Home

 Last week we celebrated our fifty-fourth wedding anniversary with a trip 'home' to the Yorkshire Dales. We hadn't visited since before lock down, eighteen long months ago. What would we find? 

First sight of our dale.

Pinkers Pond used to disappear each summer, but several years ago it was lined and is now a pleasant little stretch of water all year round.

The ducks like it!

All was well at our place, the garden very tangled and overgrown, but so pleasantly so that I left much of it alone. Everlasting sweet pea had scrambled it's way through the Rosa Mundi - and pretty much everything else.

Push past the lavender the front door.

There is a path here somewhere.

 

 

 

Quite a bit of post had piled up inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 2 and the path was re-established.

Beautiful weather for putting a chair outside to bask in the sun.

Our property is bordered by a stream with a small fall. It is a lovely sound to hear through the open doors and windows. (In winter when the level rises you can hear it well enough with the doors and windows battened down!)

It is always pleasant to take the path that follows the steam up to it's source.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of my favourite wildflowers, the harebell, grows on the slopes that border the path.

 And "Basher' Brown has left a decorative feature by the path as well!

A walk of about a couple of hours takes us up to the grouse moor. We have taken this path in all weathers, it is a pleasant circular walk and this week, in unusual heat, we set off in good time in the morning so that we would be back home before the heat of the day.

Nothing to hear but bird song.

Walking along the green road back to the village.

You can see the path that we walked on the right of the photo.

Birthday

It was a friend's birthday today and we went to her house to celebrate. How nice to be meeting up again - just a small, select group, all twice jabbed. Even so, we planned to stay out of doors, making use of the summer house and a specially erected gazebo.  We left home in sunshine. But this is Blighty, folks and after we had drunk some celebratory fizz and started on our lunch the heavens opened, the wind blew, the gazebo started to look rather frail, unequal to the task and we had to run for the house.

We all took contributions to the meal. Mine was potato salad, a coffee dessert and a cream sponge with fruit from the garden.

 The birthday girl has newly decorated a sitting room and it is fabulous - Charleston eat your heart out! The walls are fabric patchwork. She is the Fabric Queen as this room proves. If you want to see how it was created then do take a look at her blog https://janethaighherwork.com which shows what was involved.

Detail of the pinned patchwork.

We had a lovely time.

The greedy months!

After a thorough drenching that filled all the water butts and the pond we now have damp,  misty weather. But the temperature is warm and all the crops (except my carrots!) are growing well. 

We are eating well - nothing gladdens the heart of a Murphy more than digging up the new season early potatoes! Peas and mangetout are also on the table although I'll confess to eating a fair number of the peas before they ever get in the pan.

 The soft fruit is coming on stream and, as with the peas, I tend to feast on the red currants as I pick. The damp isn't good for my strawberry crop although the slugs are very happy. I'm hoping the weather will dry up soon.

A neighbour's hens are laying well and she has brought me a dozen eggs in a variety of colours. I like the blue ones, they are almost too pretty to use! They will be going in a cake to celebrate a friend's birthday at the weekend.

Blowsy.

 We have had both sunshine and rain and it's great growing weather. The garden and the roadside verges around the village are blowsy with vegetation. Wind and rain came and knocked the grasses about under the fruit trees so we've had to cut back into the paths a little to avoid the grass soaking our legs.

Some bushes have had a haircut and plants that have finished flowering have been cut back. The iris were wonderful this year but now I've cut the stems and leaves so that the sun can get to the corms.

In a previous post Colette asked how I take rose cuttings. I have a patch of soil outside the fruit cage that I keep for cuttings of anything that I would like to propagate. I just stick lengths of stem into the ground and hope for the best. I don't always get round to labelling and rely on recognising the variety if it takes successfully. (Sometimes I'm left with a mystery!)

I also put cuttings in pots.

Either way it is hit and miss. The advantage of outside is that I don't need to water, I can forget about the stems until they come into leaf.

I have propagated this little Raubritter rose and given it away as a gift many times. It is a sweetbriar and seems to be equally happy tumbling over low walls or climbing up them. It flowers only once around midsummer but the flowers stay on the plant for weeks.

Cinderella climbing up the kitchen wall. This rose is happy enough in dry weather but an absolute flop if the rain gets to it.

Chapeau de Napoleon behaves well whatever the weather. It is a crested moss said to have been found in the wall of a Swiss convent in the early 1820's. I think the name probably comes from the curious shape of the emerging buds.

I think I rather maligned Honorine de Brabant, she is doing rather well this year. She came as a cutting from a friend.

The climbing Iceberg will flower all summer long!

Happy Fathers' Day

A card came that reminded us how much fun it is to be grandparents! Last weekend, splashing about with water in warm summer weather. 

( It's raining today!)