Welcome to the Summer Garden

Hello Friends!

What a mixed bag of weather we are having!   Very little rain here in West Wales. I'm wondering how long it's going to be before they tell us we've had one of the driest spells since records began. Like me., do  you ever wonder when records began? It's a bit like time immemorial. Apparently there's a fixed date when time immemorial happened. According to Wikipedia it began in 1139 a.d. 

You will see in the first couple of photographs here that my lawn is almost dead. You will also see that since I had it cut last, I've left a swathe than the middle to grow, as a continuation of No Mow May. I'm not particularly worried about the parlous state of the lawn. As soon as we get the rains, it will recover. And in next no time, it will be green again. And no doubt, needing another cut.  It always does.

Anyway, you can see in the first couple of images that I have bought a rollator. There are so many on offer. It was a job to choose, however, I wrote down a list of things that I would require from it. And this is the one that I picked.  My primary concern is. that I wanted something that would be a bit tougher than the usual ones you see about town. I call those "shopping" or "about town" rollators.  I wanted something that would be up to distance walking. In a way, I'm comparing them to pretty sandals versus hiking boots.  I know I'm never going to get back up to doing the 5 miles a day that I used to do, and I understand that I will have to be very careful over the terrain I choose. I do think that this particular model is perfect. It's got pneumatic tyres and is a very sturdy construction.  I have been housebound now for so long, I have become weak. So I am going to have to take my time and rebuild my stamina.

In the last few weeks my back has started to improve.  Things are not as bleak as they were a month ago and I've been off my painkillers now for about a month. I'm still waiting to find out what caused the problem but I'm now reading a couple of new books on Pilates and back care for the over 50s.  As soon as I have the confidence that I will be able to get back up off the floor without help, I can start doing the exercises in earnest. I am taking control of how this is dealt with and I think many of us are going to find ourselves in a similar situation that we are going to start having to take responsibility for our own care and self treatment because the NHS is just so short staffed and overstretched.

As you can see, it's a little bit more rugged and not particularly dainty. But then again, I'm not a particularly dainty kind of gal, I'm more of a hiking boots and jeans kind of person.

Here are a few photos of things that are currently popping up all over the garden. There have been one or two surprises. These mallows for instance, I haven't seen in the garden for donkey's years, yet all of a sudden here they are putting in an unexpected and very welcome appearance! There used to be pink ones too.

You can see my No Mow May/Thigh High July patch of grass in the back of this photo

Here are some oriental poppies.  The delightfully pink one is a Lauren's Lilac, I believe.

and some roses full of delightful fragrance

The teazels, a gift from a friend's garden are coming along nicely, some are very tall indeed!

Due to difficulties managing it, I had my rockery dismantled a few years ago. However, I never got round to properly clearing the space and. putting something different in situ. So now with me being indisposed it's overgrown completely with brambles and honeysuckle. I think I can look forward to a jolly good crop of brambles this autumn provided we have some decent rain to swell the fruits.  There's always a positive to when something isn't going right and blackberries could be this year's positive from an unkempt rockery!

Some other things helping to bolster up the summer garden are the honeysuckle, ferns, verbena bonariensis, crocosmia Lucifer and lavender

No photos for this, you'll just have to use your imaginations.  My latest culinary passion is overnight oats. Very simple just put your oats with your choice of milk in a bowl and soak them overnight I've been experimenting with flavours and to be honest, there seems to be a theme developing. I don't think there'll be any surprises when I tell you the theme is cake.  Here are my ideas so far:

    1.  Cherry Bakewell oats soaked overnight  in Greek yogurt, with a tablespoon of ground almonds and a dash of vanilla extract and almond extract.  Top with frozen cherries and flaked almonds.

    2.  Victoria Sponge oats and yogurt with a splash of vanilla, and macerated fresh raspberries.

    3.  Banana cake. oats and yoghurt. with sliced bananas. Chopped dried dates. Walnut pieces and some cinnamon.

    4.  Apple Crumble, with dried or fresh apple slices, cinnamon, possibly tinned custard instead of yogurt, and topped with toasted oats right upon serving.

    5.  Welsh Cake with currants and mixed spice

I hope you have enjoyed our little tour of my summer garden.   Do come back soon, won't you?

Until next time

Stay safe, Stay well.

Debbie. xx

Return to the Garden and the Magical Eye of Ceridwen

Hello, friends!

I am between art courses at the moment. The next one starts in a week. It's a 10 day long course by Ida Lang Anderson. We work on one piece of art over the 10 days. It's going to be an interesting project for me because I am not a patient person in that respect. I like to see my results quickly.

In the meantime, I had help, as I mentioned previously with my garden. A lot of clearing has been done and now the garden is resting in between seasons and recuperating its strength. Clearing debris meant a lot of space freed up so that light could get in between the plants again.  I could not resist half an hour in the garden, walking round, capturing the lovely sunlight with its unique autumnal qualities.

Native Fern

Bramble leaves in sunlight

Rosebay Willowherb seed heads

Late flowering rose on the rugosa.

Rosa ragosa hips.

Spider web in the camellia.

Japanese wind anemones

Cosmia Lucifer, seedhead.

The Magical Eye is a warm up exercise for the next art course I am doing which is called Wish Upon A Star. Hosted by Ida Anderson Lang.  

I don't have a fine gold pen at the moment, so I've left the wording off for now. When I do add it, it will be named after Ceridwen, the Welsh Enchantress.  

Looking at this now, I can see I really do need to work on eyelashes! But then again, I've only been doing faces of any sort. for a couple of months. It will come in time, I'm sure.

Practise! Practise! Practise!

Since I last wrote, I have had a thorough asthma and respiratory checkup. This is the first one I have ever had that has been so thorough, it lasted an hour, is to be followed with a review in a month, and I have to have blood tests to try and find out what my trigger is.  I've come out with completely new medication, and I'm really hopeful that we might shortly discover the cause behind the worsening of my asthma.  It was generally agreed today that although I have only had my official diagnosis in 1999, it is most likely I have been asthmatic since I was a baby at age 6 weeks old when I had my very first attack of bronchitis.  I've gone from two medications, {one to be taken twice daily, one to be taken as needed} to four different ones, now taken very differently. Fingers crossed this new regime will work better and I will see an improvement in my respiratory system.  Shake me and I rattle!!!

Until next time

Stay Safe, Stay Well

Debbie xoxo