Ham it up!
Hello m' hearties, hope you are well. Please come in and enter the mad house and garden that is Long Mizzle...
Behind Swanpool Beach there's a little nature reserve, that we just refer to as 'the swamp'.
There we spotted some more Yuckles. Lovely blog reader Catmac drew my attention to Radio 4's Book of the Week - 'Entangled Life' by Merlin Sheldrake, which I greatly enjoyed. Merlin, an underground fungal network expert, reads exerts from the book in suitably eccentric tones - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000pm13
A little moment of magic in the kitchen this week and I'm not talking about my cooking. A beam of light caught on a house window opposite, filtered through the azalea outside and projected an almost Japanese painting-like image onto the wall.
It lasted for about five minutes and kept me company whilst I wiped down the supermarket shopping delivery...
Then it was gone... maybe not to return until a specific day and time next year.
It was just like that Staff scene on Indian Jones and The Last Crusade...
Anyhow, I'd better show you what I've been up to in t'garden hadn't I !!! I've been busy moving around the self seeded forget-me-nots to where I want them. I just love forget-me-nots, especially knowing they were a favourite of my ol' witchdoctor grandad.
By chance, I found out 'Spring Green' is a great Perennial variety (most tulips do not reliably come back year after year) after having emptied an old pot on the bed and forgotten about it.
Some of the common plant names are so evocative aren't they!? 'Love-in-a mist' is much more passionate sounding than the latin version 'Nigella Damascena'. This one didn't even wait to shake its seeds out of its papery seed head before sprouting... more like 'Lust-in-a-mist'!
The Dhalias have been dug up. We don't have hard frosts here so they probably would survive with a cosy top mulch, but I intend on moving them to a new position next year. Did I get organised and label them before the mutant snails destroyed them? Did I heck! Another occasion where my garden journal of photos will prove useful.
I will let them dry a little, wrap them in newspaper and see if I can find a nice cool place to store them over winter.
Sorry, not a great photo, you can just about see the clock tower in the top right hand corner. That thing chimes every hour, on the hour, of every day, so there's no real excuse to lose track of time.
What a charming and hilarious post, Lulu!!! You have "suitably eccentric tones" in your own post - those ham cards? What a laugh! Glad you enjoyed "Entangled Lives". I think Merlin's voice could easily send you to sleep! Somewhere I have an old flower press I may excavate from the bowels of my room of doom. Pressed flowers are so pretty and it's a lovely idea to make decorations from them. When my friend died, her loving family made little packets of forget-me-not seeds which they gave to mourners at the funeral to plant as a memento. I don't need flowers to remember my friend but I will always associate forget-me-nots with her. It's such a charming flower which does NOT want to self-seed over my garden even though I want it to! My sister bought me earrings and a necklace which have real forget-me-not flowers in acrylic. I like the old fashioned plant names too - but I can never remember the Latin names. Use them or lose them. I agree, Lulu, it has been a horrible year but it has flashed by. Here's to a healthy 2021!
ReplyDeleteThanks Catmac! A ‘room of doom’ how funny! Monsieur & I used to have something similar, then we had to tidy it up to work from home. Oh who am I kidding, it is still a mess! That’s lovely of your friend’s family to hand out forget-me-not seeds (I would like ‘Squirting Cucumbers’ to be handed out at my funeral) How strange they refuse to self-seed in your garden. I have an issue with all poppies bar the Californian type. Every year I scatter seeds around and it just does not happen! I will drink an early toast to 2021. Lulu xXx
DeletePS I was notified of your post! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteGood news, it must be because I looked at it sternly! :;)
Deletethose cards!! OMG! this would be worth to send x-mas-cards to my "ex-family" - a bunch of snobby, greedy women with always drunk men....... hahaha!
ReplyDeletei love pansies and forgetmenots too - both were favs of my grandmas. and i move and replant the selfseeded fmn every year around the garden :-D
have i marked the dahlias? - i hope so but not sure - now they sleep in a cellar together with the butterfly gladiolias - both are great plants in look and in doubling up year after year.
did i say that we are "thrifty" too? so self-propagating plants are gorgeous!
lovely effect on the kitchen wall!
did cover the mediterraneum and the east-exposed climbing hydrangea, clematis & päonias with coniferous branches this week - and put up the bird feeder. we had -5°C night frost already.....
xxxx
Oh I would love to see your snooty ex-families faces if they were to receive ugly ham faces in the post! (I did send a card one year to a very old, straight laced friend and worry that I may have greatly offended her) Lucky you to have a cellar for Dahlias and maybe other good things like wine! I love watching the forget-me-nots, love-in-a-mist and Californian poppies take over the garden. Good use of the conifer branches. We have been waking up to our first frosts this week, a great excuse for my outrageously fluffy hat. Lulu xXx
DeleteLovely to have a clock chiming regularly to keep you on track - I like your face cards! they look fun. We are even stingier, we hardly send anyone a card at all! I do like making things, the wreath for a start, food usually goes wrong so I don't do mince pies and sausage rolls any longer - but I sometimes get a little flurry of activity like you with your beautiful pansy pressing project - it's so good for us to be creative - bookmarks are always a winner - if you can get hold of a laminator even better results - I haven't had luck with a flower press in the past so am interested to see how you get on with yours. I plant loads of stuff in the garden but not much of it makes a repeat performance -- I put about 30 bulbs in at the end of November and am full of hope - I really should reduce my expectations as there will be disappointment, I just know it.... I do have a litte pot grown Christmas tree though waiting to be transformed into something bigger and better- not sure what I am doing with him yet. Your japanese shadow on the wall is one of those what I call magic moments - lucky you took some pics. ttfn. Betty :)
ReplyDeleteHello Betty, the town clock is great and only once in seven years has told us the wrong time. I just think shop bought mince pies and sausage rolls are so much better than my feeble attempts. I haven’t used a flower press since I was a kid, so it is a little experiment. I have successfully left them under piles of books…and forgotten about them for months on end. We had a lovely little pot grown tree in the past that we managed to get three Christmases use from. Sadly it died following a hot, unattended fortnight in summer one year. I have a good feeling about your bulbs and shall will them on! Lulu xXx
DeleteThose pansies! I think I'll be hunting down a flower press in the chazzas now, what a lovely idea.
ReplyDeleteThose meat cards are hilarious and that's coming from someone who has been vegetarian since the 1960s. I love them.
We don't really do Xmas at all, just a few pressies for friends and my brother, the only living relative between us! We usually go for a curry with the other members of the dead relatives society but no chance of that in tier 3 so it'll probably be noodles and a walk round the block!
I love forget-me-nots, they grow like weeds here, something I'm always pleased by.
I'm think I'm getting p*ssed quicker now I don't have all-dayers in Spoons or festivals, I'm ashamed of my lightweightedness!
Have a fab weekend. xxx
Hello Vix, yes our flower press is a bit brash and new (Matalan special) but I have seen some beautiful vintage ones on eBay in the past. I will be doing more ‘vegetarian option’ cards this year. The kids like the cakes ones the best. I tried a turkey face, but it just didn’t look right. The Dead Relative Society! What a name :0 I’m liking your Christmas style. I don’t know what Monsieur put in that white wine spritzer but I felt a little rough the next day (prior to lockdown I was into cross fit and only had one drink per year!!!). Lulu xXx
DeleteI love reading your posts, Lulu.
ReplyDeleteWhat clever ideas you have to use the pressed flowers. They are so gorgeous. X
Thank you Jess! It is the first year I’ve grown winter pansies. I’m going to peep at the press in two weeks to see how they’ve doing and will report back. Lulu xXx
DeleteAlthough I am veggie I do like those card designs.
ReplyDeleteI planted 80 Muscari bulbs this weekend and I hope they survive our new puppy who has developed a passion for digging.
Hello Jane, thank you, they’re a bit of silly fun. I’m waiting for the local Lidl magazine to come through the door – it’s usually a good one for cutting up. Pesky puppy, but very cute! Lulu xXx
DeleteBlimey what a creative week you've had! I've been editing novel and writing new one but nothing like as overall creatively as you have - at least, mine's just words rather than being able to see what you've done. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThank you Sue. 'Just words' make the world go round and our heart's sing! I have to admit we did the pebbles in the summer - but that's just a typical kind of no-bling gift that we'd give out. Lulu xXx
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