Thpooky October

Pumpkin soup

Spooky Cathedral Close at night

My toady friend trying to get away from my over zealous speedy weeding

The ritual carving of the pumpkin 

In October I mostly:

- was bitten by midges on the head whilst gardening

- started wearing my attractive boiler suit to work

- did lots of charity shopping

- listened to Radio 4, especially like Desert Island Discs and Woman's Hour

- started knitting a scarf

- raked leaves, planted bulbs, cut back shrubs and acquired rock hard biceps

- spotted a cattle egret next to the cows in the field behind the bungalow!

- made curried carrot soup and pumpkin soup

I loved the Helianthus in our front garden

Lots of colour still around

Sunny dog walks,

admiring nature

and trying to find Eddie's ball in the leaves

I made coffee muffins with Esme.  

I even dragged her on a walk!

Frank has been good

and bad!

A new venture for us was a trip to the Bournemouth 'Arts by the Sea Festival'.  

The 'Cockatoo Art Bar' 

- a 1965 Morris ambulance with a revolving birdcage on top for spontaneous shows

A solar powered cinema!

The 'Umbrella Tree'.  A moving installation set to slightly eerie music.

'Kitsch & Sync' were a quirky dance, theatre and performance company

They were hilarious

A member of the audience got roped in to the show!

This installation was made out of drinking straws

and the 8 metre long 'Message in a bottle' by Lulu Quinn was made from recycled bottles that had been washed up on the beach

After having a dance to one of the live bands and a go on the fruit machines we strolled down to the beach to watch the sun set

Such fun!

Lots of people were admiring the extra gorgeous sunset caused by sand from the Sahara in the atmosphere 

Bit overcast but still love the view of Gold Hill in Shaftesbury

where we had great fun with our friend Basil snurging around the charity shops

Ooh, sun has come out!

This was a charity shop haul from Wilton - I adore my new tartan waistcoat and don't care if it makes me look like someone from 'Monarch of the Glen'

We have had the usual autumn fog - Eddie?

But on the whole it was very mild

I'm off in to the sunset for a blog break now to knit my scarf, read my many books, light the fire and batten down the hatches for winter.......

Ta ra for now!

'Soon there will be three souls in the house: himself, his dog, his hawk.  The thought thrills him.  He loves this house.  He calls it his workman's cottage, his badger's sett, his refuge.  Outside, light and leaf shadows move on the high grey gables.....'

                                                                                  - 'H is for Hawk' by Helen Macdonald

Purple May

In the garden:

Clematis 'Niobe'

Chives

Allium

Queen of the Night tulip

Last month I mostly -

- Looked like a French peasant - a customer's description of me, not mine.  I was aiming for this look.

- Drank flasks of coffee in lay-bys

- Watched half a play and went on half a city walk.  Life is too short to be bored.

- Heard a cuckoo

- Caught a bus for the first time in years

- Discovered the roof leaked

- Won half a bottle of prune juice at the village Spring Fayre

- Was doped up on Piriton for heat rash and tried not to fall asleep whilst mowing someone's lawn

May was a very jazzy month.  Clare Teal was fab as always in the Salisbury Festival and we were the youngest members of the audience at the Swing Unlimited Big Band concert at the lovely Regent Centre in Christchurch.

The Regent Centre is a restored 1930's art deco cinema

The runner beans, courgettes and broad beans are now in the veggie patch

It is nice to have empty window sills again!

Sarah took up golf which meant that I could visit the club house - yeah!  Why do I like club houses and working men's clubs?  Weird.

The High Post Golf Club do a good range of chocolate

There are advantages to only having one car now.  I get to hang around odd places or old haunts whilst Sarah does stuff.  Apart from the golf club I have had an hour to wander around Lizzie Gardens as the sun goes down and people watch.  I had forgotten how lovely it is.

The Cathedral from Elizabeth Gardens

Water meadows

Lovely oak tree in the background

I used to sit here and muse as an angst ridden teenager - not attractive

You would hardly know you were in town - so peaceful

I enjoyed charity shopping last month.

My sister made a new friend in Oxfam in Devizes

and I bought a toast rack in the Cats Protection League shop in Melksham

Eddie has had lots of cuddles

and warily watched the cows in the field

We bought lots of plants at the village Spring Fayre.  We also won a bottle of wine on the tombola which we swapped with a fellow villager for a bottle of sherry.  We left the half drunk bottle of prune juice that we won at the village hall.....

Village Spring Fayre goodies

Eddie is getting used to me constantly taking photos

Top of the hill (and breathe.....)

That boy has so much energy

We have had lots of irises popping up in the garden

These English marigolds come up every year

The Lilac that we cut down has come back with a vengeance

We planted violas and they are still going strong

Esme showing off her wheels when her mother has to catch the bus!

We bought Eddie two new balls

The countryside is littered with lost balls

It has been unbearably hot some days in customers' gardens.

This was the day I got heat rash

Lots of customers have had amazing poppies

I quite like these orange pots too - oops, the boss is coming

I love this time of year with the long evenings

and the bluebells in Grovely Woods

The person who chops the wood in Grovely woods obviously has a sense of humour

The garden has been full with purple flowers.

Chives in the herb garden

Allium

Shaggy tulips

and bluebells

My favourite cow parsley is bursting from every bank and roadside.  I always feel like a prisoner that has just been released when spring finally arrives.  After all those dark, grey days of winter I want to run amok!

Yes!

Love that green and blue!

Bring me more!

Eddie come back!

Eddie likes the better weather too.

I am back to snurging in hedgerows with my camera, trying to keep one eye on the dog.

Hedge Woundwort on the left

Ground Ivy on the right

- Hedge Woundwort has an unpleasant smell (believe me, it really does), solid square stems of up to three feet and was once used to make plasters and ointments, hence its name.

- Ground Ivy is a creeping, hairy perennial from the mint family.  It is used as a salad green in some countries (must try it) and has been used medicinally for thousands of years.  It can be rinsed and steeped in hot water to make tea (must try that too).  It was used by Saxons in brewing beer, hence its other names 'alehoof' and 'gill-over-the-ground'.  It is toxic to cattle and horses.

As you can see I am always loitering at the back and running to keep up with these two!

Well, June has been pretty cold and wet so far (admit to putting the heating on a couple of times!) so I've got time to read my new Robert McFarlane book and fan my heat rash a bit.

'To know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime's experience.  In the world of poetic experience it is depth that counts, not width.  A gap in a hedge, a smooth rock surfacing a narrow lane, a view of a woody meadow, the stream at the junction of four small fields - these are as much as a man can fully experience.'

- Patrick Kavanagh 1904-1967 (from 'Landmarks' by Robert McFarlane)