The Day That's In It

I took the dogs for a walk this morning, up along the river and into the cathedral of the woods, where the columns of trees arch high over the path, and the bare, black branches carve their tracery against the sky.
The river was still and full today - quiet, apart from the odd salmon rising, sending rings eddying to the banks. All the way we swapped beats with the herons, who didn't seem at all pleased to see us. We were interrupting their second breakfast, I expect.

Model Dog walks so close beside me that I often find her ear lying softly in my hand, like an end of velvet.
She paces like a great cat - her shoulders loose and sinuous, the fluidity of her gait swaying her slightly from side to side. The TeenQueen on the other hand, is like a deer - light on her feet, easily startled, fleet and silent - she is away in a rush of air if something catches her eye.

When we got home I put up the Christmas tree I bought at the weekend.
It may not smell of sharp, pine resin, but I will enjoy looking at it every day - I think it is beautiful.
It was made by a Sligo glass-maker I know, and I loved it the moment I saw it on his stand at the Christmas Fair. It will be even nicer on a sunny day.

My Christmas tree

The rest of my day has been calm and quiet. I looked up as I was filling the kettle to find a flock of goldfinches on the bird nuts and 'cupcakes' outside the window. I have only recently opened this new restaurant, and it has gone straight to No 1 in the charts, but the regulars are tits of all kinds, chaffinches and sparrows, with the occasional visit from one of my garden robins. I haven't seen the goldfinches since last winter and it was a good day to welcome them back. 

Some fuzzy goldfinches through the window

Armed with my hot drink, the dogs and I headed for the flower garden. I've been gradually putting it to bed, but some things don't want to go. Today I picked the last delphiniums, pink achillea and tall purple campanula (a flower that always reminds me of pixie hoods), and cleared another good stretch of the long herbaceous border, cutting back and weeding, but also taking time to split and replant various perennials before tucking it all under a thick blanket of compost.

It's a laborious job, but a satisfying one. A chance to say à bientôt and thank you after a long, long summer. And a chance to bury some treasure, as my friend, the Talentui Goddess, calls planting bulbs.
I am late with the bulbs this year, but as it still feels like October outside, I'm not too worried.
And when I see them again, in all their glory, the winter will be past and a new season of growing will have begun.

It was a good day to think of replenishment, I needed it.
Just as it was a good day to walk in the woods.
I used to walk there almost every day, but I've hardly been this year.
They are too full of ghosts, the woods, they make my heart ache.
But today it was a kind of solace to visit them again, the wind like wild water in the treetops.
It's a year ago today that Top Dog died and our world staggered on its axis. Dramatic to say that, perhaps, but true, and - daft as it may seem - I still catch myself thinking that he'll be back soon.

I saw a heartbreaking tombstone in a church once. It was for a young child, and all it said was: 'My beloved is in the garden, gathering flowers.'
Typically Victorian, I know, but it brought tears to my eyes. And I understand the feeling.
Top Dog is off somewhere, doing something. Chewing his bone in the orchard perhaps, or lying in the sun in the courtyard.
I just haven't seen him for awhile because dear Model Dog and I have been busy doing stuff too.

En Fête - 120 Glorious Years!

A brilliant present

The In-Charge and my friend DodoWoman, (Lord Dodo's Chief Archivist and Dodoodler) have, almost simultaneously, reached a Momentous Birthday.
Occasions such as this are mercifully rare deserve to be duly noted, so of course I instantly consulted with Lord Dodo himself, in the hope of securing the infamous peer's marvellous residence for the festivities.
Alas, it was not to be. Dodo Towers had already been reserved by a troupe of Transylvanian transvestites and his Lordship felt bound to honour the booking, so I gamely volunteered to hold the celebration here instead.

We can't, of course, compete with Dodo Towers in terms of either space or grandeur, but we did our best.
With the help of my Wwoofers Jil and Marco, the preparations began. For days we spat and we polished, we pruned and planted, we unearthed and unpacked; we washed and dried; we begged and borrowed, we sorted and swept, until finally things started to take shape.

We planted - or, in some cases, just polished our toe nails

In truly indodispensable fashion, Lord Dodo himself helped dodecide the menu and dodelegated his chef to produce various dodelicious dishes for the event. Lots of lovely guests also offered to bring edible gifts to the feast, which was wonderful, so after a relatively unstressful blitz in the kitchen, we were able to devote time to far more important things like putting up marquees, making cupcakes and bunting and blowing up balloons.
(Some of us merely spent the extra time looking out our party frocks collars.)

A quick nap before the party begins

But at last everything was ready.

Lord Dodo's chef and assistants

Contrary to all our expectations, the north west coast of Ireland has not recently basked under constantly blue skies. Our earlier good fortune this summer has left us full of optimism, but this isn't Nice, after all.
I had given up hope of actual sunshine. My nightly request, on prayer-flattened knees, had been that it just wouldn't rain.
Sunday dawned, as a friend of mine would say, 'middlin' blowy', ie with winds gusting up to 45km. But it wasn't wet, and there is nothing like a breeze to make the balloons dance, the bunting sing - and the marquee take off and pirouette out to sea.
Happily the In-Charge had weighted the marquee down with old window-sash leads, and DodoWoman had sent out a Meteorological Dress Code Warning the night before, so everyone arrived with their summer best suitably over-wrapped in snuggily jackets and body-warmers.
And after a few glasses of Pimms in the garden, some wonderful fritters and a good natter with an old chum or two, who cares about the weather?

The party takes off - but mercifully the gazebo doesn't

Later the party moved into the marquees in the courtyard.

I want the courtyard to look like this every day

   
It had taken a good bit of head-scratching and pencil-sucking to work out how 65 or 70 people could all sit down together now that we weren't, after all, dining at Dodo Towers; but then my American friend told me that the best hostess she knows in New York always says: 'Put the tables close together, and pack 'em in tight.'
So we did.
From 18 months to 95 years old, they all squashed in and it was fab.

Overflow tables, and even wheelchair access!

The morning after

Lots of people said lots of nice things, and DodoWoman and the In-Charge were given cards, gifts, flowers and good wishes by kind people. I was even given flowers myself by a charming old gentleman.
Someone said it was a perfect way to end the season, another that it was the party of the summer, but I think the most memorable comment came from one of our youngest guests.
Ten-year old Ezekiel looked around critically before uttering his verdict.

'Great venue', he said, nodding sagely.

It may not be Dodo Towers, but what a compliment.

The Teen Queen checking that there definitely aren't any more sausages left over

Visits and Visitors

It's been a strange week - one of those weird time-warps when the days seem to have gone by in a flash, and yet last Sunday feels like a lifetime away.
Perhaps it's because the weather has been so strange - some perfect, still, hot summer days and others of constant, despondent mizzle or gusty winds.
Sometimes my wwoofers, Olivia and Marie Christine, have wwoofed, at others they have sat in the kitchen knitting, or curled up in their tiny sitting room watching movies, drizzle misting the window panes.
But despite all, we have taken advantage of every good moment and got a lot done. 

And in between the endless gardening, it's been a week of visits and visitors.

On Monday I went with a friend to see Elizabeth Temple's stunning garden at Salthill in Donegal.
I first went last year, and have been longing to go again, and introduce another garden-fanatic to its joys.
More of that anon, but for any garden lover visiting the north west of Ireland, it is a must-see.

Part of the beautiful gardens at Salthill

One of Salthill's many lovely roses - possibly Abram Darby?

An old friend from England came over for a couple of days. He's thinking of buying a holiday house here, so he and the In-Charge spent happy hours cruising around Donegal and Sligo, looking at possible properties.
His family come from Donegal, and he loves coming back.
It was nice to see him, and catch up, although this time he didn't bring his gorgeous wife and children.

Some German friends, on their annual holiday in Ireland, came to re-visit our garden.
It is always nice to see our garden through someone else's eyes.
It makes me appreciate how much we have achieved over the years, and how lovely it is.
On my own, I tend to fasten on the goosegrass sticking out of the astilbe, the weeds that - since yesterday - have started springing in a newly cleared bed, the shrubs that I still haven't pruned...
Despite the hours of work, the list never gets any shorter.
But the Germans claimed not to see any of those things and took a host of photos.
Here are a few of them:

 Frau Speckle

The prince of the lily pond (still un-kissed)

Our lovely sycamore tree

 And:

My beautiful Model Dog

They also invited us to supper, our German friends, and - taking the wwoofers with us - we spent a happy evening in their holiday cottage, eating, drinking, chatting and watching the sun slowly sink into Enniscrone bay.
Summer, lovely summer.

More friends - family really - came another day to look at the garden and have tea with us, which forced us, once again, to down tools.
'We gardeners don't make the most of our gardens,' Sylvia said to me as we wandered around, comparing notes on this year's flowers. 'We spend so many hours working, but not enough just sitting - soaking it up.'
How right she is.

In one of Elizabeth Goudge's books, I once read that the elderly matriarch of the family had a seat in her garden 'at every place one might possibly wish to sit down', and - as far as the budget allows - I have tried to follow suit. But despite that, I rarely drift from bench to bench.
I'm more like a hen - head down, bottom up in one of the beds - but in my case, not pecking, just weeding, weeding, weeding.

On the way to the airport to drop our friend off for his flight home, the In-Charge took the girls to Foxford Woollen Mills, and they came home with big smiles on their faces and big carrier bags of scarves and blankets - prized souvenirs of their Irish trip.
And then yesterday it was the Strandhill Show.

I think Strandhill is probably the first of the local summer Shows, and Beltra is probably the last, at the beginning of September. I don't always go to them (I'm often head down, bottom up) but Beltra Country Market had taken a few tables in the craft marquee, so, after another morning of miserable mizzle, the wwoofers and I headed off at lunchtime.
Happily the sun came out as we drove around the coast, and by the time we arrived at the grounds of the once beautiful Lisheen house, it had turned into a hot, summer afternoon, perfect for a parish show - or fete as it would be called in England.

Poor Lisheen

I don't think we sold a vast amount, but everyone enjoyed themselves enormously.

Fabulous seaside setting for a gymkhana

Prize winning cakes

Someone brought their pet birds. I've never seen a Canary before

Anxiously awaiting the results of the dog show

In the craft marquee

When we got home that evening, it was to find the In-Charge entertaining some unexpected visitors - a couple of our own age. Apparently she and her sister had lived in our house for a summer when she was 10. Their parents had gone to Sweden on a three month internship, leaving them in the care of a country Rector and his wife. It was so interesting to hear her recollections of our 'secret garden' - apparently a complete wilderness in those days; to know that the time she spent here has become an idyllic memory; and to learn that coming back after all these years hadn't been a disappointment.
We loved meeting them both. They are, in a way, another little piece of our jigsaw, another of the limitless secrets our house has been coaxed into revealing.

A week of visitors.
And only one has been unwelcome.
The fox has called - twice. He must steal in like a shadow over the garden fence.
We have lost two of our hens this week, a sad waste of feathers at the bottom of the orchard our only clue as to their fate.

There are some visitors you can do without.

Hooked

The CrochetQueen, having taught me the basics of her wondrous craft last week, afterwards sent me a link on facebook.
And then, at the market yesterday, I had coffee with a GrandeDame of the art, and we sat happily stitching together while she further instructed me. She too sent me away with a link in my ear.
I'm not at all sure that either of them have done me a favour.

For one thing, I have burnt my knitting needles.
Knitting?
Who wants to knit when there is crochet out there waiting to be knotted?

You see what I mean?

I am not an owl by nature, but long after the In-Charge had carried his bad back off to bed last night, I sat up perusing the crochet-idyll of cyberspace. I stayed up until the candles guttered in their sockets and my screen flickered with the effort of staying awake.

But oh joy, oh rapture, oh itchy fingers!
Here are some of the treasures I found.
I hope no one minds me sharing them with you. Who knows, it might inspire you all to go out there and buy a hook!

Totally thrilling

Much too good to eat

    

Right up my street

If I had these, I'd leave all my clothes in a heap on the floor so I could see the hangers

How pretty is that?

BUNTING! I knew bunting was just WAITING to be made

Bored with making cupcakes? Iam. Maybe I'll give these a try instead. The more you eat, the thinner you get

A touch of Morocco

And some of you may remember this beauty on my blog last year.
I wanted it very badly indeed.
(I still do.)

Well, for all you mad cyclists out there - how about this instead?

Or compromise. Have a rickshaw (probably safer on city streets than a bicycle, and there's room for the shopping too).

Small wonder I lay awake in the small hours wondering if I can spare the time to sleep at all?



Do you think, if I'd learned to crochet at a young age, my life might have taken a different course?

Well, be that as it may, I am well and truly hooked now, at any rate.

The photos on this post have come from:
For the Love of Crochet
Comunidade De Arte E Artesanato
Colorful Arts And Crafts
 

Or if you prefer pure art, have a look at Prudence Mapstone's website

.Keep Calm & Eat Cake

Using the picture of my waste paper bin on my blog last week brought to mind a post I wrote way back when. I thought I'd re-post it, especially as, since then we have also had the excellent BBC TV series 'War Time Farm', which was probably my favourite programme last autumn when it was screened. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favour and order the DVD - it was marvellous.

As you can see, I think the slogan so apposite, I have added a mug to the collection too.
I use it regularly.

When I bought the bin, there were several slogans to choose from.  I would have preferred 'Keep calm and eat cake', or even better 'Keep calm and have a glass of wine', but sadly neither of those were on offer.

So, as you know, I got this one.

How thrilling is that?

I could have had 'Waste not, want not'. In fact that was the one I picked up first, but when it came to it, I just couldn't do it.

Daft really.

If you are my age, then your parents were either war-youngsters, or actually took an active role in WWII.
If you are a bit younger, then maybe your grandparents lived through the war.
If you are younger still, then you won't have a clue what I'm on about.
But the rest of us know that anyone who lived through the war can't throw away so much as a length of string or a candle stump.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking thrift - even thrift that to the uninitiated smacks of parsimony..
But where thrift is concerned, initiation does help.
Unless you've lived through the war - any war, probably - I don't suppose you can ever understand what chronic shortage really means. I certainly don't.
It's hard to imagine, after the surfeits of our own times, that in Britain, people were allowed just 1 egg, 2oz (not quite 60g) butter and 2oz cheese per person per week - less if it wasn't available. And meat, sugar, flour, jam etc etc etc were all rationed too.

And it wasn't just for the six years of the war - rationing didn't end until 1954!
War Time Farm was a real eye-opener on how people actually managed to 'carry on' - and it was interesting to see how much hard work went into ensuring that bread was never rationed in Britain, although for many countries in Europe, bread was hard - sometimes impossible - to come by.

Watching what did - or, more likely, didn't go into meals make me wonder why I spend a good deal of time scratching my head wondering what to make for dinner.
I just can't imagine trying to feed a family in those days.
And it wasn't only food. Clothes were rationed too. Try telling the average girl today that her clothes are going to be rationed from now on. Seriously rationed. No more Saturday afternoons in the mall.
It was during the war that shorter skirts for women and short trousers for boys were introduced. Boys had to wear shorts until the age of 12. It saved a lot of material.

Not everything was rationed. Some things were simply unobtainable.

So you can't exactly blame the older generation for hanging on to stuff - understandably, waste not, want not was their credo.

I was lucky enough to grow up in an era and environment of plenty, but old habits don't die, so I was brought up with the concept of 'reduce, recycle and reuse' long before the ad men turned it into a slogan to save the world.

It's a great concept. It's even a great slogan and I wholeheartedly support it.
But I don't hang on to every bit of string and candle stump.
Instead I live with a virtual wagging finger, with a shadow of disapproval falling over me every time I chuck a plastic bag, dump a perfectly good paper carrier, scrunch tin foil, scrumple up gift wrap or ditch the fag-end of a bar of soap.

But the greatest sin of all is to throw food away.

I may not be squeaky clean on the tin foil and plastic bag front, but I really baulk at binning food.

Apparently (in the British Isles anyway), - if everyone threw one in three of their carrier bags away as they left the supermarket each week, that is how much of their purchase - on average - they are going to waste.

Whaaat?

You don't need to be a war-baby to be utterly appalled by that.
What happened to 'left-overs'?
What happened to 'Ort Pie' - something delicious constructed from whatever happened to be left in the fridge?
(Well, OK, an attempt at something delicious!)
In the name of culinary inventiveness or, failing that, pure unadulterated impecuniosity, it's got to be worth a try.

Nothing - well, practically nothing - well, very little is ever thrown away in our house.
(How's that for self-righteousness?)
Before I fall off my own pedestal, I'd better come clean. I am based at home, so if something is left over from supper, it can be made into lunch the next day.
For another, I have a battery of  back-up options. There is a strict protocol governing anything rejected by humans. First refusal = dogs. Second refusal = cats. Third refusal = hens, and if all else fails, final refusal = the bird table. I have to say, not much makes it that far down the line. Occasionally I by-pass the line and make an outright donation to the hens or the bird-table. Bread, for example, that has turned silently to the texture of old plasterboard. Ends of cheese that have transformed into translucent plastic. (How does cheese do that?)

Second refusal = cats

And then - while I'm still in the confessional - there's the fungus-y stuff. The container in the back of the fridge that you pull out and look at and think - that needs eating. Um - maybe not tonight though...
So you put it back. And back. Until eventually it feels so unloved it grows its own comfort blanket.

There are some things that have to be thrown away.

Speaking of comfort blankets and disposal, I had an interesting experience a while ago. I was away for a week, helping my brother move house. Lovingly - rather virtuously, I thought - I made a large casserole to keep the troops going for a few days in my absence. I left it on top of the oven.. About a week after I got home, I rooted in the cupboard for the casserole dish and fished it out. Gosh, I thought to myself, this iron pot is even heavier than I thought it was.
Hah!
When I opened it, there was the stew. Or rather, there were the mountains of the moon, comprising several species of fungus hitherto unknown to science.
Don't even ask...(But yes, by some miracle, we are still co-habiting. Acceptance is just one of the many marvels of the human psyche.)

But for all our sins and oversights, there is very little that gets thrown away (or buried in a deep hole, far from the prying noses of rats and foxes).
Something of the make-do and mend of my childhood has lingered in there somewhere.
Probably just as well, with all of us the world over, teetering on the edge of serious shortages of money and food and resources. I can't see anyone in the first world taking very well to rationing though.
Hopefully it won't come to that. But maybe the shadow of it still hangs over us. Like some sort of genetic imprint.
I guess that's why 'Waste not, want not' was just a step too far. A truth too close to the bone.

I'd rather stay calm and eat cake. And look what I found on my trip to Enniskillen last weekend!

But if there isn't any cake, I'll opt for staying calm and carrying on.

Picture it in Your Own Words - Indulge

The Weekly Photo Challenge is Indulge.

I was so late getting round to last week's that this is coming hot on the heels of my recent submission.
Never mind.




Several things come to mind for this photo.


The inevitable

Two of the cupcakes I made for this morning's market

Then there's one I can't resist

Flowers

Poppies and lavender in my garden last summer

(Rosa Abraham Darby). My husband speeds up if we happen to drive past a garden centre, so that I can't GET IN THERE!. Flowers are an irresistible indulgence. And the scent of this one, in my garden, is heavenly

But I suppose these two are my real indulgence

Napoleon and his second wife, Marie Louise (very small, but every inch an Empress) I don't remember when she last laid an egg (and neither does she) and they take a bit of looking after, but I love them to bits. They are referred to as 'my babies'.

(Don't forget, fellow challengers, to check you spam bins! Wordpress generally unceremoniously dumps Blogger comments. If you find a comment from me in the bin, and reinstate it, I will be recognised next time I visit you. Yipee!)