Garden of delights

Long grass with a purpose

I'm in a bit of a garden mood just now; that's probably because we did a dinner for friends last night, and the kitchen is still in need of time spending on it, and I'm trying to avoid it. But the garden IS a delight to be in, and I just thought I'd do a few hours on it when I don't just cut the grass, which I do every 4 days. I told myself I really need to do a session in between the grass cutting, when I clip, tie up and weed. So today I tried to do just that, and the place is getting towards a 'tended' look. This is what I want to achieve; not a spend-a-lorra-money-on-it look. We HAVE spent a lot on plants in the past, but now it is a self-supporting system, with an efficient composting area which is the gold mine of the place. What it craves is a gardener on her knees. So today I reconnected with the delight in the place, and these are some of the things that I found while trimming, weeding, savaging even. The long grass round the apple trees is deliberate, but I was going to give it a tiny bit of a trim but had to change plan: these nasturtiums are floating on it, and I can't do anything till they finish.

18thC brick wall

We do have a lovely bit of wall, a run of 18th C brickwork. It's hard-going keeping it from being overrun by ivy. I do like ivy, but we have plenty of it, but not much 18thC brick wall.

Ghosts of Christmas trees past

I don't throw anything away; here are the ghosts of two Christmas trees past. They will come in useful for something, I know they will. The one on the left was jolly good at not shedding its pine needles - a posh one we got a couple of years ago.

Along with using my laptop in bed, I'm not really 'allowed' nasturtiums as they tend to run amok on the veg plot and elsewhere, but you know already that I have them. These are some huge leaves on a variegated one, which I tend to expect are going to be small and perfectly formed and acceptable, but then this giant turned up.

Variegated nasturtiums that just happen

Unplanned colour scheme

And look at the colour combination created by the arrival of nasturtiums under the cool blue of the eucalyptus bush (I intend it to stay a bush).

Another blue thing I found today

A wild blue thing I found today

This blue wild geranium appeared from nowhere in this weedy border, and I love that shade of blue. Only today I bought a linen dress in the same colour from the hospice shop, already broken in and softened by many washes.

Holly the Dolly

I discovered that what we call Holly the Dolly was alive and well when I'd done some clipping at the base of the 18thC wall. We had a lot of tall skyrocketed holly trees when we first moved in in 2005, and this was one of the sections of one I chopped down to a stump, which sprouted again; they always do, and you can do topiary on them then. She used to be even more anatomical, but now she has matured into an older lady she looks less brazen.

T'owd man's beard is flowering

It gives me great pleasure when a wild species starts to feel at home in my garden, and I have two old man's beard plants, now rampaging about the place. They are both supported on structures about 6 ft tall, one a holly stump, the other a dead shrub from the very harsh winter of 2010-11. They seem to be going to flower this year, yippee!

Spectacular light in spring. The walnut tree dances for joy, doesn't it!

I didn't seem to take a pic of anything very spectacular today (so let's find one!); the joy was in a lovely feeling of abundance and just tidying up the edges, but hopefully not getting in the way of any exuberance.

Hair-burning opportunity! I'll be careful, really I will!

So now after all that exertion, I'm going to get myself in the bath by the light this huge scented candle that a dear friend gave me who knows how much I love my bath. She asked me what the colour scheme of the bathroom was; it's, well, whatever there is around, and this looks pretty good to me. Maybe tomorrow the boots will come off the windowsill.

Grass

The grass. I go on about it. This is what it looks like on a good day.

The stripper

It's summer, I believe, and I must apologize to all my readers, if I have any, for the sparse nature of blogging these days. It's not as though there aren't lots of things that I regularly sound off about to t'owd man or anyone else who will look as though they are listening. For example, I was busy on Ps 119 and had the Olympic opening ceremony playing on the laptop, just to see what it was all about, and just as I was doing the bit  for 'Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path' (I know, I know - we do lapse into KJV don't we?) the Olympic flame was being lit. If you missed it, then this is worth looking at so you can nod knowledgeably about the Rowan Atkinson or whatever. Olympic highlights

Unfinished Ps 119

Pic from the Wiki article

I did watch the whole thing, but am not sufficiently steeped in popular culture to get the full value of it. The fact that this psalm illustration has pointy bits drawn from Arab lattice work patterns had also made me think of the Shard that has been put up in Southwark, financed by Islamic investors. I have watched it being built, and somewhere have a pic of it; I had no idea that it was the tallest building in Europe. Somehow its shape made it look just like a kind of playground spike, that I almost wondered why I was photographing it. My eyes sort of shrank it The Southwark Shard ; which just goes to show how we can be terrible judges of the size of spaces and structures.

Olympic flame

So I'm really busy just now trying to fit working on the Project in between maintenance of the house and garden - the grass is always with us and has to be done every 4 days or it gets out of hand - and no-one accuses me of being a diligent housewife, but I do try to bring in the harvest and process it, and lately I've spent about 2 hours a day on reducrrants, stripping and freezing. The bush still seems to have loads on it even though I've worked my way along it. You'd have to be really starving to have to get every last one off; I wonder whether anyone ever does? But they do look beautiful in a colander waiting to be processed.

Come ride with me!

East Yorks must be the best place to ride a bike. I had to stop every few hundred yards to take a pic; the landshapes were just so good.

Trees on legs (a giant caterpillar?)

Lashings of

Hockney colours and shapes

Sturdy tree ahead

We were in 'lashings of ginger beer' mode, and we also got two great pies from Roberts and Speight in Beverley, and I mean great. Ended the day in the Wolds Inn at Huggate. This is all Hockney country, and you can see why he is so passionate about it; his colours are hardly an exaggeration. Hockney you tube As I often say when we are somewhere good, it is 'Just Like The Camino' (JLTC), and we were even treated to some little yellow or orange arrows painted on the ground to remind us; well it was the eve of St James's day.

JLTC

Those hedgrow/roadside plants inspire so many artists... I love this artist; you will probably have seen her stuff on greetings cards etc: Angie Lewin

 So steeped I am in the psalms just now, that I can't see even a muddy puddle without thinking of the pilgrim psalm 84 'Passing through the valley of Baca ['weeping'?] they make it a place of springs'.

But I tried a new thing, which was the Biking Video. Sadly, t'owd man was supposed to be on it behind me, but somehow he wasn't there. I gather he stayed put, shaking his head sadly and ready to call an ambulance; so although I swing the camera round for you to see him, he doesn't appear. Most of the roads we were on were single track and gravelly, but this was a bigger one with opportunity to let rip. It's the reward for a lot of uphill stuff.

T'owd man relaxing at journey's end in home-made shorts (we don't do Lycra much).

Happy St James's day!

Fire from/for heaven

The title really speaks for itself. I really warm to the 'sons of thunder' and their fiece loyalty, as in 'Shall we call down fire from heaven, guv?' attitude. There are some of us who are a bit worrying for anyone throwing a party, and I imagine the same was true of them - whatever would they do next? The hula hoop factor; sometimes it works, and sometimes it lands on someone's head when you throw it out of the bedroom window - I know, mine did, fortunately he was OK about it.

So this is what we did at a bit of an unplanned party when the Barton Botafumeiro arrived; we had to put it through its paces, with thoughts of health and safety to the fore as you can see.

And then today, t'owd man did a blessing of it in church. It was admired by all who went up to look at it; presumably anyone who was not keen on the idea of the thing ignored it. It's a small replica of the one in Santiago de Compostela. Enjoy! We do!

The real botafumeiro

But I love this next one -Those notes.... the sound of the crowds whooping like children at the seaside, and the way the priest manages to forestall any cheering by leaping in swiftly at the end with his 'Oremus!'... and the first notes on the organ; Geoff did us proud at this normally music-less eucharist by thumping them out at the end and bringing tears to our eyes.

The great and the good.

A founder member at the FMB pub. Cider, naturally!

Memsec departs from Hull station, with Philip Larkin

I know I shouldn't.

This is not an official record of the SOTS Meeting! Rather it is a record of what took Memsec's eye when she remembered her camera. Thus many wonderful moments are not recorded, such as when Hugh Pyper was presented with his Olympic towel after his 'From Zion to Olympus' paper. (Our current president has a good eye for suitable gifts.)

Here goes....

Retiring hospitality sec Elizabeth Harper has kept SOTS in order for many years.

Assembling cheerfully for the yearly Outing

Travelling cheerfully; Janet is looking forward to resting from SOTS accounts.

Outside Manchester Town Hall

Descending with promise of Tea in the town hall. I was tempted to say 'Jacob's ladder',

Tea in the elegant depths

The bee became a symbol for Manchester's hard working population

This Manchester building has been unfinished for over 10 years. Why do I think of Babel?

T'lads in the 'Ford Madox Brown'.

Home again in Lincs with treasure from the African art exhibitions across Manchester: highly recommended.

...and the grass got cut.
(Yes, your thought is correct: photo taken in spring, hence shadows of bare branches of walnut tree)

Bike night?

Mmm, Bike Night. Clearly not as exciting (to me) as little squares of embroidery. Or it has got lost in the exciting events of recent days. Bike night is about things that go brum brum, and I did take a bit of a video of a wet street in Barton. I did take a fancy to a small Italian vintage bike which had broken down at the bottom of the hill. I think it is a Parelli or summat; it's blue, slim, and a 125 cc. About right.

I do like to see the bikes coming down the hill into Barton.

Bikes descending

Elswick motored bike

Happy with this

There were some oldies too, even one that had been made in Barton in the days when cycles were made here. This one is an Elswick. The people who were looking after it were suggesting I could have an engine fitted to my trusty new steed pictured here.                                                                           

This little bike came in at about £220, and it is holding its head up high here among the big boys.

Admittedly, Barton's normally quiet Priestgate looks pretty decorated with these things.  But I don't think my heart is in it, do you?                                                

Priestgate