Cats in the Kitchen, Flora in the Garden

Simple things hold the secret - Carl Jung

I am living in a heatwave, the temperature has steadily risen since last week, today, Tuesday, its 90 degrees and heading upwards, and in this area we don't usually get much over the low 80's. There is no breeze at all, just hot air enveloping you like an eiderdown. Household chores have ground to a halt, craft projects are at a standstill and at times it is too much trouble even to read for long. I am typing this in the slightly cooler evening with all windows around thrown open as wide as possible. Please excuse any typos or odd ramblings as I think my brain may be melting. I am not really complaining about the weather, it wonderful to have these really sunny hot days, but I fear it will end in a giant storm at some point, I can't see it just cooling down naturally.

The photograph, above, is of the Abbey Gate, part of the grounds of the cathedral in my nearest town. I thought I would publish it as part my doors, gates and windows collection. This gate was built in the 1500's, and you are looking out of the cathedral grounds towards the street.


I must just show you this photograph opposite, of the clematis that is flowering in my friend's garden. It is so beautiful, that deep pink, and the flowers are quite large. I have a lovely lavender clematis, which is just beginning to bloom now, I only planted it last year and it has done really well. My other clematis is a cutting I took from a neighbour's last year, it covered their arbour in lovely pale pink flowers in summer. My first buds are on it and one has opened out, but on my cutting the flowers have changed colour and are all going to be dark purple, how strange.

I noticed today that my calendulas have buds on them and if this sunshine continues they should be opening late tomorrow, I have been giving them copious amounts of water, in fact, a lot of my early morning and late evening time has been spent drowning the plants with water from my watering can. All my phlox are in full bloom now, the last one to flower was my favourite the two tone purple one. I love the honeyed fragrance of phlox. I have just sent two rolls of film off for developing so should have some more updated photographs of my garden to show you. That is if I have taken them properly, as I explained in previous post, I have been learning to use my husband's fancy camera.

My computer does not seem to like this heat and is misbehaving, and now I am trying to upload some photographs, only to find there is a scheduled outage on for one hour, so think I shall go round the blogs and come back in an hour. Speaking of blogs, one I visit, Living as Rosa, is being very temperamental to me, I have been trying since last week to reply to comment, but Rosa's blog keeps showing up as just her patternend background, and then my computer goes off line. Is this just me it is happening to or what I wonder? If you read this Rosa, thats why I have been strangely silent.



Just thought I would publish this fairy picture, as I haven't had one on my blog for a while, and I like to keep them happy. I think I have been thinking about them as I have been out in the garden so much this past week. It will be time to harvest my lavender bush soon, I love doing that, sitting at the garden table making bunches to dry or just preparing the flowers to dry. There is nothing like being surrounded by the fragrance of lavender, smelling the straw of my hat in the hot sun and hearing the buzz of the bees. All these sounds and smells, seem to get incorperated into the lavender bunches I am drying and in the middle of winter, when I sniff the lavender I can be transported briefly back to a summer afternoon.

Must just mention what I am reading at the moment. I am reading 'Precious Bane' by Mary Webb, it was published in the 1920's but is set in the early 1800's in the Shropshire country side. The descriptions of the countryside told in the girl's rolling Shropshire accent are wonderful, you can hear and smell what she is describing. They are poor farmers, and the lore and customs that are part of the story are amazing. Any lover of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles will love this book.