Cornwall and back again - eight nights is enough away!

I've just spent a week in Cornwall and am pleased to be home in Brittany again.  The weather was misty, drizzly and grey there, and this afternoon here it is hot enough to sit out and read a book in a short-sleeved t-shirt - lovely!  Twenty-five degrees at 3.00pm and my arms are red.

I read on the boat going over, which was quite a choppy voyage, and finished the Olive Harvest which I really enjoyed.   My friend, June, from England had been staying for seven days with me and we travelled back together after a lovely week.  I dropped her off at the Derriford Travel Lodge, whose car park entrance was frustratingly difficult to find, and then set off to stay with family in St Austell.

My oldest son let me stay at his house and this was my view from my bedroom/his office window one morning, with my old green Land Rover parked in the front.

To be frank, I felt pretty ropey while I was away and found it even more difficult to eat than I had here.  The second day we went, with friends and my grandson to The China House in Plymouth to have a 4.30pm meal - they serve all day.  I managed an onion ring and as the service was very slow it was a long sitting.

I completed two other books, mostly before I slept at night or when I woke, too early to disturb other people.  The first Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale, was a beautifully written book and I really enjoyed the way it was put together.

The second was another Anita Shreve book, Light on Snow, which I enjoyed too.

On the way home I started yet another paperback, which I have now left under my spare pillow, in case I can get into the habit of reading myself to sleep instead of watching television - it's Jodie Picoult's  Harvesting the Heart.  I don't feel like going upstairs to take a photo of it - maybe next posting.

When I got home and my worker/friend had unloaded all the stuff I seem to accumulate when I'm back in the UK, he broke some bad news.  A heron had been down and eaten all my fish.  There were twenty-seven fish, mainly quite large goldfish.  My neighbour has a pond the other side of the wall from mine and she had frequently in the past lost her fish, but for some reason they had ignored mine until now.  While I was looking out of the window this morning I suddenly realised that a heron had landed on the wall of the pond.  He/she flew off to a tree top before I laid hands on my camera.  You can just see the heron's silhouette in the second photograph.

I found it amazing that it could sit on what looks like such a weak branch/twig and lovely to see - I just wish that fish wasn't a priority on its menu.

It has been so lovely out in the garden this afternoon and on the east side of the terrace I saw a lovely combination of a newly flowered delphinium - in October! - and the holly with red berries.

It was my daughter's 24th birthday while I was back in Cornwall and she spent the evening with a friend and my son and I babysat.  She is beautiful and still only looks about eighteen, often getting asked for identity when buying alcohol.

My neighbour popped in this afternoon to tell me that her third grandchild is imminent - her daughter-in-law's waters have broken - very exciting!

Three things I like:

1.  Spending time with the family and coming back home again.

2.  The peace here in my garden.

3.  My cats sitting down with me to be stroked while I watch television.

Tuesday - Hot, hot, hot ....

Sitting outside under the pergola by the pond was just beautiful yesterday afternoon.   There are still pink roses and a few honeysuckle blossoms climbing up the wooden posts, and the vine and wisteria are romping across the wires on the "ceiling" of the pergola. The sky was so blue and without a single cloud.  The light was filtering through the vine leaves making them look like lime green hanging lights.  Every now and then there was a sound like a gun shot.  It was acorns falling off the oak tree in the corner of the garden which were landing on the slate roof of the wood shelter – hard to believe how loud they were.  There seem to be far more acorns this year than ever before – it’s a shame I don’t still keep pigs.

The log shed has a very shallow slated roof and the slates were ones we reused from the tiny house which became the garage.

I read loads of my current book, which is The Olive Farm by the actress Carol Drinkwater, (she was Christopher Timothy's wife in "All Creatures Great and Small") who moved to a ruined farm with olive trees in Provence years and years ago.

 

There are other books which follow this one and I think I’ve finally accumulated them from ebay and charity shops. I’m really enjoying it, she has a lovely style of writing.

A very good friend is coming by train from Paris to St Brieuc on Thursday.  She’s been staying with friends there and is now coming to me for a week’s holiday.  The weather is so amazing – 25 degrees at lunchtime today – and apparently getting hotter as the week progresses.  She was my first ever tenant in my London house in 1969 and we’ve remained friends ever since.

It's now Wednesday, and I've been sitting outside again all morning and have finished my book and started the next in the series "The Olive Season".  I've come in for more ice for my drink and because I need a break from the sun for a few minutes while I check my emails.

There are wasps trying to nest in one of the bird boxes on the house wall.  Yesterday my worker, Andy, sprayed fly spray into the box to deter them, but they are back in full force today. 

I think we'll have to take them down - there are four - none of which have ever been used by birds.  Perhaps we can relocate them before Spring next year and be luckier with breeding birds.

The acorns continue to fall today.  There is slightly more breeze, but not a cool breeze, which is ruffling the leaves of the oak tree and encouraging the acorns to plunge down onto the woodshed roof.  The cats have stopped looking up now when they fall; they have become accustomed to the sound.

Just putting this photo in of the Japanese anemones which I love.

The only other sound is the pond water which is pumped round and then trickles down a monstrous rock which forms part of the wall of the pond.  From the rock it runs along a slate and falls into the pond, oxygenating the water for the fish.  I love summers here, although I suppose today, 28 September, can hardly still be called summer.  This weather is truly incredible - at 6.15pm I have had to come in for a few minutes respite from the heat.

Three things I like:

1.   The hot sun at this time of year.

2.   Friends coming to stay.

3.   Eating my own grapes straight from the vine.

Fresh morning, but hot days

The garden has been very neglected over the summer months as I wasn't well enough to do anything physical.   I'm afraid the veggie patch on the field and the polytunnel went the same way too.  However, you just can't stop some things and here are photos I took yesterday of the grapevine.

Yesterday we snipped off the leaves covering the bunches of grapes to allow the September sun to finishing ripening them.

In the border there were some interesting perennials which I had planted in the Springtime.

I can't remember what this last one is called and haven't been able to find it on the internet either up until now.

The veggie plot burgeoned with produce, but it was a bit like hacking through a jungle to reach the rewards.  Courgettes had grow to marrow size and most of these went to the hens.  Beetroot, runner beans, spinach and rhubarb have been prolific.  Red and white onions are now drying in the polytunnel and I'm still picking tomatoes and making sauce to go in the freezer.

Sometimes I think I never want to see another tomato!

I am torn between tidying up the flower garden and all the pots and leaving them for my friend, June, to see when she arrives  to stay in 13 days time.  I thought she could at least then get an impression of how lovely it's been, although many things are going over.  Amazingly the honeysuckle is still going after months of flowering and the roses are really lovely. 

Autumn suddenly seemed to arrive on Monday here.  It's been so hot this week during the day time, but the early mornings and nights are definitely cooler and fresher.  For three days running I have sat in the sunshine in the garden reading and have finished two books.

My next book is yet another by Anita Shreve entitled Sea Glass.  Hopefully, this morning's sunshine will last all day and I can make inroads into this one while enjoying the heat in the garden again.

Three things I like:

1.   The gravel being weed free again

2.   Chatting with my neighbour in the lane

3.   Seeing the pile of books I have yet to read

Back again - after a long break

I haven’t written on here for ages, since I started another blog about my mini gastric bypass.  Mainly because of the MGB, I haven’t felt like blogging much and haven’t done anything except stay at home or go to the supermarket, so that doesn’t make desperately interesting reading.  I still don’t feel brilliant and eating is not easy at all, but I have managed to lose 44lbs/20kgs in eight weeks, so I’m pretty pleased with that.  I was 143.1 kilos when I took this photo, ten minutes before I left for the hospital. 

Yesterday, eight weeks later, I am 123.1 kilos.  It may not look vastly different in the photo, but it certainly feels different.

I had the usual problems with my drip, which ended up being put in my neck in a horrible procedure off the ward.

Because I wasn't at all well when I came home, in fact I was eventually readmitted for another seven days, friends asked my daughter, with grandson, to come and be with me.  After readmission, I wasn't well at all, my son also arrived. 

Here they all are playing on the Wii.

This is Charlie on my hospital bed and in the pool in the garden.

They all took advantage of the pool - the water could have been a bit warmer.

Yesterday I watched as Daisy walked across the gravel to where I was sitting reading in the sunshine.  Although her walk wasn’t wrong the shape of her collar was.  I went over to her and on picking her up discovered she had a leg completely through the collar.  It didn’t seem to be bothering her and she made a tremendous fuss when I pulled her leg through.  She’s had that collar on for a year now and nothing like that has ever happened before.  Purrdy also now has a red flea collar and has kept that on with no hassle.  With previous cats, I have never been able to keep a collar on them.  Sometimes the cats have managed to get rid of them within an hour.  I think they use tree twigs to catch them and then wriggle out of them. 

I am thinking of putting a bell on Purrdy’s collar.  She is still very young but is an adept bird catcher.  I came downstairs to find her munching on a thrush, and while I was in the garden reading this morning, she jumped nearly the height of the wall by the pond and landed with a bird in her mouth which, much to her annoyance, I managed to retrieve and it flew away unharmed.  Alfie seems to have recoved well from his eye removal in spite of still have a tumour in his head. 

Here is a little visitor who flew into the windowpane.  I was able to release him after 15 minutes of comforting.  My bird expert friend, Roy, thinks it is a young reed warbler.

 My grandson, Charlie, has started school for the first time.  He seems to be enjoying it and hasn’t had a detention yet.  He looks lovely in his uniform – a combination of vulnerable and grown up, in spite of the silly face he’s making.  

Three things I like:

1.   Being back home

2.   Having the family here

3.   Losing weight so fast