Five on Friday - garden

Hello

Well my 'Five on Friday' hosted by Amy at Love Made My Home follows a similar theme

 to Amy's, it's all about my garden but somehow mine doesn't feel quite so calm and

 ordered. In fact I originally considered titling this post "Five surprising things in my garden" 

but managed to find some 'neater' photos in the end to balance out this post.

 So here goes. 

One: Balls, all 58!!

Two children love sports, especially football, and our garden is always littered with balls. 

Every so often I have a round-up. I did this last weekend and managed to fill 2 old dustbins 

with 58 balls including table tennis, tennis, golf, soft, hockey, lacrosse and 

of course, footballs! We get through so many footballs we buy them in bulk!

"Doubtless I will find more balls once I get on with the weeding" 

(she says shyly, see photo 3)

Two: Bedding plants in flowerpots!!

"Bedding plants in flower pots? What's so special about that?" you might ask. 

Well, it is quite a few years since I have put flowers in pots, and the reason is because of 

photo 1 above. Yes, balls! With so many balls flying around the garden my bedding plants 

were frequently dead-headed whether they were ready to be dead-headed or not! 

In fact, dead-stalked would probably be a better description. I did point out to daughter 

that I'd planted flowers in pots this year and that I was hoping that as she is now 17 she 

should be a better shot and could thus avoid my pots! Only time will tell, and my 

flowers have the long summer holiday to survive yet when 2 more young people will 

be back home from University and playing ball games in the garden. 

"Take cover plants!"

Three: (weeds)

Yes, I mention that word quietly. 

Life has been pretty busy bringing up children and 

working so the garden has been neglected over the last few years. But both sons are now 

at University, and daughter passed her driving test a few weeks ago and has suddenly 

become very independent, in fact I feel she has grown a whole 12 months in just one day!

So, sadly, we do have more free time and I think I have 

probably done more gardening already this year than I have in the last 5! 

But this bit of garden at the bottom is one part that I have yet to tackle and I have 

decided that I want to start again with it. 

However, I did think the bluebells looked pretty against the ornamental grasses 

(for 'ornamental grasses' read 'weeds'). 

Four: More balls, ball games

Daughter is revising for AS-levels and so spends many hours sat at a desk. This is quite 

challenging when you are someone who likes being active. Every so often we take her

 outside and throw a few balls for her to catch, and as you can see she thoroughly enjoys

 this and literally throws herself into the activity!

Five: Matching the bluebells 

I have just started knitting my next pair of socks, and I think this might be my

 favourite colourway yet: Regia design line Kaffe Fasset "Frost". 

This was one that I was so tempted to buy some months ago and 

eventually gave into the urge and I am so pleased I did - it was definitely the 

right decision. In fact, I'm thinking of purchasing more yarn to knit gloves and a scarf, 

not that I am intending to wear them all at the same time. 

Please head over to Amy's blog. Thank you to Amy for hosting "Five on Friday"

Wishing you a good weekend - and where has the sun gone?? 

xXx

This weekend...

Hello

What a gloriously warm, sunny weekend it has been - and I have made the most of it. Did you see the lunar eclipse last night? I put my alarm on and then lay in bed watching it - quite spectacular!

Today, a few random photos of the weekend and a few accompanying words

Umm, I'm not really a fan of Halloween so why on earth, I ask myself, am I cross stitching

 Halloween motifs? I think I was just drawn to the zingy and fluorescent colours (a devil to photograph to get a true depiction of colour). 

Sitting outside reading and eating lunch. 

We bought crumpets for the first time in years - toasted and dripping with butter of course.

And then of course, buttery fingers on the lens of my camera lends a soft focus to subsequent photos!!

The lens cover is broken on my Nikon, in fact, I'm a little disappointed with it because

 I have only had this camera 3 years and it is is limping along now - the zoom has a

 mind of its own which makes for tricky photography!

I desperately needed a new peg bag. 

No, I don't usually store my pegs in a bowl - this is where I threw them while 

I used the old bag as a template. 

The peg bags I saw in the shop were incredibly flimsy so I decided to make a new one. 

(please excuse my shadow)

I made kitchen curtains for our last house with this material.

 It was a complete fluke that the stripes matched up down the front of the bag. 

I didn't intend to spend long on this project - I had a football match to watch. 

(Daughter has now been signed with a local Midlands city senior Ladies team - YAY!) 

That looks much better!

Goodness! Given the muck in the bottom of my old peg bag

 I wonder my clothes ever came off the line clean!

I spent several hours chopping back the hedge at the bottom of the garden - 

this is in the field at the back of the hedge and the pile of cuttings on the left 

(no, that is not also a hedge even though it looks like it) is as 

high as the hedge on the right! 

It was lovely in the late afternoon sun in the field. 

Hope you had a good weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing lots of Yarndale posts!

xXx 

Around my garden....

Hello

I thought I would do a little tour of my garden. A day off from work has meant that I could spend just a few minutes out there enjoying the late summer sun, while nipping in and out to hang out three loads of washing post-return of sons to University!

So, this is the view from the back of our house, looking out towards the field. 

I like to keep the hedge at the bottom of our garden cut well back so we can enjoy as much of the view as possible. So far this year I've managed to cut back about half - but I'm hoping I might get chance to do some more this weekend. 

Our garden provides a home for many creatures. I feel a symbiotic relationship to

 these slugs and worms - I provide food, they help provide compost!  

Gosh, I wonder how many slugs there are in that compost bin? And we have 2 bins!

I used to be a keen gardener BC (Before Children) but I'm afraid that hobby has 

gradually been lost over the last twenty years as other demands have been made

 on my time, but I am pretty sure my interest will return as I find myself once 

again with more time. 

The brambles are happy though with the neglect in the garden - they have 

managed to invade the garden from the field behind and here have found 

a stump of a dead buddleia an ideal support. 

 And weeds are aplenty in my borders. 

Tuc, our guinea pig, was my excuse for having dandelions in the borders!! 

I kidded myself that I was cultivating them for him. 

It was one of his favourite meals - that and groundsel, and oh yes, I even 

boasted a few plants of groundsel in the borders of the garden at one time! 

(This is actually a photo of my border!) 

However, I am aiming to spruce up the garden. Large overgrown shrubs, that now 

reach 8ft will be removed and will be replaced by little cuttings measuring, ooo,  

all of 10cm high! Yes, they do have a bit of growing to do. 

But oh, I do love plants for free. 

In this post I mentioned The Pip Book I bought may years ago and which I still love.

The little cuttings below were taken from one of the offending giant shrubs, a ceanothus. 

This photo, taken from the RHS website, is of ceanothus in full bloom 

-  it is such a pretty shrub isn't it? 

 

I used to have lots of pots dotted around the garden at one time but most have 

now gone. However I did buy a few cyclamen recently to fill one pot, 

and here they are, still waiting to be potted up.... 

And of course our garden does get a lot of hard wear - evidenced by two 

goals and a rebound net. 

Such garden activities result in a generally unusual, but in our garden 

very common, garden ornament.   

Occasionally I round up all the balls - they fill an old dustbin. 

I am rather proud of my pyracantha that grows under our front room 

window. I grew this from a cutting and it is about the only shrub that actually 

looks like it has undergone some sort of pruning in recent years.  

I LOVE our wood store that sits at the bottom of the garden, and the promise 

of all those cosy evenings that it holds. 

And finally, to finish my garden tour here is a little gate that my husband built 

into the hedge at the bottom of the garden shortly after we moved in. It provides 

a quick access to the field at the back and was ideal for the little people, that is, 

the children when they were little. For me I have to almost crawl through it but 

it is quite sweet.  

So that's it for now. 

Hope you have a good weekend planned and thank you for stopping by!  

xXx

Old and new!

Hello, 

Telling today's story: a few photos and words. 

• old fork, belonged to my dad, I do love the handle and love using this in the garden

• new lush growth in the hedge at the bottom of the garden, mainly comprising holly and hawthorn. I have a yearly battle with this hedge, each year it makes a break for freedom and sends lots of prickly invading branches out into my garden and I and my secateurs make battle! 

• old nest, abandoned just a few weeks ago by a family of blue tits. I love watching the parents darting in and out of the box with food. I daren't spend too long in the garden near the box when the parents are so busy for fear of frightening them away.

looks so cosy - and has about as many cobwebs round the ceiling as in my house!

I wonder if they use the same excuse as me, 

"too busy caring for the family to bother about cobwebs"!

• new growth from our "conker" trees

• we have three horse chestnut trees grown from conkers, I've always enjoyed coaxing "new" plants from seeds, pips and cuttings

• my old Pip Book, bought many years ago. I was still at secondary school when I bought this - it cost the huge sum of 70p! Sentimentality means I just can't get rid of it! 

• old and new: you may wonder what on earth this photo is about - it is my daughters "old" school uniform, discarded inside her bedroom door, removed as soon as she got home today following her final GCSE exam today 

• so this is now her "old" uniform and we are already thinking about a "new" school phase - 6th form beckons!! How can that possibly be?  We saw daughter's old child minder just yesterday - she had a fantastic time with her!

• new magnifier and light for my cross stitch

• complete with new cross stitch kit. Oh my goodness, this has an obvious festive theme - no pressure then to get it finished before Christmas!!

Wishing you a happy weekend whatever your plans

 - and thank you so much for taking the time to read my posts and comment!

xXx

Hello 2015!

Hello,

Happy New year to you all and I hope you all had a cheery, peaceful Christmas.

The boys returned home from University a few days before Christmas and as you can imagine it has been great fun having them home again - despite the 7 loads of washing they brought home with them (this did include bed linen!).

We had a relaxing Christmas, but alas the snow arrived one day too late to make it a white Christmas. The snow fell heavily on Boxing Day evening  - we had tickets to the theatre and when we finally arrived home late in the evening our car struggled the last few hundred yards to our door.

The snow hung around a long time, it didn't melt until New Year's Eve. However, the roads and pavements were very icy, so hardly pleasant conditions for venturing out either by car, cycle or foot.

Oh dear, that means we will just have to sit in front of the fire - what a terrible shame!!

(A grainy photo taken late in the day)

We have had some beautiful clear days with lovely bright sunshine - and this is the view

that greeted me several times when I opened the curtains in the morning.

Please excuse the washing line and football goal that completely ruin the charm of this

 photo - we have a hard working garden and thankfully you can't see the football goal

 and the huge rebound net on the other side of the garden!

(And talking of bright clear days - did you see the International Space Station whizzing by on Christmas Eve? Incredible to think men were flying above us at such speeds!!)

I do find that at this time of year I feel a bit guilty though, because as the Christmas
holiday rolls on, I tend to get lazier and lazier. 

My excuse is that this is the only time of year when I am quite so sofa-bound. This inactivity culminated in me spending much of New Year's Day sat in the armchair cross stitching - this was pure, unadulterated luxury, a whole day spent stitching - how often does that happen?

And you'll never believe what I was making?

Christmas decorations!! Nothing like getting myself prepared for next Christmas!

On New Year's Day I completed this Santa...

... which would partner nicely with the snowman I had completed just before Christmas.

 I find these little kits ideal for making into Christmas cards and are great when you

wish to complete a project quickly or want some small stitching to take on

 holiday with you. The kits come with everything you need but when I'm making little

decorations I substitute the aida for evenweave fabric as it is much softer and more pliable,

making it easier to work with.

I had already purchased some gorgeous backing fabric - a rich blue decorated with white

 snowflakes - and spotty ribbon and buttons.

So this afternoon I hauled out my sewing machine from the bottom of my wardrobe,

set up station on the kitchen table and set to.

 Santa was completed first.   

Then it was time for Snowman. 

I couldn't take a photo of them in situ on our little tree because it was too dark by the time
 I had finished.

Sadly these two will be taken down and packed away tomorrow but at least I've

 finished them in plenty of time for Christmas 2015!!

On to the next project....

Happy New Year!!

xXx