Books

29 June 2013

I love books, we have lots in our house all on built in bookshelves.  Pretty much every room has a bookshelf in it the bathroom is the only exception.  There are shelves in the kitchen for cookery books, in the hall for our outdoor books on climbing, canoeing, wild flowers, birds etc, in the living room they are low down for the children's books and higher up for bigger adult type books.  Our house is not overflowing with them but people do notice them when they come to visit.  Both my children love to read books, my eldest taught himself to read and often leaves a trail of books he has read in a day around the house.  Although they take me a while these days, I always like to have a book on the go.

We are home educating at the moment and I feel that books are an integral part of how we learn as a family.  We meet up at a different friends houses for various activities, play, fun and learning and I am always interested to see what they have on their bookshelves.  Most of these houses are like mine there is a good collection of children's and adults books and a pile somewhere of library books too, all except one.  Even though I have been visiting this house regularly I have never noticed until recently, it is interesting how we don't notice until we actually look, how few books there are, now they seem noticeable by their absence.  I have been pondering their absence recently especially as the eldest child, now nine, is not yet reading and is not remotely interested, I can't help feeling that the lack of books has a part to play.  His mother is becoming concerned that he is not interested.  If we are to encourage a love for books and reading is it not important that they are a part of a child's life,  that they have a collection of their own.  Ones that they can look at at their leisure or have read to them by someone that can read.  That they are accessible to the the child and they have somewhere that they can sit comfortably to read and look.  I realise that there are many many ways of learning but I do feel very strongly that books should pay an integral role.

We have been reading lots about the Romans in this last week as we going off for a trip to Hadrian's Wall, we are camping in the area and will be visiting many of the sites along the wall.  We will update you once we return in the middle of next week!

Salad

28 June 2013

I love this time of year for the huge variety of foods that can be eaten raw, thrown together or deliberately chosen to make a salad.  I am not talking about the ubiquitous and frankly rather dull salad of some lettuce, cucumber and tomato which wouldn't work for me anyway as I am not able to eat tomato.  There are so many interesting ingredients that you can use to make a salad which can be a meal in itself or a good healthy accompaniment.

A typical weekly menu will include at least one a day at this time of year and includes grain based salads such as Tabbouleh made with bulgar wheat, a Couscous based salad or with quinoa which I usually cooked in vegetable stock and garlic and mix in cooked beans, like pinto, chopped spring onion, cucumber and a mix of chopped fresh herbs.  I make a couple of rice salads after cooking the rice I add a vinegrette made either with white wine vinegar, oil and a crushed clove of garlic mix into the rice whilst hot, once cool I add cooked peas and chopped dill, or the same vinegar and oil with mustard, turmeric and garlic again mixing into the rice whilst hot I add sultanas and leave to cool.

If you have any potatoes left after a meal you can chop them into small pieces and mix mayonnaise to make a quick potato salad, I sometimes add mustard and or a chopped spring onion for a bit of variety.  I make a mushroom salad by slicing the mushrooms, you can use any, and a spring onion and mixing in a vinegrette of oil, vinegar, crushed garlic glove, honey and mixed herbs.  A really simple carrot salad of grated carrot, toasted sunflower seeds tossed in soy sauce whilst hot and a drizzle of oil or another with grated carrot, grated ginger root, chopped shallots, mint, toasted mustard seeds and a dressing of vinegar or lime juice and oil.

You can make salads with beans, cook up a couple of dried beans, haricot and pinto for example, some green beans and toss in a dressing whilst hot and allow to cool.  Cook up broad beans and mix with chopped olives, feta, mint, oil and vinegar.

You can use pasta in many different ways our favourite is to add in sliced green and black olives and capers with a dressing.

One of my favourite salads, is the cheapest for us at the moment, is to walk into my garden and pick a handful of leaves, currently we have lettuces, perilla, mizuna green and red, red and green mustard, greens in snow, marjorum, mint, chives and wild rocket to out in ours with a dressing of oil and balsamic vinegar I could eat it every day!

What salads do you enjoy eating?

Knitting

26 June 2013


I have been working away on my hat this week, I made great progress whilst camping.  I am now starting to really enjoy this pattern and can put it down in the middle of a pattern repeat and work out where I got to.  I got so confident that I got to the end of a row and realised that I had failed to knit the cables, so had to unpick and knit again!  I am hoping that I have enough yarn to finish this, it is going to be a close one I am on a journey of yardage chicken yet again.

I have finished knitting the Old Shale Scarf and blocked it and it has come out a good length, I was concerned it would not be long enough but it is perfect and will get lots of wear in these cool summer days we are having.

I have joined an online book group recently through a forum that I visit.  Our first book is Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.  This book has been a slow hard read, I am not going to finish it as it is really not my cup of tea at all.  For me it is a collection of short stories with, in the main, very tenuous links.  The opening chapter was really hard work, had I not been reading it to share discussion I would have given up at that point.  I have managed to read four chapters now but I have admitted defeat in the fifth.  It is over five hundred pages long, I managed just under two hundred.  I know that there are many people who have really enjoyed this book, I am not on of them!

Joining in with Tami for this weeks work in progress.


Midsummer

25 June 2013




We joined together, last week, with friends to celebrate midsummer and the solstice.  We camped not far from where we all live at a campsite which had the perfect mix of space, woods and beaches.  The children were away playing with their friends for most of the day, only returning to the tent for food, clean clothes or sleep!  The weather forecast was mixed, with sun, rain and thunderstorms we had two very light showers and lots of sun and felt very blessed it definitely makes camping easier when it is dry.  Some of the children had been rehearsing a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the weeks leading up to camp, they performed this in the woods to a large audience and it was enchanting.  I had watched some of the rehearsals and thought them far from ready but they were.  We also had fires on the beach in the evenings, sang songs, had afternoon tea together, shared food in the evening, made streamers to run around with, had our own version of a sports day event with wacky races and had a throughly marvellous time.  We did not want to come home.

Our own preparations included making a flower wreath for my youngest, inspired by this lovely blog.  I too used craft wire which I wrapped with ribbon.  I drew some shapes on paper and then cut out the leaves and petals, we used 100% wool felt, and sewed them together with a few stitches in the centre, we added a button on and sewed the flower to the ribbon evenly spacing them.  My youngest has been asking to do some sewing for a while and this seemed like the perfect project for her to start with.  She sewed some of the flowers together and one of the buttons on.  It was lovely to sit together and complete this, we made the whole wreath in a couple of hours.  She wore the wreath, together with fairy  wings and dress for her role as a fairy in the play.

Joining in with Nicole for this weeks Keep Calm Craft On.

Moments...

24 June 2013

...this week of...

...happiness at spending three days camping, in the sunshine, with friends to celebrate midsummer and the solstice we didn't want it to end.

...sadness that the weather has been too cold to enjoy our village outdoor pool.

...creating streamers to run around with, dinosaurs with playdough, finishing a scarf, working on a hat, a flower wreath.

...reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell the oddest book I have ever read, I don't think I will finish it!

...learning about plate tectonics, evolution, dinosaurs and the changing shape of the land masses in the world over time.

...thinking about Christmas presents, yes I know it is only June but if I am going to make them all in time I need to start soon.

...wondering if some of the plants in my garden are going to get big and strong enough to produce before the days get too short.

...hoping that I have enough yarn to complete my hat it is looking likely that I might run out close to finishing.

...looking forward to more camping again next week!

Gratitudes

23 June 2013


Joining in with Taryn for her heartfelt Sunday tradition.

A time to slow down, to reflect, to be grateful.

This week I have been grateful for...

...a slower pace of life.

...sunshine whilst camping.

...celebrating midsummer with friends.

...my children having fun and playing with their friends non stop for two and half days whilst camping.

...quality time with friends.

...silence.

...walking through beautiful woodland at night and during the day.

...a fire by the beach with friends before retiring to bed.

...so much beautiful fresh air.

...taking several days to prepare for a camping trip rather than rushing around in day.

...my lovely husband helping us with the unpacking when we returned from camping.

...a blooming garden that provides us with tasty food.

Knitting

19 June 2013


I have cast on another project for me this week, a hat which I thought would be a gentle introduction to knitting cables.  The first few rows after the ribbing were hard as these were setting up the pattern.  The even rows on this pattern are to knit the knits and purl the purls as you see them.  I was struggling to see them and I may have made some mistakes although I can't tell now!  The cable stitches have turned out to be the easy bit.  I love this pattern and after a few rows I have now got into  it and can tell where I am.  I just hope it fits after all the work.

I have also been working on the scarf I shared last week and this cardigan which is slowly growing.  All my current projects are for me which is unusual, I do have projects for others in the pipeline!

I am away for the rest of this week on a camping trip with friends to celebrate midsummer.  If you leave me a comment, thank you, it may take some time to appear!  I will catch up with all the lovely post shared on this weeks work in progress over on Tami's blog at the weekend.

Cleaning?

18 June 2013

Welcome to the June edition of the Simply Living Blog Carnival - Around the House cohosted by Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children, Laura at Authentic Parenting, Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy, and Joella at Fine and Fair. This month, we write about what we do to keep the little things from overwhelming us. Please check out the links to posts by our other participants at the end of this post.

I grew up in a cluttered and messy house, my room was an oasis of tidiness and no clutter.  My mother hated housework and still does, only doing what is absolutely necessary.  I have definitely inherited the hatred of housework but as my house is infinitely less cluttered it is rarely as messy.  I would not say I am, by any stretch of the imagination one of those people who cleans, dusts or hoovers on a regular basis.  I am much more of an adhoc do it when it needs it type of cleaner.  You are much more likely to find me with a book, a board game piece or knitting  in hand than a duster.  Personally I would rather spend time doing other things and that does not mean that my house is thick with dust or my carpets covered in bits, well some floors are covered in Lego but I would not try and hoover that up!

I clean when I need to.  In the case of the kitchen this is daily, personally I would rather prepare food on clean surfaces using clean utensils.  In the case of the bathroom this is about once a week depending on how much use it has had.  In the case of the other rooms in the house it is definitely less often.  But I tidy up almost daily.  I clear the floors and most surfaces.  We don't have a lot of possessions so there is never that much to put away.  Friends often comment on how tidy my house is, in an enviable way, they bemoan the 'bits' that get everywhere those very small things that children are wont to collect and attract.  They are not everywhere because we don't have any.  I may be mean but I will not let them come into my house and if they do they make their way back out again quickly.  I know that it is those little bits that can create a mess and make it much harder to tidy up, as if it is not difficult enough being a parent without making life harder for yourself, they are staying away until the day when my children keep their own things tidy.

So we have simple toys, Lego excepting, that are easy to tidy away.  Lego is kept to one room in the house in an attempt, that seems to be largely working, to keep it fairly contained.  We have a small house which means we simply cannot store many possessions as we do not have the room, less space also means that there is less areas to keep clean.   Decluttering takes place on a regular basis, it has to particularly after birthdays and Christmas and in the case of the children's clothes, after changes in the seasons.  By owning less it is easy to keep our house tidy and then when I do feel the need to clean, I can do so with minimum effort.

Thank you for visiting the Simply Living Blog Carnival cohosted by Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children, Laura at Authentic Parenting, Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy, and Joella at Fine and Fair. Read about how others are incorporating simple ideas around their homes. We hope you will join us next month!

Moments..

17 June 2013

...this week of...

...happiness the blooming seedlings in my garden everything is growing, spending an afternoon with friends celebrating a birthday.

...sadness at some tragic news in our village this week.

...creating a scarf and hat for myself, a flower wreathe with my youngest.

...reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

..learning more about wildlife and dinosaurs.

...thinking about my brother in law and trying to understand why he is behaving as he is, not ringing or visiting his father who is very ill, it is upsetting his mother and my husband, his brother.

...wondering if I have planned too many camping trips this summer, they is so much preparation but I love them when I get there!

...hoping that I can fit in another foraging walk soon.

...looking forward to celebrating midsummer and the solstice camping with friends.

Gratitudes

16 June 2013

Joining in with Taryn for her heartfelt Sunday tradition.

A time to slow down, to reflect, to grateful.

This week I have been grateful for...

...a quieter week.

...a day out on the train to visit a castle, with friends.

...an afternoon with friends spent chatting and catching up.

...time for sewing and knitting.

...lovely messages from friends and family for the handmade gifts that I sent them.

...time to potter in the garden, weeding, sowing seedlings, potting on a few minutes here and there.

...finding a simple project to introduce my youngest to sewing as she really wants to have a go, she really enjoyed the act of creating, we will share what we have made next week!

...tomato plants from a friend, I don't usually grow them as the tomatoes don't ripen before the cool, shorter days arrive, but as the plants were strong, healthy and free I have planted them in the polytunnel.

...a lovely summery afternoon spent outside celebrating the birthday of a friend of my eldest.

Measuring

15 June 2013

I had a really interesting conversation with a friend this week about education.  She was lamenting the changes to the eduction system that the current government is planning to implement over the next few years.  I pay little attention to what is going on in our education system these days as my children are not at school.  One of the reasons that I chose to home educate is because I could not reconcile myself with any part of the national curriculum.

I was fortunate enough to attend school before the national curriculum had been introduced it was, I think, bought into primary schools as I was in my last few years of secondary school.  My only experience of this framework for learning, prior to having my own children, was through my mother who taught in schools for twenty five years, from the late 70s onwards.  She did not really have a good word to say about it and when I considered being a teacher when I was about to leave school she, thankfully, put me off!

When my eldest child was born I wanted to get to know more people in the village we had not long moved to, a job came up in the village school which I applied for and got.  I was a clerk to the governing body of the school, a job which took up a few hours of my time each week and I could mostly do when I wanted to.  Whilst it did serve the purpose of getting to know more people in the village it also served to open my eyes to the national curriculum and many other facets of measuring that took place in that, and I am sure many other schools across the country.  I would sit in meetings listening to how test results could be improved with what I felt to be little regard for the children.  Over time it dawned on me that I would be giving my child over to this system and I really was not comfortable with that at all.  The measuring and testing of children, it seemed to me, had become so important it had become the benchmark of teaching.  If a child did not reach a certain standard in a certain week they would be deemed to have not succeeded, where in all of this was the children centred learning that I kept being told was at the heart of our education system.  It had gone, replaced with a system for learning that I could not reconcile placing my child within.

It is important to me that my children can learn at the pace that is appropriate for them as individuals.  I do not teach them anything, I facilitate.  I provide an environment for them to learn.  I did not teach my children to walk or talk, they learnt that themselves, the learning that takes place in my home is a natural extension of that.  I don't measure them or test them.  I have no idea what they would have been taught, at their respective ages, if they were at school.  So I was further intrigued by a comment that was made later in the same conversation about education.  We were talking about a child of a mutual friend, one who is two years old and has been taught the letters of the alphabet by his father, she labelled him bright.  Really?  What happened to playing.  Are parents really feeling under so much pressure to ensure that their children achieve at school and tick the boxes in the right week that they have to teach their children the alphabet at two.  I am not sure what made me feel sadder that act in its self or labelling the child, bright.

Seedlings

13 June 2013

This week has been all about seedlings in my garden.  I have been hardening off, gardening speak for getting my plants used to cooler temperatures outside as they have been started in the polytunnel, many of my seedling this week and planting them out.  There is very little space left now I have even planted some inside my pea wigwams!

So far, purple sprouting broccoli, white cabbage, kale, chard, spinach and lettuce seedlings have been planted out and I have sown some romanesco cauliflower seeds that I was given.  I have also bought some plants and seeds to restock my depleted herb garden which died of the cold and old age over the last winter.  I have planted rosemary, sage and cotton lavender also known as santolina plants and sown salad burnet, hyssop, borage and caraway seeds.  I would like a few more plants but could not get them from the garden centre I visited today so will keep hunting.

Over the course of the next week I am going to plant out courgette and cucumber seedlings, sow the last of my seed potatoes, plant out leek seedlings and onion sets and sow some more radishes, carrots, turnips and beetroot.

I am not sharing any pictures this week as I shared several last week and my garden has changed very little in the past week!


Knitting

12 June 2013


My needles have been busy over the past few weeks, I have many small projects on the go.  I have finished the baby cardigans and sent them off, my twin nephews arrived last week both weighing around 7lbs!  I have also finished this hat but cannot find it to take pictures to share.  I cast on an Old Shale Scarf a couple of weeks ago as I thought it would make a good project to take camping which I have been doing a lot of recently.  I have soon got used to the pattern and can now pick it up and work out which row is next which is rather pleasing.  I hope that the scarf will be long enough by the time I get to the end of the skein, there is not much left and the scarf is a bit on the short side.  I love this pattern and it is a quick knit, I can see myself making some more of these for presents.

Despite being away a lot recently I have not done much reading at all.  The latest edition of Juno magazine landed on my doorstep last week and that has been the extent of my reading lately, with it being so light, so late we have been spending much more time outdoors in the garden so reading is taking a back seat.

Joining in with Tami for this weeks work in progress

Making

11 June 2013


I have managed to get started and finished with a few projects this week.  My twin nephews arrived at the end of May so I needed to get their cardigans finished.  I had to block them, buy and sew the buttons on which I have now done.  They have been parcelled up and will go in the post today.  I do hope they fit, I had assumed because they were twins they would be fairly small babies but they each weighed in at 7 lbs each!  My sister in law must have been really big at the end.  The patterns I used were both from ravelry, this one and this one.


I have also nearly made up two bags as presents for a friends children.  I have had it in mind to make these for a few months now but like so many things it has got left to the last minute!  I can get these made quite quickly now, it takes about twenty minutes per bag to cut out the pieces and press them and an hour to sew them up and press them to this stage.  They now need the handles sewing on which I do by hand as I find it is neater, I can sit and do this anywhere and will be taking them along to a home ed group this afternoon to do whilst chatting to the mamas and the children are off playing!  Like the cardigans I need to get these in the post, the children's birthdays are both this weekend, although they are not twins.

I have also finished knitting a hat for my husband but I couldn't find it to take a picture!  I will share it another time along with the 'pattern' as I made it up.

Joining in with Nicole for this weeks sharing on Keep Calm, Craft On.

Moments...

10 June 2013


...this week of...

...happiness camping with family and friends in the sunshine, my garden blooming, fresh salad leaves  from the garden, swimming in the outdoor pool in the village.

...sadness at the continued decline in my father in laws health.

...creating a hat for my husband, two baby cardigans for my twin nephews and sewing two bags for a friends children's birthdays.

...reading the latest edition of Juno magazine.

...learning about dinosaurs and wildlife.

...thinking about all the things I would like to make over the next few weeks.

...wondering how my sister in law is getting on with her new baby twins.

...hoping that all the seedlings I am planning to plant out this week do not get eaten by mice.

...looking forward to a quieter week this week.

Gratitudes

09 June 2013

Joining in with Taryn for her heartfelt Sunday tradition.

A time to slow down, to reflect, to be grateful.

This week I have been grateful for...

...warm weather that has made my garden bloom.

 ...my neighbour who looked after my garden whilst I was away.

...a lovely time camping in the sunshine.

...rhubarb in abundance fresh from the garden, we have made fool, smoothies and muffins with it.

...radishes and salad leaves to pick and eat from the garden, we have been eating so many salads which are a welcome break from the root veg of the winter.

...getting all my holiday washing clean and dried in a few days as it has been so sunny.

...the outdoor swimming pool in my village opening for the summer, it is funded entirely by the village and run by volunteers we love spending hot afternoons at the pool.

...the Springwatch programmes on the BBC which we have watched each evening with the children.

...finding the time to tidy up and declutter we have a birthday recently and with the weather getting warmer there were clothes everywhere as I had got the children's summer clothes out of storage but not put away any winter ones.

Trust

08 June 2013

I attempted to walk in to my eldest's bedroom the other day but stopped as I decided it would be too uncomfortable for my feet.  The carpet had morphed from a lovely wool one to one of Lego, it was completely covered.  I walked away more than slightly baffled as we had been away for almost a week then I remembered for two of the days just before going away we had the same two children over to play.  Two children who never fail to make my house look like a whirlwind has been through,  almost every toy my youngest owns, which is not a huge amount were out on her floor at one point whilst they were here.  Whilst my children do scatter items all over the house it is never a huge volume, they play for hours, sometimes days with the same few toys these same two children flit from one thing to another not really settling and well, making a huge mess.  We have recently spent a few days away with this same family and I have now come to realise why these children play as they do.

As parents we are raising the next generation giving them the skills to go out into the world and stand on their own two feet.  As humans we have one of the longest periods of development to this stage in the animal kingdom so we have plenty of time to get it wrong right, if we know what is right that is, there are no opportunities to turn back the clock and do things over again.  But that does not mean that we should give up hope that we can ever do a good enough job provided we do learn from our own mistakes and not end up sounding like a stuck record which is what I listened to for so much of my time away.

To trust your child is, in my opinion, one of the hardest aspects of parenting and one that can only come from trusting yourself.  If you yourself were not trusted as a child then it makes trusting others very difficult.  If I had a pound for every time I have heard it said of a child, but I can't trust them I would be a rich lady now.  Hearing these words always makes me sad, sad for the adult speaking them and for the child they are speaking of.  Trust is not something you can teach children, they have to learn, they have to be given the space to get on with their life but within the safety net of you as a parent.  If you keep the net too tight, too restricting then the child will most likely react.  How they react will differ from child to child, they may be aggressive physically or verbally, run away from you constantly, feel like they never listen, be destructive, either way their behaviour is likely to challenge you, probably to tighten the net further still.  So a tight net is one, for me, that makes for difficult listening, of frustrated children who are unsettled and maybe destructive and how these two children behave most of the time.  They are not trusted and that makes me sad.

Tortillas

07 June 2013

I try to make as much of the food we eat, from scratch, that I possibly can.  Whilst this can be more time consuming it is definitely better tasting and I expect more nutritious.  I stopped buying bread over eight years ago when we bought a bread maker, I used it a lot to start off with, nowadays less often, partly because we eat less bread but also because I make some of the bread we eat by hand.   A recent addition to my cookbook library a bread recipe book has a section on flatbreads I have been making naan and pita breads for years but had never attempted tortillas*.  We eat them often, they are really versatile.  You can stuff them with so many ingredients, refried beans, salads, coleslaw, hummus, bean sprouts, cheese and the list goes on.

The recipe book suggested that making your own was far tastier than shop bought ones, my first attempt were a disaster.  They were stiff as boards, completely tasteless and the children complained that they were not round!  Never one to give up at the first hurdle I tried them again and the book was right they are better tasting.  The first batch were cooked for too long and went hard and brittle, the trick is to cook them for one minute as the book suggests....perhaps if I had read it properly they would have been good from the beginning.  I vow that I will never buy another tortilla again as they taste of cardboard and stick to the roof of your mouth.

Wheat Tortillas

300g plain flour
1 scant tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
50g fat (recipe book suggests lard or white vegetable fat I use butter)

Put the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl and add the fat.

Rub in using hands to make fine crumbs.

Add 150ml of warm water and bring the mix together to form a soft dough.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for a few minutes until smooth.

Put the dough in a greased bowl, cover with cling and leave to rest for an hour in a warm place.

On a floured surface cut the dough into pieces, for large tortillas cut into eight pieces for slightly smaller ones cut into ten.

Roll each piece into a thin circle, mine are more like squircles and dry fry over a medium heat for one minute on each side.

Transfer to a cooling rack whilst the rest are cooking.

I tend to roll the next one whilst one is cooking but watch that you do not allow the cooking tortilla to get too crispy!

You can freeze them once cooked.

* traditionally a tortilla was made of corn, but this post is about those made with wheat flour.

Blooming

06 June 2013

I have returned to a garden in bloom most of which has survived my being away.  I have lost a handful of onion seedlings to the heat wave that we are having in this part of the world.  I am watering in earnest to keep everything from expiring.  I have not actually done very much in the garden this week at all so offer you some pictures instead, a virtual tour starting at the top of the garden...


...with a raised bed that is the width of the garden approx 6m/20ft.  Originally this was a larger patio area which had been installed, very badly, by a previous owner it was like a sea you could visibly see it was not flat and it would probably not have withstood sitting on it as it sank as you walked over it.  We removed the pavers, reusing them to make a path, dug the bed over and now grow veg in it, this year leeks, onions and root veg.   The large cage in the the top right hand corner is a 1000 litre rainwater storage tank.

Next down the garden is the compost bins...



...recently rebuild by my husband as the old ones had rotted.  The wooden box on legs at the front of the bottom picture is a wormery.

On the other side of the path to these is the polytunnel...


...without which we would not grow much.  We use it pretty much year round and start off most seedlings in it.  We grow cucumbers and courgettes in it in the summer and salad leaves in the winter.

The next bed down on the left of the garden...



...has a trellis in the top corner which holds slings and krabs to attach a hammock.  An unruly honeysuckle grows over the top and a thyme lawn underneath.  The rest of the bed has garlic and potatoes growing in it this year.  The bottom edge has...


...a lilac just about to bloom and bluebells still in flower and...


...a rather small wildlife pond which has sprung a leak I think we need to reline it!

To the left of this bed, in front of the polytunnel is a mass of greenery...


...two pea wigwams, a rhubarb plant and some small dwarf beans, behind them is a rosehip hedge along the edge of the garden.  This provides a wind break without which not much would grow, this is the prevailing wind direction and there is a mass of open land for the wind to blow across.

Winding our way down the garden we have...


...a fruit cage which we built this year, containing a blackcurrant and a whitecurrant.

Another trellis...

...in front of the pond supporting an aktinidia kolomikta, the leaves of which change colour from green to white to pink in the sunshine.

In front of this is a bed that I have largely neglected...


...but is doing very nicely without my help, the bulbs in this bed were planted before we move in, the rest is self seeded mostly by birds I think.

My herb garden is below the fruit cage...


...and look rather depleted, the grey is ash from the wood burning stove.  We lost most of our herbs this winter to old age and cold they have now been dug up and the bed is now waiting for us to find the time to buy more plants and put them in.

On the patio we have a wood shed and a few pots...


...with the shoots of the lovely liatris which the bees and butterflies love.

The garden ends with a narrow path alongside the garage/worskshop down to the house.  The roof of the garage is also a garden...


...a green roof.  My husband and some friends put this garden together four years ago and it is coming on well.  The logs attract the birds as they rot down, we had woodpeckers on here last year feeding their young.

That is my garden!


Away

01 June 2013

We are away again for a few days.  We are off to celebrate a friends 40th over the weekend and then head off for a few days camping with friends.  I will be back at the end of next week. I hope the forecast for dry weather is correct!