bevy of sunbathing cats for you.  Fluff, who had got Too Hot, in the shade at the edge of the main pond.

Her sister Lucy, who can never be Too Hot.  As she gets older her silver undercoat (which she got from her black mum, who had it too) is turning her very grey indeed.  She and Fluff are 18 now.

Ghengis has it right - head in the shade.

Amber is happy with dappled shade. She's 17 or so now too . . .

Work still to do.  This is meant to be a clear gravel path in the paddock plot . . .

The other side of the paddock plot, where OH has obligingly mown for me.  But lots of trimming round the young fruit trees and the Bay tree at the end, and the overgrown bed to the right.

Ah well, onwards and upwards I suppose.

A weekend away in Hampshire, now with extra photos

As you know, I was heading off to Hampshire on Friday to stay with my best friend Tricia as it was her birthday at the weekend.  We had a lovely day out at Exbury Gardens.  Lots of photos, rather than words this time.

Sadly, we were too late for most of the Azaleas and some of the Rhododendrons.

Cue the music from Jaws - some of these coi carp were HUGE.

This was a deeper colour when not in a photograph.

From the front, the house looked unoccupied, with no real signs of life.

Under the portico at the back, however, there was a table and chairs just begging for someone to go and have Pimms and nibbles.

The view across the lawns, with the smudged horizon of the Isle of Wight in the distance.

The view in the opposite direction.

Isn't this lovely?

Have wheels, will travel! My best friend Tricia and her husband John.  We had walked about a mile earlier, Trish with her little push trolley, and so after a lovely picnic lunch we let Trish put her feet up.

White Wisteria.  I want one!

Drumstick Primulas putting on a lovely display.

There were several beautiful lakes.

Finally we reached The Point, and had a view across the salt marshes to the Beaulieu river.  The last time I was here was with my mum, about 30 years ago.  It hadn't been on the main route or opened up as it was now, and it was quiet enough that we disturbed a Stoat, which ran across the grass for cover in the nearby bushes.

What a lovely spot for a - lovely - house.

We sat for a while beside this lovely pond.  The reflections were wonderful and it was just so peaceful there.

Very Impressisonist.

Beautiful paeonies in the garden centre at the end.  Just as well I didn't travel by car or I'd have spent a fortune here!

Away for the weekend

Sorry to have been quiet this week, but it's been another busy few days here.  Tomorrow I am off on the train down to Southampton to stay with my best friend.  It's her birthday this weekend, so I wanted to try and make it extra-special for her.

We bought a few more things at auction yesterday and this morning I was cleaning a couple of pieces up:

I'll admit that this metamorphic high chair has seen better days.  I gave it a good scrub off with soapy water and was in the middle of taking the old rubbish off the back,p rior to putting some new and decent wipe-clean oil cloth in its place.  Behind the chair are two WWII gas masks and a big Naval spotlight in a box.  No room in the Unit at the moment though so I need to juggle things around in the house or it will look like Steptoe's Cave!

Not a very good photo, but enough to show that it's an old spinning wheel, long past its best.  We will clean it up, renovate as far as possible, but it will just be for display only.

This one looks better already as it's been tarted up a bit in the past.  I think these are probably European, but I love the fact that they have been used for generations and this 2nd one has such a lovely design.

All of them needed treating for old woodworm holes, a precaution only as there was no live worm evident.  I'd rather they were hole-free but hey-ho, it's part of their history.

Anyway, see you early next week.

Hay Literary Festival last weekend

I spent Saturday at Hay Literary Festival and never having been before, I was looking forward to seeing what it was like.  Inside the complex of stands was this lovely gypsy vardo (for sale).  I'd love to have a holiday in one.  It would teach me to be Very Tidy I think!

My friend L has two children, B 9 and E 13.  Originally I was going to accompany E to the talk by Michael Morpurgo, but B decided he wanted to have me to himself all day, and so instead I accompanied him to Shaun the Sheep in the afternoon.  Whilst L and E were at their talk, B and I had a wander round, and came across this stand with some lovely sculptures.  The chickens above.

This lovely Greyhound.

These rats were my favourites, for their bright knowing eyes.  Lots of other nice things there, but way beyond my purse.

I was very good and limited myself to just two purchases:  a present for a friend, and a copy of Castles and Moated Sites of Herefordshire and believe it or not, I actually wouldn't let myself buy that first time round, but then B talked me into it!

I really didn't know quite what to expect of the Shaun the Sheep "talk" but it was actually very good and although there were plenty of children present, it was aimed at the adults really, although the children did enjoy the clips from Shaun the Sheep tv programmes and the recent movie.  Peter Lord, who presented it was one of the co-founders of Aardman Animations (they are behind Wallace and Grommit, Shaun the Sheep, Creature Comforts, Morph etc.)  He was very interesting and showed us what went on behind the scenes.  I never realized that their sets were housed in a building the size of an aircraft hangar!

All in all, a nice change.  Then when my OH had picked me up, we got home to this:

The boy-cats were trying to pretend that one of them was a crack shot with an air rifle . . .

Aquilegias

In recent winters, I have lost some of my more unusual colours, and even managed to lose the nearly black Nora Barlows last winter.  The commonest colours are the toughest, it would seem.  This pretty pink and white one lives in a big pot and has survived to bring me pleasure yet again.

The very dark ones seem to be concentrated in the Yard, so I must sprinkle some of their seeds up in the pale pink area this year.

There used to be a lot of William Guinness here, but now there's just one on the right (dark with a white centre).

I have a few of the very pure white ones, which start off a yellowy limey colour, as seen between my fingers.

The palest of pinks with a lilac back to it.  I have plenty of these.

Tousled Norah Barlow-ish.

Some simple blue-purple ones here in the stoney garden.

They seed themselves everywhere, including in tiny cracks in concrete paths, where I haven't the heart to yank them out . . .

I love these deeper colours.

Almost black - sorry for the blurry look of out-of-focus camera.

Equally blurry lighter purple William Guinness.

Above and below, these are from around the patio down in what was my mum's garden.  Below: showing that you can get variations of flower on the same plant.

Finally, the last surviving one of my more exotic sorts - this is yellow.  It's in a big pot and they seem to do better that way.  A lot of the little pots which lost their occupant over the winter had small white grubs in and I think these had been eating the plant roots.

Sorry for a none-too-coherant posting but I feel brain-dead this morning and just want to go back to bed, to be honest!  I'll try and update this later.