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

Winter has a Heart ~ Memory Making

***a note to my readers ~ my computer is on it's last legs and I have struggled to put this together because periodically my typing does not enter on the screen. Consequently, for those of you who do leave a sweet comment, I should be able to publish, but may not be able to reply immediately, so please be patient. A new computer is on the horizon, and, frankly, is something I dread doing!***


Hello Friends!

Brrrrrrr! Unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere, I think Winter has arrived with all of us. It isn't too bad here, yet, but I'm sure we are going to pay this Winter for several exceptionally mild years recently.

As many of you know, I am a full time care giver, and now, for two afternoons a week, I have help coming in so that I can get out to do things that I could otherwise struggle with, such as getting to the bank, or off for my 'flu injection!  One of the things we can do, weather permitting of course, is to go out for rides in the countryside and make some new, happy memories to cherish as we visit garden centres ~ ones with tea rooms, naturally; go out for lunch or afternoon tea; just go for a ride to see pretty scenery; in fact, pretty much anything. This is why, of late, I've been able to share with you some of the photographs I've taken on some of these precious days out. 

Here's what we did yesterday. We visited a lovely little tea room in nearby Mathry called "Siop Fach Tearooms"  Sadly, they do not have a website but have a very good rating on Trip Advisor.  Here are the photographs I took of some stunning scenery, and delicious food we ate.

I have to say that the tea shop was immaculately clean, light, fresh and airy. A welcoming aroma of cooking food filled the entrance, and a display of deliciously tempting home made cakes was on display by the main counter.  More photos of those next time, but today I'll focus on what we had to eat.

A simple Scampi, Chips and Peas ~~~

I had one of several delicious sounding vegetarian options, Glamorgan Cheese Sausages. These are a traditional Welsh dish of cheese, onion and leeks. Served with yummy Sweet Potato Fries ~~~

Desserts! Puddings! Yay!  Lemon and Lime Cheesecake ~~~

Apple Pie with Custard Sauce ~~~

and I had Warm Chocolate Brownies with Ice Cream ~~~

I confess, the portions of pud were rather generous, but who's complaining? We cleared our plates!

Of course, it has to be Heinz ~ I fell for this cute condiment tray! I would have bought one had they sold one in the little shop next door ~~~

Who can resist an ice cold Fiery Ginger Beer, made in Radnorshire, on a cold Winter's day?

Isn't that a cute name for a company? "Heartsease Farm" It just makes you want to drop in and visit them. On the subject of hearts, I casually tossed my gilet to one side and look what happened? The folds just arranged themselves into a lovely heart shape? How cool is that?

I took a couple of photos from the window, the first has to be the creepiest creeper covered cottage I think I have ever seen ~~~

and this is the Farmer's Arms pub, just across the road. Recently, I was asked if this is 'arms' as in with hands on the end, or 'arms' as in "up in arms and going off to fight" ~ as far as I can tell, it is the 'with hands' version, although I've tried to look into this for you and there is nothing easily found to clarify. Let's go with 'with hands' as it is far more friendly, I'm sure you'll agree. It is a very common pub name in Wales ~~~

On our way home again home again jiggetty jig we pulled over so I could take a few quick photos of the wild and woolly wonderful big sky across the lush, softly rolling hills and gentle valleys of the Shire. In the far distance of this one you can just see the Preseli Hills, where the world famous bluestone which forms part of Stonehenge originated. Bluestone can be found across the world. Preseli bluestone is a fine grained dolerite, a magical stone with particular healing properties used in Shamanic rituals.

The weather was decidedly wintry, with gusty blasts of icy winds coming from the North, and I got caught out in a sharp, prolonged hailstorm! I love looking at the big skies over the Shire, in all their glorious majesty, in wonderment and awe.

Until next time ~~~
~~~Deborah xo