Daffodil days.

Today I'm sending you a bunch of our Cornish Spring daffodils.

Grown commercially in this county for many years, they are just coming into life. Fields are full of what looks like molten gold poured across the landscape.

By the roadside there are folk selling from their cars. 

In the village there is a lady who sells them outside her house for Charity.

One of our nearest farms, Fentongollan, has been growing bulbs for over 150 years, and even exports their daffodil bulbs to Holland. At this time of year there is a huge market in sending flowers by post, and in selling the earliest daffodils in the London flower markets, where they must be snapped up by everyone who is fed up with Winter.

You can imagine how Wordsworth was inspired to write about a 'host of golden daffodils' (I wandered lonely as a cloud, 1807) when you look at a field like this. 

Doesn't it make your heart dance?

Stop for a moment.

The first sentence of my Scripture Union reading for today was very apt.

I know that I've been rushing a bit lately.

******************

'Life is busy.

Take a moment to lay down, one by one, 

your worries and cares, and breathe in the peace of Christ'.

****

I need to remember that.
Every day.

Hellebores

Back in the days of  my French garden, I had some beautiful clumps of Hellebores.

These two, a cream and a pink-purple, were given to me by my Brother in law, and they had developed into comfortable cushions of flowers.

Hellebores do not like to be moved, so sadly I had to leave them when we left France.

Can you see around the plant, dozens of tiny seedlings?

I took a risk and brought two back with me.

Everyone warned me that seedlings do not come true to colour.

But look!
Photographed this morning.

I did the same with the pinky-purple one and to my delight there was another perfect match.

Although I put them in the garden last year, there were no flowers. I think they needed time to acclimatise to England, Hellebores are notoriously choosy.

But here we are, this Spring, with two perfect replicas of my much loved originals.

All I have to do is to wait for them to grow into'cushions'!

Skating

As you can see, we have been watching the Winter Olympics.

Some events are more stunning than others, in particular the Womens' Ice skating.

I've never skated, and I can only imagine how wonderful it must feel to fly across the ice.

These girls are only 15 years old.

What stamina they have, what dedication.

The only thing we don't enjoy too much is the choice of music.

So often it seems to be spiky and without flow. I guess it gives the girls plenty of opportunity to show their skills to the best advantage.

But I still hearken back to Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, dancing so beautifully to Ravel's Bolero, and winning all hearts (and a Gold medal) as they did so.

No one quite like them!

Mobile libraries.

Today was the fortnightly visit of our Mobile Library. It has two stops in the village, of twenty minutes each.

I know I have written about this service previously, but today I wanted to bemoan the fact that Cornwall Councils are proposing to close all mobile libraries. Apparently they need to save £1 million plus, and this is the latest target.

Other ideas are proposed, such as home delivery, which I don't think would be any less expensive a scheme to run. Another idea is to set up a library in a pub. (Inn)

I think the powers that be forget that many of the users are elderly, have no cars, and whilst able to walk in the village, could not necessarily walk a couple of miles to the nearest pub.

We have an excellent town Library in Truro, but there is little nearby parking. Elderly people cannot carry a bag of heavy books to a bus stop, or even to their car. 

The mobile library is not just a place to change books, but also a brief social meeting place, somewhere to have a chat with the librarian and with other users. The librarian told me that one lady comes regularly just for a chat, not always with books, and he thinks he is the one person that she sees on that day.

We are all filling in forms and answering questionnaires in an effort to hold this proposal back. It will be sad if we lose this service.

Bits and pieces

I have a feeling that it is 'one of those days'.

The men arrived at 9 am to put new fencing in. Their appointment was for 1.30, fortunately our morning appointment had been cancelled so we were here. 

They took one look at the wet wet lawn and decided just to leave the fence panels, as it was impossible to work in the pouring rain.

I decide to have a baking morning.

I made delicious Flapjacks...that's the British ones with Quaker oats, not the American pancakes.

Then I made a whole batch of Rock buns and forgot to add any sugar.

Some might say that the buns will be very healthy.

Hmmm.

I sorted my husband's Ipad out, he not being very technologically able, found all the mail that he didn't know he had, and also found to my delight that the daily reading from Scripture Union has at last come through. I've been battling with it for a few days, but they seem to have sorted it out. It's so good for him to be able to enlarge the font and read.

So now what? Everyone says it is dangerous to go out, the roads are awash and tree branches are down. I think a quiet day of sewing might be good.

Definitely no more baking.

Wet England.

What else is there to write about but rain?

I think everyone in the UK is totally engulfed in this wet world, longing for it to end, longing for sunshine.

Today it has simply poured.

Horizontal rain, roaring in through the kitchen door if I dare open it.

But - how thankful we are not to live right on the coast.

This is a village called Portheven, where the waves have reached unprecedented heights, where shops, homes and public buildings have been engulfed. People have had to be rescued, rehomed with little hope of returning soon.

And this is Dawlish in Devon, through which the main rail link to Cornwall ran.

You can see what is left of it here, swaying above the beach, all supports washed away.

The reality of it is hard to comprehend. 

My wet kitchen floor is as nothing compared to what people are going through.

May it end soon.

Storm damage

We had our own bit of storm damage over the weekend.

The (elderly) fence between us and our neighbour on the left went down.

It needed replacing.

This morning I have managed to prop it up from her side so that it doesn't fall on her gooseberry bushes. That would be terrible!

My gardener is ringing me later to see when he can replace it, but he is running round in circles coping with more serious storm damage.

On the good side, I see there are crocus and mini daffodils flowering in the garden At last!

You asked.....

In reply to queries.....

This is the little gas stove that we used in our power loss emergency.

It is really for camping and the advice is to use indoors only in a well ventilated room.

So we kept the kitchen door a bit open while it was lit. It's neat and compact, comes in a little carrying case, and just for boiling a saucepan of water was ideal.

The other query was about the lovely blue bowl that I used for drawing the giveaway. It is a treasure of mine, bought many years ago on holiday in Portugal. We found an artisan potter and I just couldn't resist this bowl. It holds salad, fruit, sometimes nuts, and just occasionally, giveaway names!

Candlelight

Last night the storm raged. Howling winds hurled themselves around the houses, rain came hammering down.

The first flickers began at around 4pm, so I hastily made an early supper whilst we still had electricity. I brought the new camping gas stove, bought for such emergencies, into the kitchen and spent a while working out how to light it....it's very high tech.

Candles and matches were ready, and just as we were settled down watching a programme about decorating, the flickers intensified, and finally all electricity went off.

Our neighbour popped in to make sure that we were all right, and we settled down for a while, reading by candlelight, with a cup of hot tea made on the little stove.

Hot water bottles were filled due to the fact that electric blankets don't work without the essential ingredient, and we were cosy and comfortably in bed slightly earlier than usual.

I think the power came on about 6 o clock this morning.

It reminded me of childhood, when electricity cuts were much more frequent, and no one got in a panic about it.

My mother had what was known as a 'Tilly Lamp'

 I think these have been in production since around 1920. They were run on paraffin and were always kept for emergencies. Mum used to meet us with her lamp, from school as we hustled down the dark village lane. As soon as we saw the light of the Tilly lamp glowing, we knew knew were safe, and that she was there.

Isn't Light wonderful.

A winner.

We drew the giveaway this morning.

All the 38 names went in a bowl, including the two who thought they might be too late.

I'm always sad that only one person can win, as I would love to send to all of you!

My husband drew one name, initials K.G. (I use a sort of shorthand for this!)

It's Kathleen Grace of Kathy's Cottage. Congratulations!
Kathy has such an interesting blog. She is a crafter, a 'kitchen renovator' and always has some lovely photos to show us.

Kathy, please send me your address and I will send as soon as possible.