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

Cats, Mussels and a Castle

As I finished my book yesterday, I have dug out the book club book I have to read next, which is A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly.  This year we chose to read the TV Book Club books from the previous year, partly because it is easier than everyone trying to get to a unanimous decision on a myriad of novels and partly because they are heavily discounted throught the TV Book Club. 

We added three other random books to make up the necessary amount, to take us through the whole year, but I couldn't get hold of this month’s book,  Hold Tight by Harlan Coben, so shan't be reading that.  However, I won’t be recovered enough to go to July's group meeting anyway so that’s worked out well.

There’s no meeting in August as so many people are away or have guests staying. So I shall be well in time for the September meeting.

Another quite sunny day here with a tiny bit of breeze after a misty start. I hadn't seen the weather forecast, but optimistically hung out the washing and it's drying well.  I have one of those brilliant ceiling airers in the kitchen, so can always dry things overnight without a problem whatever the weather.

The cats finally woke up from there sleep on a settee, and I sat out watching them playing in the garden, while I ate a late breakfast of crispy bacon, fried bread and fried tomatoes and taking a few photographs.

A pair of pink poppies and single poppy in the driveway, and opposite the poppies marigolds.

It was lucky that the washing dried by just after lunch, as it suddenly poured with rain, really hard, like stair rods, and then just as quickly stopped again.  The weather has been very strange for the last few weeks.  Hard to know what it's going to do from hour to hour.

I cut back the delphinium that had been so wonderful from April to June, to a few stalks at the end of June, and it is already shooting again.  I wonder if I'll have more of those fantastic flower spikes later this year.

This evening Moules Marinière is on the menu for supper.  I make it with mussels, chopped shallots or onions, garlic, Muscadet wine, parsley, seasoning and a good tub of full cream.  Here are the ingredients set out ready for me to start cooking.

This was a meal which my children loved from an early age, and when I lived in Cornwall we used to pick mussels, each filling a small popcorn bucket with the lovely purple shells,  from the rocks on Porthluney beach just below the wonderful Caerhays Castle, owned and lived in by the Williams family. 

The Williams family were responsible for many of the new camellia varieties in the last century and some of these wonderful plants are in the castle grounds.  They also have Highland cattle in the grounds too, with  huge horns and wonderful dark rust coloured coats which gleam like burnished copper in the sunshine.