Garden Dreams

One of my winter dreams will always remain a dream I'm afraid, I would love to have a house and garden like the one above. A beautiful very old manor house dreaming in the midst of a timeless profusion of old cottage plants.



I have another slightly more realistic dream also - to have my garden looking good right through from early spring to late autumn. I am yet to achieve this dream but maybe this year will be the one when it finally happens.


I'm dreaming this year of more colour like this wonderful oriental poppy. I love the gentle pinks, blues and lavenders but gardens need a burst of strong colour every so often to lift them and it's something my garden lacks apart from these popppies .


Sometimes I get my garden looking pretty good but that is usually in spring and early summer when I'm full of enthusiasm and it's easy to have it filled with interest and colour.



It isn't unknown for it to look reasonable in the winter....



....and autumn can have its moments too but July and August!!!! There are no photos of my garden in those months because it always looks depressing. I am usually short on energy especially if it's hot and often I'm away as well. I usually haven't deadheaded things that I should and I don't do bedding which is where a lot of colour comes from at this time of the year. And yet I know it's possible to have things flowering and looking good because other people manage it and one day I'm going to as well!



The photo above was taken at Parham House in Suffolk in early July, they have a good deal more space in the borders than I have but surely it isn't beyond me to achieve something similar on a smaller scale?


There are other garden dreams too, I'd love to have a bed filled with medieval herbs, there is no shortage of plants to choose from and in fact I have a great many plants from that period already in the garden. What I want though is to have them all together with a little wattle hurdle fence round and a sundial in the middle.



I dream of planting more and more of the lovely old shrub roses like my beautiful Reine des Violettes......



....and Felicite Parmentier who hates the rain but is perfection if the flowers coincide with warm, sunny weather. I love everything about these old roses, the beautiful shapes and colours, the amazing perfumes and the wonderful names. Who wouldn't want roses called Ispahan conjuring up visions of cool courtyard gardens in ancient Persia or Rosa Mundi with it's connections to Henry II and his Fair Rosamund. It doesn't surprise me at all that the Empress Josephine collected roses and made the famous rose garden at Malmaison near Paris.



Finally I dream about all the wonderful gardens that I can visit during the summer months including the one above which is Fanshawgate Hall. This lovely old house is about 10 minutes drive from where I live so I go at least once a year, there's always a good plant stall too. This year's list of visits will include Chiff Chaffs and Snape Cottage in Dorset and perhaps one or two Sussex gardens that coincide with my visits down there - there's Alfriston and Charleston and....... roll on the publication of this years Yellow Book and long, warm summer days!

Winter Dreaming

Now that Winter Solstice and Yule are gone I have sailed gratefully into the quiet backwaters of January. It's a month that many people dislike but for me it is a time of winter dreaming, a whole year lies ahead and in January it is full of infinite possibilties.



There are so many ancient crafts and skills that I would like to master, natural dyeing for instance. How wonderful to gather plants, leaves, bark or berries from your garden or the surrounding countryside and then use them to produce yarns in wonderful rich,earthy colours. I know someone locally who would teach me or....



...there is a course available at the Weald and Downland Museum - a place I never tire of visiting.



Then there is basket making, I've always loved baskets and the thought of learning to make my own really appeals to me. Plenty of courses around so that's another possibility...


....and if I made my own baskets I could use them to collect wild fruits and herbs so maybe a course on wild foods so that I can identify more of them. I know quite a few but there are a great many others that I know by name but couldn't safely identify if they were growing wild.


Then, of course, there is spinning - my little kit bought at Bakewell Show last summer is still in its brown paper carrier! I haven't been brave enough to have a go yet but the young lady who was demonstrating spinning would give me lessons.



She lives in Edale, I'm sure that you can see why my winter dreaming includes visiting this lovely part of the Peak District again........


........and saying hello to my friends who provide the wool for all this spinning and dyeing.



January is a time for dreaming of all the wonderful places I might visit or revisit such as West Kennet Long Barrow which is a place that I find very special.



Hopefully my dream of visiting Maiden Castle in Dorset will become a reality this year, Dorset is a county I've never visited even though I know that it's full of wonderful ancient places and beautiful gardens like Snape Cottage and Chiff Chaffs - these two I've only seen on photographs and garden videos but I've long wanted to visit them.


My January dreams take me further afield too, I hope one day to return to South Africa so that I can see wonderful sights like this again.


Bourke's Luck Potholes in Blyde River Canyon, a fantastically beautiful area near to White River where my son and DIL lived for three years. Actually my chances of seeing it again are pretty good as my son and daughter-in-law plan to move back there within the next 12 months so maybe in 2010.....



There are dreams of spring flowers....



....borders filling with all my old friends and maybe some new ones too...



....and just sitting in the warm sunshine of an early summer's day.

Winter landscape

He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes! You may trace his footsteps now
On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown hill's withered brow.
He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their pleasant green came forth,
And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, have shaken them down to earth.



He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!--from the frozen Labrador,--
From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which the white bear wanders o'er,--
Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the luckless forms below
In the sunless cold of the lingering night into marble statues grow!




He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!--on the rushing Northern blast,
And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his fearful breath went past.
With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, where the fires of Hecla glow
On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient ice below.



He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!--and the quiet lake shall feel
The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to the skater's heel;
And the streams which danced on the broken rocks, or sang to the leaning grass,
Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in mournful silence pass.




He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!--let us meet him as we may,
And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil power away;
And gather closer the circle round, when that fire-light dances high,
And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as his sounding wing goes by!



This lovely poem is The Frost Spirit by John Greenleaf Whittier a 19th century American poet. It must have been inspired by similar magical scenes to the ones I saw and photographed this morning.


I have to say that I don't think of Jack Frost or the Frost Spirit as a fiend but more of a bringer of beauty and cleansing. To me when I was a child the words 'Jack Frost has been' from my mother as she drew my curtains was a signal to run to the window to see the lovely patterns he had drawn on the glass. No central heating in those days and the winters were colder so there was often frost on the inside of the windows.


I don't suppose I really noticed the beauty of seedheads heavy with frost but I do remember long icy slides in the school playground and on the pavements too which was probably not all that popular with the older people! No Health and Safety spoiled our fun in those days. I don't remember anyone really hurting themselves, just a few scraped knees and bruises. We wrapped up warm and played out in all weathers, little girls wore liberty bodices - not very elegant but very effective in the keeping you warm stakes.


This isn't a variegated holly in spite of appearances, it's an ordinary green one with a thick rim of frost round the edges, it looked absolutely stunning.



Ivy flowers in the process of becoming black berries, still green at the moment but will provide food for hungry birds as they ripen. It's worth clicking and enlarging it to see the ice crystals on each tiny berry and outlining every leaf.


The artistry of the spiders web is even more evident sparkling with ice crystals. This particular holly bush had several decorating it as though Nature had celebrated Winter Solstice with her own delicate ornaments.



Happy New Year everyone!

Awards!

I've been lucky enough to have received these two awards from nita, do visit her lovely blog called The Kentish Lass.

I have to list various things about myself so here goes:

7 things to do before I die

1. Learn to spin
2. Visit South Africa again
3. Learn to do natural dyeing
4. Walk the length of The Ridgway
5. Go to Maiden Castle in Dorset
6. Learn to make baskets
7. See a Golden Eagle

7 Things That Make Me Happy

1. My family
2. Seeing thr rooks coming in to roost in the woods at dusk in winter.
3. Being in the countryside.
4. Spending time with friends
5. Messing about in my garden
6. Losing enough weight to finally get back into some of my favourite clothes again!
7. Curling up on a stormy winter day with a really good book and a large box of
chocolates - unfortunately 6 and 7 are mutually exclusive!!

7 Favourite foods

1. Reese's Chocolate peanut butter cups!
2. Smoked salmon
3. Bacon sandwich
4. Carrot cake
5. Cherries
6. Cheese,ham and potato casserole
7. Chips!

I'm not going to pass this on to anyone but please feel free to do it if you like.

A Walk in the Woods

B Baggins Esq has been enjoying his walks in the woods lately and wanted to show you some of the lovely autumn scenes that he passes as he goes round. The colours of the beech leaves are especially lovely with their patchwork of greens and golds.


We walk by the river on a beautiful rustly brown carpet of beech leaves.



There are already a lot of bare branches but even in midwinter there is still some green from the holly, yew and Scots Pine trees that grow among the beech, oak and sweet chestnut trees.



Monarch of the Glen!


There are many large stones along the river bank many of them thickly covered in moss like these, this also adds some green to the landscape even on the darkest winter day.



We've climbed up the hill from river and are back on one of the official paths walking along by the bird sanctuary now. B Baggins and I spend as little time as possible on these paths, we prefer to be off the beaten track. On this section the official path is the only way because of the sanctuary. It's a poor photo as the light levels were so low when I took it.


We walk a triangular route and this is the start of the final leg, back to the quieter tracks again.



Is it time to go home already?



Waiting for my lead to be put on again - don't know why we can't stay here all day. I'll definitely catch that squirrel next time we come though!

Remembrance

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army




Remembering all those who have given their lives for their country, but especially
Pte Harry Hindley Simpson, 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers killed in action August 1916

and

AC2 Harold Harrison RAF buried in Jakarta War Cemetery, Indonesia 1942 - far from home but never forgotten.


"When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today"