Make hay while the sun shines

The rain has finally arrived but I made the most of the beautiful weather last week.

Last week I was mostly -

Studying the moon

Chasing butterflies

Dancing in the kitchen to Benny Goodman whilst cleaning the fridge

Listening to Woman's Hour on Radio 4

Making picnics

Drinking Pimms with home-grown strawberries 

Doing Yoga in the sitting room to George Michael whilst being nudged by a Big (hairy) Dog

Wednesday -

Ez and I took Big Dog on an evening walk.

This hat has been waiting for it's owner for quite a while

A hot, mellow evening

Big Dog cooled down in the river

We saw a water vole on the way home!  Shame the photo didn't come out

Thursday -

We decided (at nearly half past nine) to walk to the local pub, much to the excitement of Esme and the dog. Ooooh, and I found a bargain in a charity shop.  Sarah hates it when strange objet d'art appear in the house.  Luckily this one passed the test and can stay!

It looks cute in our new turquoise downstairs loo

So much happiness for £2!

We are now eating runner beans and courgette with everything!

Raw peas - yum

Friday -

My usual Friday walk was supposed to be a short one but as usual I got side-tracked and wandered off.  I stopped at Lorenzo's Trail on the way home from school at about 8.30am and didn't get home for breakfast until 10am!  Ooops.  Once the few pre-work dog walkers disappeared we were totally alone.  I must have walked through every cobweb that morning though, agh!

 

Beautiful trees, the odd Buzzard circling above us and peace - what more could a girl (and dog) want

I had to bury my big hooter in this Honeysuckle and have a good sniff

Lorenzo Trail is a walk we used to do regularly but as we emerged from the trees I realised that I had never walked it during such hot, dry weather and seen everything so golden and soft in colour.  

I'd forgotten how good the view was from here

I didn't see a soul.  Just me, Big Dog and hundreds of butterflies

Top left - Five-spot Burnet Moth

Bottom left - Marbled White

Bottom right - Small Tortoiseshell

Burcombe punch bowl

That dog is such a poser!

We could just see Salisbury Cathedral in the hazy distance

I love this time of year as I have a passion for seed-heads.  I like architectural, simple shapes and this is why I adore the work that designers Angie Lewin and Orla Kiely produce.

www.angielewin.co.uk

www.orlakiely.com

Poppy seed heads on the veggie patch

My sweet peas have been making lovely shapes too, bless their little tendrils.....

Sarah also decided to get rid of some debris (we have a lot of debris) so we all smelt like kippers by the end of the night.  It was great watching the fire with a beer and crisps at eleven o'clock at night.

Sarah likes to burn 'stuff'.

Saturday -

Ez helped me make biccies - I had severe baking withdrawal symptoms. 

Buttery, syrupy oat biscuits

 

 

Oat Biscuits

 

100g plain flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

100g rolled oats

100g butter

100g caster sugar

1 tablespoon golden syrup

 

Heat oven to 150 degrees C.  Sift flour and soda into a bowl, mix in oats.  Dissolve butter, sugar & syrup over a low heat, then stir in to dry ingredients.  Put teaspoons of the mixture on greased baking sheets, bake in centre of oven for 15-20 minutes.  Leave to cool for only a few seconds, then loosen with a palette knife and cool on a wire rack.  So easy and delicious!



Sunday -

A picnic in Grovely Woods.

I'd love to renovate this overgrown, deserted house and live in the woods.

Followed by a lazy lie on the grass in Lizzie Gardens whilst the dulcet tones of Salisbury Big Band wafted over us.

We had to keep chucking Big Dog in the river to distract her from sniffing people's picnics!

In the evening we had a BBQ (with Pimms).  We've never had so many BBQ's.

One very large, round shape we have been studying on these long balmy evenings is the moon.  Esme's telescope is held together with selotape though which makes star gazing a bit tricky.

 

Big Dog with scary eyes......

Monday -

Our friend Ele gave me a brick.  She has just moved to a smaller house and has given us terracotta pots, a cold frame, plants, tools etc....  V kind.

I'm quite proud of my brick.  It has pride of place in my alpine garden.

Wednesday -

I used some of Ele's lovely terracotta plant pots to re-pot my cacti.

Re-potted cacti (and new floor)

They add to the Mexican cafe feel in our Dining Room (Arriba, Arriba)

Thursday -

Cloud watching

We ate our first 'green tint patty pan squash'.

It looked like a spaceship but tasted and cooked like courgette.  V yummy.

Not bad for a free packet of seeds stuck to a magazine!

Lazy, hazy days of summer

OK, this is getting silly.

31 degrees now and I have ceased to function.

I have to do everything    r e a l l y   s l o w l y....... The ground is baked hard, the greenhouse at the weekend was 46 degrees and rising.  The thermometer stops at 50!   This weather is fine if you are lying by a pool with a book (how dull) but I want to go on my usual long, brisk dog walks, garden, stir pans of bubbling chutney, bake fragrant cakes, move furniture around and sleep!  Alas, the heat is showing me up for what I am - a pale, freckly, blonde eyebrowed, factor 30 wearing Anglo-Saxon with heat rash.

This week I have been mostly -

Listening to Radio 4
Studying weeds
Sitting in pub gardens with a pint of ale whilst insects nibble on my lower limbs
Drinking herbal tea
Making salads
Lurking in the library
Reading
Eating strawberries and ice-cream in bed

Wednesday -

Esme made a scarecrow for the veggie patch

Meet Tom

Thursday -

I strung up the garlic, poured spuds in to a hessian sack and hung some herbs to dry

Oregano and Sage

Friday -

A hot walk involving me walking up this hill twice - Big Dog got bored of me constantly stooping to photograph wild flowers and decided to go AWOL for nearly 30 minutes!

Bind weed - or as we called it when we were kids, 'Granny-pop-out-of-bed'

Scotch Thistle - makes me think of tartan and shortbread

Groundsel

Why are smells so evocative?  I love the sweet, lemon sherbet smell of Groundsel.  One sniff of this rather unassuming weed and I am a child again, standing on the gravel drive at Villee Farm, my grandparent's house.  The memories come flooding back......

- flocks of starlings at dusk

- orange twine

- cows lolling over the dry stone wall at the end of the garden

- the organ in the freezing cold front room that we never sat in

- being frightened by the ghostly sound of the wind through the front door keyhole 

- watching Grampy smooth Brylcreem on his hair, his braces hanging down and his shirt sleeves rolled up

- Nanny standing a loaf of bread on it's end, buttering it and then slicing it sideways!  She could peel an apple in one too.

Grampy (on the right)

Me and Grampy (good 1980's hairdo!)

Ragwort

Mallow

This is common on roadsides and waste places, especially in the South

Small Bindweed

Bindweed kills plants by twining  itself around them and always twists anti-clockwise.  

Wall Lettuce?  Not sure......

Field Scabious

This plant likes dry, chalky soil.  It has other more romantic names:

- Bachelor's Buttons

- Lady's Cushion

- Pins and Needles

In early days it was thought to cure scabies.   It was also thought by herbalists to be a remedy for skin complaints ranging from wounds and sores to dandruff and unwanted freckles!    

May weed

Persian Speedwell

Scarlet Pimpernel

This tiny plant prefers chalky soil and closes it's flowers when rain is approaching.  Hence, it's other name:

- Poor Man's Weather Glass

Friday - 

Lunch with my wilting weeds in a jar

In the afternoon I met up with Maisie (middle chick) for tea and cake at my favourite cafe in Salisbury, Fisherton Mill Gallery.  Entering the Gallery for me is like being in a sweet shop......  So much eye candy and a feast for the senses.  Sumptuous scarves, tactile earthenware, unusual jewellery, hand made leather bags - I can dream......

www.plainartssalisbury.co.uk

www.frombritainwithlove.com

www.destinationsalisbury.co.uk

Maisie had chocolate brownie and home made lemonade

On returning home I ironed with the curtains shut (nice and coooool.....) and listened to a great programme that I had recorded on the radio, all about this place - Shakespeare and Company.  It's a book shop on the Left Bank in Paris and a place I would like to visit on my 'bucket list'.  Some of my favourite authors have stayed here seeking peace and inspiration - Jeanette Winterson and Anais Nin to name a couple.

Throughout the programme, you could hear the tinkle of customers playing on the bookshop's piano.

From the programme blurb -

Stuart Maconie travels to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop in a bid to understand how a winding, twisting, bohemian bookstore in Paris has become a draw for generations of writers.

Since its beginnings in 1919, Shakespeare and Company has played host to an extraordinary range of authors. James Joyce and the Lost Generation of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein communed, borrowed books and exchanged ideas in the original shop founded by Sylvia Beach.

A bookshop dedicated to empowering writers, it was Sylvia Beach who first published James Joyce's Ulysses. George Whitman took up this mantle in 1951 and attracted the writers of the Beat Generation including Allen Ginsberg, William S Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Anais Nin, and Henry Miller. In a rare interview, Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti speaks to Stuart Maconie about his relationship with George Whitman.

It was not just these famous authors who worked, slept, ate and loved in this "socialist utopia masquerading as a bookstore". Stuart Maconie meets with Sylvia Whitman, daughter of the former owner, to discover the lives of the 30,000 aspiring writers called Tumbleweeds who have found shelter among the books.

Professor Andrew Hussey OBE discusses the bookshop's contemporary cultural contribution. In a literary landscape dominated by digital downloads, Stuart Maconie investigates if this labyrinth of bookish treasures can remain culturally relevant or if it has become a museum to its past.

www.bbc.co.uk

www.europeantrips.org

 A cosy nook for a 'Tumbleweed'.  A customer once screamed when she stumbled on a body asleep in the art section!

www.miragebookmark.ch

I can't think of anything better than snuggling under the covers at Shakespeare and Company.

I'm off to dream of dusty bookshops...

Feeling hot, hot, hot!

27 degrees all week - phew!  

My rose garden

On my 6.30 am morning dog walk - I have been wearing shorts! 

No wet dog towels, wellies, socks, waterproofs, torches - just get up, put on the sun glasses (and clothes) and go.  Big Dog stops half way up the hill now and just stares at me as I walk on a bit further.  I think the walk is more for my benefit now than hers.

Everything is suddenly going mad in the garden with all the sun we've been having.  Garlic, spuds, broad beans, strawberries all ready now and more lettuce than we can eat.  Sarah was pulling spuds last night at 10pm in the dark.  I found her rooting around in the earth with 'Barber's Adagio' playing on her little portable radio.  Mad woman.

It's so hot in our south facing garden when I get home from my air conditioned office (set to a cool 18 degrees) that my life now feels back to front and inside out.  I do indoor jobs early evening and then gardening and walking the dog at nine, ten o'clock at night.

It's too hot for baking.  Instead, we've been gardening, eating ice-cream cornets on the patio and having BBQ's.  I still can't believe we are having a proper summer at last.  It feels like the 1970's! 

Chalke Valley History Festival -

www.cvhf.org.uk

We saw three different speakers.  We also had tea and cake, 1940's style, in an old canvas tent served by girls wearing dungarees and knotted head scarves.

'The Great Escape' with Guy Walters - about the 80 Allied prisoners who tunnelled under Stalag Luft in March 1944.

'The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler' with Laurence Rees - he discussed how it was possible for this man to exert such powerful influence over the people who encountered him.

'The Spy Who Loved' with Clare Mulley - loved this talk.  It was fascinating learning about Christine Granville who became Britain's first female secret agent during WWII and how fearless she was.  I am keen to learn more about this daring woman.

www.cvhf.org.uk

We didn't need tickets to the History Festival air show as the planes flew straight over our garden!  Oooh, the drone of Spitfires, Hurricanes.....  Gives me goose bumps.

www.cvhf.org.uk

Big Dog and I have had many, many hot sunny walks over the last ten days.  There seem to be more poppies this year.  The grasses and crops are already turning a soft golden colour.

Monday:

Our usual walks look different, everything is so overgrown.  

Field Poppy

Hogweed or Cow Parsnip

Elderflower

Poppies on the veggie patch

Wednesday:

Rapeseed nearly over - no more hay fever

Thursday:  

We did what we call 'the circuit', an hour long walk.  It was very hot and sticky.

A carpenter must live here - spot the birdy

We admired the view over the barley fields

Hot dog

In to the cool

A clear view for miles 

My horizons are always wonky - I think I must have one leg longer than the other!

Friday: 

I decided to head for some shady woods!  I love the walks near the bungalow but the landscape is so open and baking hot at the moment.

We drove to Hare Warren, an old, much loved walk that we used to do before we moved to the bungalow. Hare Warren is a 300 acre woods.  During the 16th-century it was fenced off from the rest of the Wilton House parkland in order to preserve it for the hunting of the hare, hence it's name.   

I have always coveted this little wooden house, hidden in the trees

Welcome shade

Cool, cool, cool

A Monkey Puzzle Tree

Archibald Menzies, who was a botanist and naval surgeon, brought the first five saplings to the UK in 1795 and they were popular as Victorian park trees.  These trees rubbed shoulders with the dinosaurs 200 million years ago!  They can grow up to 130 feet tall and can live to 1,200 years old!  They are the national tree of Chile and the seeds (similar to pine nuts) are edible.  

 I can't get enough of trees.  Don't worry, I don't hug them.

What a scorcher!

I am a happy Bungalow Girl this week.  We have a new large gas tank (it looks like a submarine has popped up in the front garden) so Sarah doesn't need to tap the old cylinders any more to see how much gas we have left, the massive trench outside our back door is filled in and we have a new floor in the Dining Room after waiting three months.....  Yippeee.

And - my sweet peas which looked very unpromising are flowering, they smell heavenly.  We have an abundance of flowers, tons of tasty home grown veggies, rhubarb for crumbles and herbs for salad dressings.  Yum, yum and double yum.  I have eaten apple and rhubarb crumble and custard in bed the last couple of nights - so naughty!  Not good for the digestion but I wouldn't want it going to waste......

Just goes to show what a bit of good weather can do, and a clever fellow Bungalow Girl (I do the weeding)

We could do 'Pick Your Own', we have that many strawberries

The only down side to this weather and time of year is having to wear ear plugs at night.  Whoever thinks that the country is a peaceful place wants to be here at 5am in the morning!!

9.26pm - time for a spot of weeding.