Blueberries and flowers

At the weekend, on a rather soggy day, I went with the family to the pick-your-own blueberry farm. The bushes were laden with berries but we didn't pick a large amount as they are in need of some sunshine to ripen and sweeten the fruit. We shall return in a week or so if the weather bucks it's ideas up.

It is a nice place to be as there is also a pick-your-own flower field and a charming café where the ceiling is hung with flowers. I had called in at the allotment in the morning where I was delighted to see that my name on the waiting list was looking more hopeful. I'm wanting to have a cutting patch so I studied the staking system in the fields with interest.

Corner posts and wide netting to grow through seem to do an excellent job.

The café is newly built and very pleasing with flowers everywhere!

Inside Max Gate.

The story of Max Gate is not especially happy. Thomas Hardy moved into it with Emma, his first wife, when he had become a successful author. At some point that relationship soured and Emma took hersalf off to the attic rooms. She was superceeded by the much younger Florence, who after Emma's death bcame the second Mrs Hardy. Florence was thity-nine years younger than her husband. Hardy was filled with remorse for his treatment of Emma as soon as she had died. He wrote no more novels but many poems about his lost love - he was a complex man! Photos of Emma in youth and old age.

The relationship with Florence started with her writing to Hardy in admiration. She then became his secretary before finally becoming his wife.

Emma described the two rooms in the attic as her 'boudoir', not a very accurate description of the two cramped little rooms with their sloping ceilings.

Downstairs a photograph taken in 1899 of the drawing room makes me grumpy. It shows a room full of Victorian clutter, yet I am standing in a room that is tastefully and tidily displayed. I've visited many National Trust properties over the years and seen the character gradually taken out of a place by this desire for tidying up. When they have good photographic evidence why don't they try to replicate it?

In the dining room one or two items of furniture are original to the house but most of the contents were sold at auction, together with the house, with the contents of Hardy's study going to the museum in Dorchester.

A very plain kitchen, and once again, very tidy. I wonder what it was really like?!

The upstairs rooms are all rather small. Hardy had more than one study, this one (not with his origonal desk) is where he wrote 'Tess." I like the fireplace, it will have been cosy in winter with a fire in the grate.

Max Gate

This week we had a jaunt out to visit Max Gate, the house that the author Thomas Hardy designed and had built by his father and brother when he had become a successful author. He called it a 'two up, two down' and at first it just about was; there was only the left hand turret in the original build, serving no purpose. A second turret and the extension to the back of the house were added at a later date.

The tower with the clock face is the later addition.

Entry to the house was by timed ticket but we were free to wander around the garden while waiting. Thomas Hardy had bought one and a half acres of unproductive land on which he built his house and I am very envious of the size of his veg garden, where a couple of volunteers were doing their best to keep it in some order.

They told me that this old wheelbarrow is French. It is a clever design because the side panels can be lifted out and repositioned to create a far wider, flat base, ideal for carrying something such as a load of hay.

This lawn is where the Hardy's entertained their guests. The small conservatory was built for Florence, Thomas Hardy's second wife.

Family weekend

All the family were together at the weekend, a rare event as work commitments for our elder daughter mean that we are seldom all in the same place. I was hopeful of having a dip in the sea, it being July. But no, a wind blew and rain was threatened. On Saturday morning we called in at the delicious M's bakery and each chose something tasty to eat at the beach for a mid-morning treat. Mine was a scrumtious assemblage of light pastry, chocolate, custard and a toasted almond topping! We went to Mudeford beachfront and sat at a table on the sands to munch our spoils.

We were quite charmed by a small brown bird that hopped onto the table and picked up the crumbs. I was far less impressed when it then hopped quickly to my pastry and flew off with a sizable piece of my almond topping. It got short shrift when it returned for more!

It always surprises me how little occupied so many of the beach huts seem to be. Okay, so it was a blowey, rain-threatening day, but the sun was warm and if you could be tucked in a hut you could enjoy the warmth and miss the wind and rain. The Mudeford beach huts are charming.

We walked along the front until the clouds told us it might be wise to head back to the car!

On Sunday daughter and grandson had a fine old time jumping the waves. I chickened out and just paddled at the edges. I'm only a fair-weather swimmer!

Summer chaos

I love a garden when it starts to riot. The gravel paths are getting ever slimmer as the flowers spread. I'm still getting to know my new patch, it is so different from any growing space that I've had before. We have maximum leaf cover just now so that for much of the day the garden is covered in deep shadow. It doesn't bode well for growing fruit and veg so I'm happy to see that my name on the allotment waiting list is gradually working it's way to the top. The trees are tall!

Plants climb skyward in search of a bit of light. (Or annoyingly sideways!)

There are a lot of buds on the magnolia this year, yet another plant that seems to have really enjoyed our very wet spring. Though cold, the weather is dry and the ground already in need of moisture. We've rigged a hosepipe up to the bathroom and are siphering the bathwater out into the garden - it's a good way to enjoy a bath without feeling guilty about the water we are using!

Hopeful signs of a few slim pickings. We shall see.