Garden parcels

It's always a nice surprise when parcels for my garden come unexpectedly.

The first one, yesterday, was from the Telegraph Garden Club, who often have free offers of plants. You only pay the postage.

This time it was five beautiful pinks.

Here they are, nestled in their little plastic container, nicely damp and ready to plant...with another surprise, a free pair of snips.

And then today, another parcel!

This one was from dear Lynn, who, despite not being all that well, had taken the trouble to dig up some lovely little plants from her garden, parcelled them up securely in damp tissue, and sent them off.

They arrived in perfect condition, geraniums, creeping jenny, forget me nots, aquilegia and more. Within half an hour they were planted and watered, so they will never know they have travelled.

Thank you Lynn!

 Sonn I will post some photos of the ever increasing garden.

The Tate.

There was a bit of a drama this week at the Tate Gallery, St Ives, when a chip fat fryer got out of control in the kitchens of the restaurant. 

The local newspaper told us that 300 people had to be evacuated from the Gallery,while three fire engines rushed to put out the fire.

The Tate was opened in St Ives in 1993, and was built on the site of an old Gas works. It has a very prestigious position, overlooking Porthmeor beach.

The gallery showcases art from the post war period to the 60s. Two of the most well known artists whose work is exhibited are Barbara Hepworth and Patrick Heron.

With over 200,000 visitors each year enjoying the displays it is a good thing that the fire did no real damage, although the gallery was closed for a couple of days to check the state of the paintings.

Hacked?

I receive my updates from Google reader, Friend Connect. 
It shows a precis of the person's post, and a photo by the side.

Today the list came up, and to my horror half a dozen photos of nude women were there.

It looks to me as if someone has taken over or hacked into another person's blog.

What worries me is...how would you know if that was happening?

Does this person realise that her blog is sending out these disgusting photos?

It's a worry.

Edit.
Many of you have suggested that I get in touch with the blog owner to let her know.
The problem is that the blog seems to have been taken over by this awful site, and there is no way I can reach the original owner.
If anyone knows the  owner of 'Steps towards a simpler Life' please let me know.

Yesterday

Thank you for all your nice comments yesterday.

Funny how a day often changes, but I did achieve a lot.

Housework rather, um, skimmed through, I gathered my gardening tools and went to plant a beautiful clematis called 'Forget me not'. It's deep blue and apparently ideal for an obelisk. So that's where it went.

I did feel very Monty Don as I dug a BIG hole, filled it with compost and watered the plant in.

Then I did give in to the lure of coffee, and pondered on some photos from my French garden, wondering how I'm going to achieve the look that I love.....cottage garden-y, informal, blowsy roses, wild flowers mingling.....

An unexpected call from my son in law meant that the afternoon was taken up with some more gardening, and he managed to clean the whole of the terrace for me, weeds all raked out , garden furniture ready to oil.

Then it rained.

How could it do that?

Our evening was taken up with the last of our Church House group meetings, when we shared a

Home Communion together . That is always a very moving time.

Today, well, it's raining.

I think I'll bake.

Morning plans.

The sun's shining, it's a beautiful day.

I'm going to do some of this.

....and then a little later, some of this.

That is, of course, after I've finished the dusting, hoovering and laundry!

Alarm call.

The first thing I should tell you is that I talk to inanimate objects. As one does.

You know the sort of thing.

 "Where is my handbag? Come on, you're hiding from me.....Ah there you are, silly thing" Etc etc

We recently subscribed to a Lifeline call button system. You may have seen the advertisements for them...a beautifully made up lady lies at the bottom of the stairs, not a hair out of place. She's fallen, but, she's not worried. She has a Lifeline call button. Someone will be there to help. Soon.

I'm not making fun of the system. It is a relief to have it, to know that if my husband has a fall he can simply press the button and the call centre will answer immediately, reassure him, and call one of the people on their list, or if necessary, the Paramedics.

Two nights ago I was woken at 2 o clock by the noise of the two way wall box talking. I bumbled out of bed, and thinking it was malfunctioning, muttered 'What's your problem?' to the box. (You see, inanimate objects.....)

From the box came a calm voice saying 'Mrs ****, can you talk to me, are you all right?'

It was at that point that I realised that my husband had pressed the button in his sleep and set off the alarm. We had a reassuring conversation, the box and I, and it wished me a pleasant return to sleep.

Later, I wondered if whoever took the alarm call thought that I'd been talking to my husband when I growled 'What's your problem'. So I'm probably marked down as an nasty abusive wife.

It is so good to know how well it works.

Vintage aviation.

We spent part of a day at the new Aviation Museum . This was opened last year as a place to care for and to renovate, fragile post war aircraft that are still airworthy.

So far they have about twelve examples of some of the planes that were flying the wartime runs, the De Havilland, the Vampire, the Gloster, the fighters and the bombers. These are truly vintage aircraft, that must have been so sophisticated in those days.

Please don't ask me what 'variety' these were!

One was being wheeled out for a flight and we hoped to see it take off, but they told us that it could take up to two hours to fuel it up. 

The aircraft are not 'museum' pieces sitting in a cold hangar. They work for a living, with flights available in a Chipmunk or a Prentice. My grandaughter went up in one and said it was thrilling, and so unlike a modern aeroplane.

The work is mainly done by enthusiastic volunteers and is dependent on money raised by grants , public, legacies etc.

I think it's good that a piece of history is being kept alive.

An orchestral treat.

It's not often that we go to the Theatre nowadays.

However, my daughter sent us a voucher for Christmas to be used at The Hall for Cornwall where all major theatre events are staged.

The Hall for Cornwall lives in my memory as 'the City Hall' where the weekly cattle market was held!

Now it is a very smart and well run event centre.

Months ago we bought our tickets for The Moscow State Symphony Orchestra's visit, just a one night event.

We had excellent seats. The Hall was packed, and people, I was told, had practically been fighting over seats.

It was a truly magical evening.

We were first treated to Tchaikovsky's Polonaise and Waltz from Eugene Onegin, followed by the wonderful Piano Concerto No 2 by Rachmaninov.

The soloist was Tatiana Kolesova, who has played all over the world.

She was a bundle of energy, and lived every note of the music. We could have listened all night.

After an interval there was another Tchaikovsky piece, The Pathetique Symphony.

With uproarious applause the conductor was persuaded to give us two more encores, one of which featured two harps which had been languishing on stage throughout.

We do hope to be able to go again later, when more classical music is brought to Truro.

Post storm.

The worst of the storm has passed, and we have been fortunate.

The top of my beautiful Graham Thomas rose has been broken off, but because I tied the obelisk down there is no worse damage. I was afraid the wind was going to blow the whole thing over.

The little crab apple has lost much of its blossom.

It is, for the moment, in a large tub, which meant that we could move it behind a hedge for protection.

A rather special Double Hellebore was simply ripped from the ground. All that is left is one leaf.

That's sad.

But, reading of trees blown over and gardens wrecked, I think we have done well.

Today the sun is shining!
The azalea on the edge of the garden is covered in amazing colour.
I have to admit that I didn't know it was there. For months it has just been a green blob.
So pretty!

Winter...again?

The lovely sunny days of last week have disappeared.

The day that we drove to Hampshire was warm, sunny and we thought Spring, or even Summer, was on the way.

Wrong.

We are once again back to this, constant rain, puddles all over the road, a garden that is too wet to work in. Back to raincoats instead of Summer clothes. Back to warm jumpers instead of light Tshirts.

Edit; Tonight we have a raging storm, with winds blowing everything around. I've battled out and tied down a couple of 'at risk' bushes. And also watched a neighbour's fir tree drop branches into their garden. Not good.

It's easy to moan, when not long ago I was hoping for rain for our dry garden. I was heaving watering cans around the new plants, spraying them, taking washing-up water to try to keep dry plants alive.

Never satisfied!

How lovely it would be to be able to depend on the weather, to know that the week would be fine enough to plant. But how sad it was on our drive to see how many of the crops had simply died off due to the cold but very dry weather.

Maybe the month of June will be different?

Canadian Mother's Day.

In England it isn't Mother's Day.

Aren't I fortunate to have Mother's Day twice!

These beautiful flowers were sent, via Marks and Spencer, by my daughter who lives in Canada.
The Sunflowers have sch happy faces. There is a gorgeous scent of Stocks and Carnations.

Happy Mother's Day to you all.

Beautiful Hampshire.

Back again after a family reunion in my husband's home county of Hampshire to celebrate a Diamond wedding.

The picture below is where we stayed, a charming Garden house in the grounds of the main house. The garden house is run as a B/B, and is only for two people, complete with sitting/dining area, bedroom and super swish bathroom. The after noon we arrived was very warm and sunny and we sat out by the pool with tea....very comfortable.

The Diamond wedding celebrations went off well. There were about forty at the lunch, family, old friends, and it was good to catch up with people we hadn't seen for a while.

I didn't realise that the Queen sent a card for 'special' anniversaries.

Hampshire was looking particularly greenly lovely, with trees full of blossom, hedgerows covered in Bluebells, Primroses and Cowslips.

There are so many beautiful brick houses.

On the way home we stopped off at Mottisfont Abbey, and enjoyed a stroll round in the sun.

Sadly, due to the cold weather , none of the roses in the beautiful walled garden were out, but you could get the atmosphere of the gardens just by wandering through. I made a lot of garden notes of roses that I particularly liked the shape of.

The little bridge over the river is where people like to stop and play Poohsticks!

Then we made our way back home through a horrible rainstorm and guided by a very stupid GPS who decided we should go through every tiny village known to man. Eventually we switched her off and used our heads, and the map!

Diamonds.

We are off next week to the Diamond Wedding anniversary of my husband's brother and his wife.

60 years of marriage is worth a celebration.

Apparently the Diamond anniversary used to be celebrated on 75 years of marriage.

It changed after Queen Victoria's 60 year reign was celebrated as a Diamond Jubilee.

This celebration will be just a family luncheon in Hampshire

See you the  weekend after.

May Day

Today is May the First, Mayday.

This is what we would be gathering and giving in France.

Lilies of the Valley,with their beautiful scent, are the flowers for Mayday.

In the town the Scouts would be selling pretty bunches of the flowers to all and sundry.

There was so much demand that they sometimes ran out of bunches.

It's considered nice to give a bunch to your neighbour.

Lovely traditions.