A story in five parts

Are you sitting comfortably,

then I shall begin ...

Part 1.

Prologue

This dank and dreary weather is not for everyone. 

Sitting in the house with the lights on and the fire quietly crackling away 

makes the outside seem more ... outside.

Giving a dampening numbing feeling to me.

I resort to looking a photographs to give me inner sunlight.

Part 2.

Change of direction

I have attempted this post several times and in several guises

each one relevant and not relevant in one sweep.

When I started, the weather was damp and sullen

as was my mood.

Then the sun broke through, warmed my garden,

 energised me,

exhilarated the weeds

and sparked life in my sown seeds 

to show tiny green shoots of hope.

Part 3.

A mini retrospective.

Last spring - I needed to create a vegetable patch,

I needed to feel productive,

I wanted to provide and produce something from the garden, from me.

 The potager was born and for a few short sweet weeks

we regularly harvested and ate from the garden.

Then, we planted something new - my summerhouse studio.

I lost my potager and although I am beyond happy and in love

with my studio in the garden,

I missed my veg plot.

Part 4.

New shoots.

Last week, all my boys were at home,

from school,

from uni,

from work.

We walked (when the weather was good)

we talked, a lot.

We gardened.

With a irresistible urge to connect with this vernal movement,

we rescued my glasshouse of years of incorrect usage and towers of plastic pots,

removing the floor and laying new paths.

Creating deep beds.

Needing a lot of compost,

I emptied the compost bays.

All three of them.

All deep and chocolatey worm rich

black soil.

Whilst digging out heavy spadefuls

and pushing even heavier barrows

from compost

to glasshouse

gave me time to think and to plan.

A garden game of tetras 

became a long list of what to do next.

*Move the old composts to a new site

*Flatten and tidy old site and replace decrepit fence

*build a new shelter for the wheelbarrows

*build new compost bays

*lay new paths

*lift the lawn

*create new growing spaces

*plant the sprouting bulbs

*sow wild flower seeds on the green roof

The list seemed exhaustive and growing each time I thought.

Part 5

Finale (almost)

Most of the list is done.

As am I.

But, Monday is a new day

and I am ready to paint

because

both my garden and I

feeling fully charged

so ...

Bring it on!

And the photos? They were the images that gave me my inner sunshine :)

Happy dancing promised

Been a bit busy recently - so thought I'd quickly pop in and chat for a while. Some of you may have noticed a distinct lack of 'Potager updates'. It is not because I have been lax at writing them, or that the slugs had decimated my vegetables (although they have tried their hardest to do so), nor due to the rains flattening them either (although, yes you guessed it - it has definitely tried to do so). No. Nothing like that.

No - my potager has reduced in size somewhat - I have lost nearly 3/4 of it to this........ 

This not quite complete summer house will eventually be my new studio! 

How exciting! (except I am too tired to leap about like a happy thing!) 

We have just spent two days, all four of us, building. 

There has been a few frayed moments,  a few gnashing of teeth but a lot of laughing, loads of nails and screws and tacks and glue. Oh so many planks, beams and boards. Why is it all so very heavy!?!

Have to admit that I never thought I'd see it up. The rain...... the rain - sigh.

Negatives?

The company that supplied the building need lessons with their customer service.

Their choice of delivery company is appalling! (it took THREE separate deliveries before it actually arrived, each one a flat packed summer house made it to the village but only the final one actually got off the truck! The first one arrived horribly damaged and I refused delivery, the second one never got to us, the delivery driver insisted he stood at our door knocking on it and we'd not answered - Eldest stood on the pavement looking out for him when we were given the half hour warning - nothing. A third summerhouse finally arrived .... then it rained for about three weeks....)

The workmanship of the building is not consistent nor was the company's quality control - Himself has had to fix lots of stupid basic errors.

Positives?

Although not fully up - due to time wasted messing with windows not fitting the frames or the hinges needing to be countersunk so the doors actually fit the frame - it is up and waterproof!

I can visualise where my desk and I will be, I can visualise where my art will sit as it drys and I can visualise the layout for October when my 'studio' will be part of the open studios art trail - eek!

I'd planned to have it painted before it was assembled but we watched the weather and saw a small window this weekend - I'll have to paint it another day.  

I'll also have to make sure it is insulated for winter (brrrrrr!) so I can work out all year round. But, despite a lot still to do - I am quietly chuffed that in our garden, tucked in between the trees and usurping my vegetable garden - I have a summerhouse studio :)

Right - off for a shower and bed - I am tired and suspect I will be stiff (as a board!) tomorrow - but I will probably definitely do the happy dance (but not in the rain) in my studio!

PS - I have belatedly added the list of words for this month's Scavenger hunt to the top right of the page - enjoy! xxx

In which I discuss rain (briefly) knitting (a little more in detail), birthdays (to include baking) and #30DaysWild

Now, I am not one to get excited about the rain, but today I am happily making an exception as I watch the rain hammering down the window. After a rather dry winter and a gently warm and dry spring, the garden is a little parched. The water barrels have been completely emptied onto the potager keeping the veg seedlings alive. So to see the rain, steady wet stuff, makes me (and my garden) rather happy :)

In my last post, I shared a snippet of my current knitting and a smidgen of the book I was using .... Sorry J, should have imparted more detail! So, I shall reveal the finer points ..

The book I was gifted is called 'The Best Of Jane Austen Knits 27' (I have linked it to amazon but I have no affiliation nor am I paid in peanuts/wool or books by them). It is also on Ravelry HERE. The wool is DK 'Colour by Numbers' by John Arbon Textiles and has been in my stash for some years, I was lucky enough to find three whole hanks languishing at the bottom of a box. May be I should dive in head first more often!

It is a gentle rhythmic pattern with a ten row increase until the centre back, then the reversed gentle decrease. I am half way as I type and really want to get it done so I can start wearing it.

When we collect and drop of Eldest to uni, I have two hours each time of dedicated knitting time - they are the fastest two hours of the day.... I don't often decided to repeat a knit but I suspect I will with this one. May be the next one will have rich wintery colours or autumnal tints, oh, what a wonderful thought ... one for each season in the perfect seasonal colour. Yum.

Sunday was my mum's birthday and the sun was shining. It called for a picnic birthday tea in the garden. It was such a pleasant afternoon, sitting in the sun, drinking tea and eating various rather calarifically loaded goodies while watching the cats bounce on flies, flop over and sunbathe on the path, tramp through the potager with size 10 cat feet. We rather overdosed on chocolate cake, butter biscuits, scones and homemade fudge. I waved my waistline goodbye as it rapidly disappeared.... must go and find it again (but not just now!)

Youngest has been experimenting in the workshop and has been creating sparks (I try not worry, but I do a quick finger count each time he appears ... yes, still has 10 - phew)

It is still raining. Still steady earth soaking stuff. Good. The water table must be quite low, the rivers and reservoirs levels are down. 

A gentle reminder of this month's Scavenger Photo hunt, remember - only choose ten words and share with us your stories and pictures.

Then in June, I am part of #30DaysWild and will be posting a daily 'wild' themed story and photo. Our June Scavenger Photo hunt list will be similarly 'wild' but is only the usual ten words.  

I am not asking you to join in with the #30DaysWild, but do ask you to pop over and see what it is all about - you may even be inspired!

If you fancy seeing what sort of things 

I blogged during the previous two years

2015 - HERE

2016 - HERE

The barefoot gardener

I grew up in Africa, where shoes were an optional extra. Mine sat in the cupboard or under the bed or (probably the majority of the time) in the middle of my bedroom floor. Kicked off as soon as got home from school, I would abandon them, change out of my uniform and escape outside.

As children we would free range, sometimes with shoes but mostly, we were happily dust red and barefooted.  Even as a teenager, shoes were added only if we were 'going out' or to school/college/shopping.

I can remember when I was about 11 or 12, hesitating just on the threshold of a thorny bushy strip between where I was standing and the dusty track behind the house where my friends were standing waiting for me.  Although a hardened barefoot 'explorer', I felt this bit of wilderness, this bit of 'bundu' was just a little too spikey, a little too thorny and I wondered if there was a bush-path or connecting track. Pricked by the comments by my less than impressed peers at my cowardice I was about to turn back and give up when an African man who'd been walking up the same path stopped and said to me ..... 'Just run, run like there is nothing there'.

So I did.

And at the other side as I pulled out a number of devil thorns from my foot, it was with a feeling of elation. I'd not felt them as I'd run, nor did I feel them as I removed them from my heel, it was only later, in the evening that my foot felt bruised. However, my ego was not! (picture source)

Coming to England was more than a culture shock. It was a hard lesson in shoe wearing.

I did try and bare-foot it the first year when ever I could, but eventually the cold and hard ground, the cold beach sands, the rather disapproving looks forced me to don shoes. It felt rather repressive (and unfortunately necessary as winter approached!)

Over the years, during summer holidays and warmer weekends at home, I have resorted to being as barefoot as possible when outside. This weekend I managed to garden entirely-ish with naked feet and it felt brilliant.

The grass had been gently warmed by the sun but still damp from the morning dew and the ground beneath I could feel was still cold and asleep.  I love the feeling of grass between my toes, I love the direct contact of soil against my feet, I feel as if I am connecting with the earth.

As the day progressed, standing on the hot paving slabs was positively delicious, the cats agreed and lounged around like baking lizards.

Eldest repotted most of his house plants - he has a very 'male' taste in plants, venus fly traps, cactus, succulents, palms and ferns. His bedroom at one time had about 15 pots but now each Sunday when he returns to uni, a box of greenery leaves with him. He won't be able to move in his uni room soon!

Youngest was snowed under by coursework so disappeared to his desk and papers, we did managed to drag him out for his dose of sunshine D with the promise of lunch on the lawn and mug of tea and cake in the afternoon.

Moss on the other hand preferred the cooler slabs in the greenhouse (we've got covers on the sun-side of the greenhouse as it get extremely hot and arid in there!) She is gently settling in to the art of gardening-by-pets (sleeping in the sun/shade/grass/greenhouse) and can be often found with a happy smile on her face as long as the big scary tools are moved calmly and quietly and in the opposite direction.  Anyway a sneaky dog biscuit can often soothe any tension should hammering or sawing occur.

This weekend was quiet, slipping through our days gently. 

Nothing happened, lots happened. 

Swallows and swifts held screaming parties in the air.

Gardening, breathing, living.

Just how I like it.

And you?
Do you yearn to walk barefoot?
Did you garden over the weekend?
Was your weekend a gentle healing restful one?

I love to know what you get up to :)

Thank you for your lovely comments and welcome to my new followers - glad to see you here in my little corner of the world.

Potager and garden update

April was a month of  incredible greening up.  Not only did the garden suddenly take on a feeling of lushness and promise but the lanes and hedgerows also looked greener and fatter - it felt so much more positive.

Watering can, sweet peas

spinach, comfrey

Our little potager continues to grow and develop. The seedlings in the greenhouse have been thriving in the warmth and the cats have continued to walk across them (sigh). Our girls are allowed to sunbathe and recharge in the greenhouse so they take every opportunity (it is a cat right) to lounge around on anything they fancy .... kale seedlings ....purple sprouting broccoli shoots .... twisted willow cuttings ... nothing is too sacred. (more sighs).

The chive 'fields', Little Gem lettuce,

Valmaine lettuce, Eldest weeding the potager

More bricks have been laid out, doubling the size of the potager beds and a new lawn area has been reseeded (twice ... cheers little hungry birdies who are not put off by anti-bird nets). The main lawn has also been reseeded (Moss is a little boisterous for our lawn to cope over winter and spring so needs help until it can grow and toughen up).

The almost daily egg from the elderly hen!, spinach, chard, lettuce growing

'Staff' enjoying a tea break, strawberry blossoms

I've continued to heap generous quantities of home made compost into the garden - it is rather rough and ready, but I keep telling myself that it is good to help counter the heavy clay I have.  I do sift it for seed sowing and the seedlings but when they go out in to the potager, they have to take the lumps - like it or ... erm... lump it!

Pan in the greenhouse, cherry blossom at the end of the garden,

Himself demolishing and rebuilding 4 compost bins, Pepper in the sun

Weeding and general gardening still stresses Moss out, tools have to be wielded with all the slow method of a tai chi movement however she is improving and hopefully by the end of summer she will no longer fear gardening and all the apparent death-by-hand-trowel issues she harbours in her little head.

Right. Best stop blogging. I have paintings to complete, a new commission of a rather handsome ginger cat and stock to create for the art exhibition. But before I do, a quick wander through the garden will do me a world of good  .... so if you'll excuse me..... until next time :)

The Potager Gardens page has been updated

Six things that made me smile this Saturday

 Six things that made me smile this Saturday

1. An unexpected egg from an mature hen, who retired herself last year and retrained as a bug and weed inspector - a job she has done exceedingly well.

2. Hand writing a slate for the larger potager and symbolically hanging it on the nervous tree - it can relax for a bit longer, it has two important roles this year - sweetpea support and slate sign holder. It's position will be reassessed at the end of the year.

3. A dilly dog sitting still long enough to be in my picture

4. Being able to make a start on the lay out of the brick edges for the potager beds before it got too wet.

5. Sowing seeds while the hen takes a well earned dust bath beneath my potting tray as the rain hammered on the greenhouse roof

6. Watching as Himself places the 'birthday bench' (a gift from my folks) into pride of place 

Then, due to the inclement weather we had to reluctantly declare defeat and retreat to the house where I made leek and potato soup and 'Betty Ferrie's Shetland Oatcakes. 

A gentle day, filled with quiet smiles and muddy puddles. But, if it was an indication of what was to come - spring is definitely on her way :)

And you - what made you smile today?

Where you defeated by the rain?

How is your garden growing ?

Lets get down and dirty!

Walled garden last year, crop rotation plans, lifting and moving path and plants, garden plans

Despite the present rather driech weather I am looking at outside of my window - it does actually feel a little (shhhhh going to say it quietly) a little *spring-like*.

There, I've done it, I have probably jinxed it and the tentative steps towards a bit of a growing season will be called to a shuddering halt!

I suspect what is helping this delicate spring-like feel is planning the larger of two new potager gardens as well as a meeting this afternoon with the National Trust Rangers to discuss the oncoming year for the walled garden (I am really really looking forward to returning to dibbling in the soil on the side of a high and windy hill - it cleanses the soul!)

Sunday, Himself and I with the help of the boys, cleared an area that has had to wait for winter to pass. Last autumn we removed an ENORMOUS leylandii as well as a small ratty wooden shed. We also lifted plants, cleared branches and trees from the end of our garden. Now the sunlight floods in - something that has not done so for a very long time.  We do still have a large conifer in situ and for the time being it will stay (although I have narrowed my eyes at it several times .... it feels nervous) So in order that the tree feels useful, I have now wrapped it in netting and sweetpeas will climb up and beautify that rather gnarly tree trunk.

Brick path and Moss demonstrating where she is allowed to trot ....

Another new area (the second smaller potager) is nearer the house and is a raised walled bed - I am going to use this as a salad area with quick crops such as radish and cut and come again salad leaves - can't wait!

Second, smaller potager, rosemary cuttings, spinach seedlings

The rudiments of the larger potager garden has been laid out, complete with brick pathway and central seating area. I had planned to lay out the bed shapes with string but we ran out of time and light. Never mind, time flies when you are having fun :)

Yup - all good positive growing stuff!

And you? How was your weekend?

Did you get anything done or did the weather thwart you?

Did you get any seeds sown?

Did you get mud under your nails and twigs in your hair?

Go one, spill the beans (or plant them!) and share what you got up  too - I love to hear about your day too :)