Bath I: paradise

A big house at the top of a hill overlooking Bath. Almost too beautiful to believe. A drawing room, a garden speckled with pink and purple flowers, a tunnel of gently fragrant wisteria. Bacon for breakfast, a four poster bed, Molton Brown in the bathroom, fresh milk and proper sugar cubes. It was a 21st birthday celebration, a present from my mum, and we were spoilt rotten.

Bluetits

There isn't much outside to photograph during this part of winter. Colour is hard to find, so that even the tiniest briefest spots of blue and yellow jump out at you. The garden is full of bluetits. Maybe I drew these ones in a subconscious effort to bring on some feeling of spring.

The Medicine Garden, Cobham

On a sunny day in September I visited a little place called the Medicine Garden, tucked away in Cobham, Surrey. Once a Victorian walled garden, it's now open to all those who appreciate a spot of tea, a wodge of cake, a mosey and a shop. There's a lovely cafe located in the old hothouse, which serves lunches and tempting afternoon teas. In the courtyard behind the main garden a cluster of independent shops, businesses and art galleries make for an interesting wander about. We had a really relaxing afternoon here and I loved the look of the place - the sharp brickwork, sail white shades, green grass and lavender. It's a truly beautiful find - photogenic opportunities galore.

Apples & lavender

 

We have a gnarled, ancient dwarf apple tree next to a long clump of lavender and I can't get over how nice the two look together when they're both in bloom. The plumpest red and green apples bending branches so low they skim the grass, against a backdrop of purple lavender brimming with honey bees and bumble bees.

(I sound like an old lady.)

The apple harvest is going on and on this year, every evening we come in from the garden with a few more handfuls. There are more apples than we can store or eat, more than we know what to do with. I already have plans for apple and blackberry kuchen (a Nigella Lawson recipe found here), apple pies, crumbles, stewed apples with yoghurt for breakfast, baked apples... Apparently the blackberry crop this year is going to be huge too - go for a ramble and you're bound to find some, even in the most un-rural of towns. I still can't believe people actually buy those expensive punnets of blackberries from the supermarkets when you can fill up a few Tupperwares for free!

I planted some wheat just for fun in the spring and it's finally gone tall and swishy and gold. Reminds me of going for walks across fields in Devon and Cornwall - which is where I'll be this time next week, at last! I'm in desperate need of a change of scene. Fingers crossed there's not too much rain.

Little neighbours

    

 

If you look very closely, among the yellow flowers of the courgettes, past the tiny little salad leaves unfurling from the soil, between husky maroon apples already the size of plums, through heads of ornamental wheat and the tips of white lupins, behind a plump reddening strawberry, and around the pale green lavender flowers about to burst into purple...


you might catch a glimpse of a few little neighbours.



(Thankfully my camera lens can get nice and close so I don't have to!)

autumn please

So I'm participating, if minimally, in this weird hot weather - I'm wearing denim shorts and sunglasses, drinking mint tea, swimming outdoors and annoying my family by stealing licks of their ice creams ("hey Mum, you know I don't really *like* ice cream, but I'd just like a taste...").

However, 30 degrees in October!? What's going on? Unpopular opinion alert, but I don't like it! I like the seasons to rise and fall when they should, and this heatwave is unsettling me. I know the sunshine is making most people happy but am I really alone in wishing autumn would arrive?

Early autumn is one of the most beautiful times of year, with all its mists and mellow fruitfulness, golden dewy mornings and trees of red and orange. And we're missing out on all this because summer has decided to rear its head two months too late. Noo, not cool.

The garden is getting confused with all the hot sun, and lots of plants are trying to reflower. Oh, and we've got a new friend - every time I go out there to mow the lawn or tidy things up, this little robin comes out to say hello.

He flits about while I'm pottering, and likes to show off. Every time he gets a bit bolder, and actually stopped within a metre or two of me yesterday, so I was able to get the camera out. I think robins like having their photos taken!

Anyway, there are some signs that autumn isn't far off:

Trees are losing their green hues, the shadows are getting longer and there are pine cones and conkers everywhere.

 I'm off to make some blackberry tea and dream of autumn and all the apple crumbles and woolly scarves it involves - who wants to join me?

 

(P.S. I've finally updated my about me page, and added a page with all the blogs I like to read, so have a look if you're curious...)

apple picking

This year the apples are super super early. Apples in July!?

English apples are for autumn. They're for apple pie and apple crumble, homemade and warm from the oven, melting in your mouth. They're for custard, they're for blackberries, they're for scrumping in September, they're for eating too many at once and getting tummy ache. They're for stewed fruit on a cold night in October, November, December. They're for Devon apple cake and apple muffins and a billion other baking projects. They're for taking huge bites from whilst reading a Victorian novel in an armchair.

Basically, I love apples.

My brother and I picked ours the other day, on a hot July afternoon.

I thought the apples looked pretty in their basket. Check out the monster (last photo) which was almost bigger than my hand and weighed over a pound. 

I was twelve when we bought the apple tree. I remember feeling very bored on a gloomy rainy day in late summer, being dragged around a garden centre, whilst my parents took hours and hours to make a decision on a tree. And it looked rubbish anyway, a stumpy, runty thing slotted wonkily into the earth. But now it's huge, big enough to climb and full of green healthy life. (It also seems to be a popular spot with spiders, else I'd always be up there.)

It produces a lot of fruit. And not much can beat a home grown apple.

growing my own - a veg update

A while ago I rambled on about plans for a vegetable patch in our small suburban garden.
We planted some stuff and then the sun came out - more sunshine than April usually gives us - and everything grew. Grew so fast you could almost settle down in a deckchair and watch it. Tomatoes, courgette plants, rocket, lettuce, spring onions, shallots, strawberries. Here's how it's all looking.

 planting diddy plants in a bleak wintery patch

spring starts to work its magic

now the raised bed is groaning with produce!

after consuming more than our fair share of salad we let the rocket plants flower because they're pretty

all the other flowers loved the sunshine too

I think the best way to learn how to grow your own is just to take the plunge and do it. It probably takes a few years before you really get it right - know where to grow things in the right places, and how to position them, and feed them. I can't wait to have my own flourishing vegetable garden when I'm older and be able to grow most of the fruit & veg I eat. I don't care how much of a granny I sound - I care about the planet, I love food and things just taste better homegrown.

There'll be more veg-orientated posts coming - I'm sorry if gardening makes you yawn!

And yes, that's right, pink crocs. I'm still shocked by my own fashion crime... They're my gardening shoes! (oh god)