Ignore this if you hate Aquilegias!

These are "my" wild Aquilegias which grow up by our field gate. Despite Next Door ripping out chunks of bank with his too-wide farm machinery, I have gone up from 4 to 7 plants this year, as there are three very young ones further down where they haven't grown before. I am going to put some wire or branches in front of the plants so they can set seed without the verge murderers cutting them down.




Last pics, I promise. Just a few close-ups of flower heads as when I walked round my garden last night and REALLY looked at the flowers, I was amazed and delighted to find that I had some more unusual forms. These are better photos which show the flower head. The ones I took the other day were a bit slap-dash. I was amazed to find that I do actually have a couple of plants which have different flower heads on the same plant, so I shall be saving seed from these and marking the trays and seeing what comes up next year.





Aboe and below - a beautiful deep purply-blue clematis style flower with lighter highlights. This has sown itself into a crack in the path - don't know where its parents came from as it's the only one I have like this. Seed being saved again.

Below - a fairly standard double (and treble) petalled flower, with, on the same plant, a white pom-pom flower. Aren't they gorgeous. Again, I shall save seed and see which ones come up when they flower.

Touchwood Nursery - Aquilegia Heaven!

Faced with all this gloriousness, I was like a child in a sweetshop!



Before I leave the subject of Aquilegias, I had a lovely afternoon out on Saturday and visited Touchwood Nursery in Swansea, to look at an absolutely stunning collection of Aquilegias. I hardly knew where to look first as there were so many beautiful and unusual plants. I must have been there nearly an hour, and of course didn't come home empty-handed as I bought ten packets of seed (with a bonus one thrown in free), so I want to get those in seed trays and carefully labelled up tomorrow. I am SO excited about them.

I think the gorgeous pink and cream one is scented! Amazing and definitely something to try and develop more. To the left are some more gold-foliaged plants.


This is one of the clematis-petalled sort. I have a deep bluey purple one like this, but I think this had silver highlighting around the petals which you can't see from my duff picture.


I loved this one - reminded me of the Moulin Rouge dancers for some reason.

I wish I had seeds for this one, but I believe it's still at the experimental stage. They have to start breeding true and not producing different flower types.

Isn't this gorgeous? I've just sent our eldest daughter a necklace in similar colours - this is prettier though!

Note on the right, one of the golden-foliaged Aquilegias, which I think I chose seed for. I'll have to go and check.

Such unusual colours.

I hope that you will visit Carrie's website (there's much more than Aquilegias alone) and perhaps treat yourself to some seeds if you're too far away to visit.

Aquilegias in the garden

. . . or Columbines . . . or Granny's Bonnets, whatever your preference. I have always grown them and still remember the thrill of finding them growing wild on a verge near Arne in the Purbecks. Deep blue they were - probably garden escapees - but here in Wales they grow wild, and also grow and self-seed in my garden and I encourage them. You can't have too many Columbines . . . and they are addictive. When I spot a new-to-me one, I am done for . . . The most recent was last weekend at the car boot sale. A huge well-grown (very tall) William Guinness, which as you will see below, is virtually black with white inner petals.

I have discovered that there is a small Nursery in Swansea specializing in Cottage Garden plants, and she has couple of Open Days to view her Aquilegias, including today and Monday. I am very tempted, and think I may just be taking a little drive later today, pennies clutched in hot sticky hand . . . She has the National Plant Collection of Aquilegia vulgaris and cultivars and hybrids at Touchwood Nursery . . . and bare-root seedlings are VERY reasonable . . .


A feast for Aquilegia lovers . . . Some of the ones I have growing in my garden (and I'm about to get some more!)


My black Norah Barlow about to come into flower.

Pink stellata form near the pond.

Um . . . lost the label . . . but a dwarf form.




I have lost the label for this one to, so will have to identify. Isn't it gorgeus though? On the Touchwood site there is a single called Adelaide Addison which is similar.

William Guiness above.

White double aquilegias. I think they are also known as 'ballerinas'.

The many-petalled Norah Barlow form, above.

This is the stellata form.

A Walk around Gloucester - Part 2

If you double-click on this, you will hopefully be able to read about John Hooper, who died nearby. That's his memorial above.


This is the blue plaque you can see on the wall below (WANT that house!)

T'other side of same beautiful house.


How glorious this must have looked when the statues were painted, as in Medieval times. The money from the film company who filmed the Harry Potter films here has paid for the cathedral walls to be blast-cleaned and some external restoration work carried out on well-weathered buttresses (see photo below).


Above, wonderful memorial to Sarah Morley and her husband James, though if you enlarge it sadly, it tells of her giving birth on board ship and both her and the baby dieing on transit to foreign parts . . . Hence her holding a baby to her breast.

Above is the ornate and skillfully crafted monument (of marble and alabaster) which commemorates Thomas Machen (d.1614) and his wife Christian, who survived him by just a year. They had seven sons and six daughters, some of whom are depicted beneath their kneeling figures. There appear to be two boys short, so perhaps they died in infancy - there are two little girls at the back of the four larger ones, but the handrail partly hides them from view).

Above and below, part of the display of superb early English silver plate from Cotswold churches.



Considering the bad press that attended Edward II during his lifetime, it surprised me greatly to read of his being depicted on his tomb as a "saintly figure with angels at his head". In my first year at University, I took a course about Paleography and deciphering old documents, and one of the facsimile documents we were given to decipher referred to Edward II and the gift of land to his favourite, Hugh Despenser) I believe it is widely thought that Edward II was at the very lease, bisexual and was, as my ex-husband would have crudely put it - "as queer as a lemonade sandwich"! His sexual preferences apart, he was a weak and deeply unpopular king, and following the conclusive defeat of the English at the hands of the Scots at Bannockburn, wandered into a downward spiral which culminated in his imprisonment in Berkeley Castle (near Slimbridge in Gloucestershire), and his murder by means of a red hot poker (which is what they tell you at the castle), although according to the official booklet about the Cathedral, he was suffocated. However, no money was spared on his tomb, below.

Below, two beautiful pieces of stained glass which were, I believe, in the Lady Chapel, which has a very peaceful atmostphere and strangely, made my ears ring (Judy's too).

A walk around Gloucester . . . this had better be Part 1!

Before going to Badminton Horse Trials - I am going back in time as you see! - about 10 days ago now, my friend Judy and I went to Gloucester, visiting the Cathedral first of all. I have only driven through Gloucester in the past, and Judy had told me many times about the beautiful calming atmosphere of the Lady Chapel, so I wanted to experience it for myself. I knew they had filmed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and also Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets there, and some of you may recognize the Cloister below (with its stunning ceilings) which Harry Potter and chums ran along in the films. There is apparently a Harry Potter trail and you will walk along these cloisters if you take it. The following link will tell you all about it and also gives a link to see 360 degree views of the interior of the cathedral (which will put my photos in the shade!) - http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/focus/2003/08/potter_more_info.shtml


Prior to the Reformation of Henry VIII, Gloucester was a former Benedictine monastery dedicated to St Peter - from 1089 until 1540 when Henry VIII decided it would become a Cathedral . . . The remains of the earliest Anglo-Saxon monastery still stand and we passed them on our way from Tesco's car park to the Cathedral. The proximity of the Cathedral can be seen in the photograph below.


Once the Normans arrived, William the Conqueror installed Serlo, a monk from Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy as the Abbot. This was in 1072, and Serlo's appointment was good news for the Abbey, increasing the number of monks and indeed, the income from the considerable estates. The foundation stone of Serlo's new abbey was laid in 1089 and the abbey consecrated in July 1100.

This triptych of modern stained glass by Tom Denny portrays the New Testament story of Thomas in the presence of the risen Christ. It was made as part of the 900th anniversary celebration of the foundation of the Cathedral in 1089.

If you double click on these you will get more detail, including trees, sheep and cows in the above photograph.

Above is Thomas with Christ and below are portrayed the elements - earth, wind, water and fire.



This Elizabethan lady died in childbed, aged only 18. That's all I can recall about her as the photograph I took of her details got the wobbles and was illegible when I downloaded it.




The hook-nosed Robert's effigy is made of bog oak and dates from the thirteenth century, but the tomb chest dates from the fifteenth century.

The fan vaulting of the Great Cloister is world-famous. Here the monks would have lived, worked and meditated. Work began here in the 2nd half of the fourteenth century and was finished by Abbot Froucester in 1412. That's just rung a bell with me as outside Gloucester on the edge of the Cotswolds is Frocester Hill and if I remember correctly, there is a vast monastic tythe barn at the bottom of it and a gatehouse which I have a photo of somewhere . . .

I think this is on the Harry Potter trail!


Due to the vagaries of my useless broadband, this has taken all day to write/load photos on, so I shall post it now whilst I am connected . . .

One of those Rawhide moments. . .

I am an early riser normally, but having woken a couple of times in the night, I was still sound asleep until woken by the sound of cows bellowing outside. In fact, they sounded very close and very upset. I was up and running before my eyes were even open and wrenched open the curtains to find upwards of 50 bloody piebald matrons in the paddock, munching for all they were worth and the ones who hadn't found the gap where they had broken the fence down, were bellowing outside the gate. Keith and I flung clothes on and hurtled outside to try and get them out which was not as easy as it sounds as in order to get these ones OUT, the front gate had to be open, and if that was open, all the rest wanted to come IN.

The poor cowman - middle European, very little English, could only mutter "string" in strangled tones and I had a Fawlty Towers moment where he reminded me of Manuel and I was very tempted to hit him over the head with a frying pan. Fortunately sanity prevailed and we concentrated on moving the outside bunch into the yard and then rounding up the ones decimating my paddock. The fact that I had put electric fencing tape around 7/8 of my new intake area saved it. Just one cow had got in and trampled through my raspberries (and God knows she did enough damage. I have trodden them back in and am hoping for the best).

It is NOT how I wished to start my week and fencing in pouring rain holds very little allure . . .

What a lovely day 1

Part of my favourite stall. We used to have a meat safe like the one on the left. It lived in the larder.



I have so much I want to write about I hardly know where to start, so I shall go back to where I lost broadband connection and carry on from there. In early May my husband and I gave ourselves a well-earned day out together and drove up to the International Antiques and Collectors' Fair at Builth Wells, and spent a lovely day (smashing sunshine too!) wandering round, with a break for the usual crusty bread, cheese and fruit "car picnic."

There were so many stalls it was hard to know where to start, so we did the outside ones first - an eclectic mix as the photos show - before going into the back sheds (think mostly house clearance brown furniture and very little of interest). As you came forward through the sheds, the stalls became more organized with proper displays, until you came to the glass/china/jewellery which although interesting, were somewhat samey and I am trying to cut down on my china collection. We like furniture/prints and paintings/rural collectibles and of course, books. We were very abstemious as we had set ourselves a goal of only buying something we really needed which is why a set of large wooden curtain rings and a log splitter came home with us . . . And no, the curtain rings weren't for curtains but for my husband-with-the-woodskills to quarter and split in halves to use when restoring furniture with missing sections of moulding where they need to be curved to go in corners.

Then we came to the stands with some very nice antique furniture and fell in love with a Victorian elm blanket box, the sort with a little candle compartment inside. It was very reasonably priced (and my husband haggled), so we left a deposit and as they were not too far from us, arranged to collect on the Monday (so another day out!) The beautiful wild grain of Elm - usually seen in the seats of Windsor chairs, which we have a regular collection of now (mostly restored by my other half) - shows up even better on larger objects like this chest. An indulgence perhaps, but another piece of furniture will go to make way for it, in the name of "trading up". We need to get rid of several big lumps of furniture before we downsize and this is a fraction of the size of some of the pieces to go.

Then a last stroll around the outside stalls, amongst people carrying all sorts of strange and desirable (or not!) objects back to their cars. There were even sold stickers on some extremely rusty old bits of farm bric-a-brac - feeding troughs etc - and I thought the chap had wasted his petrol taking them there! Just goes to show there's no accounting for taste . . .

A hunting home had obviously had a clear-out - stuffed foxes and all! Amazing what turns up at auction . . .

I love stuff like this - could have brought that big stripey jug home with me! Further view below.

This (and above) was one of my favourite stalls as it had lots of little interesting rural pieces (and one or two nice interesting BIG pieces too.



With so much outside, it was just as well the weather held.


We spent some time talking to the lady with the wonderful Raj four poster beds - last used when Britain was a true Empire. We've always wanted a four poster . . . but not a lot of use if we move to a little cottage when we downsize though!


The house clearance side of things - some of it better than others. By this stage I was kicking myself for not having taken a stall myself - I had thought it was all "up market" but I was mistaken . . .




I fell in love with this beautiful little fine lawn cotton child's dress. Every stitch was hand-sewn, and though you probably can't see it, there was embroidery across the yoke, and very fine drawn threadwork above the little pin-tucks. It was £28 and I just wished I'd been the one to find it at auction (at considerably less!)



Zebra skin anyone? I wonder what my cats would make of this?!

I was very tempted by this little washing board for lace, as I come from generations of Northamptonshire lace makers on my mum's side, but I didn't "need" it.

I'm back!

Well, after no broadband for nearly a week, it was fixed over the weekend when I was away at a friend's (we went to Badminton Horse Trials), then drove home Monday to find a tree had taken out our phone line, so I had neither phone nor broadband. Phone fixed yesterday and broadband finally sorted out AGAIN today. Fed up with phoning Indian call centre though . . .

LOTS to post about, but you will have to be patient as I have to proof-read my daughter's dissertation first - IF it ever finishes loading . . .

Family History - Bolts of Hennock

Great excitement in the BB household as a "relly" has made contact, we share the same g.g.grandparents. dunigaj1 - could you please leave a comment with an e-mail addy (I won't publish the comment so you will have anonimity).

My husband and I have awarded ourselves a day off. Well, we have to collect a beautiful elm chest from Crickhowell. My husband fell in love with it at the Antiques Fair on Saturday at Builth, and it was a good price, so that's his birthday and Christmas present all in one.

Teatime now and I lost the connection this morning so couldn't post this. We have had a WONDERFUL day out and I will write it up tomorrow. I must have taken about a hundred photos . . .

Gardening

Below is a corner of the wildlife pond, with Marsh Marigolds.



My garden has been more than taking up my spare time recently. I have been spending just about every waking moment out there. This is paying dividends and the flowering part of the garden is starting to look really good. I still have my work cut out on the intake plot in the paddock as the grass and the chocolate mint are now getting their revenge, after a good few days of rain, but hey-ho, the years of virtual abandonment have been turned round. I have dug, weeded, edged, got brutal with the thugs I will no longer tolerate - mainly Michaelmas Daisies and Achillea Ptarmica and have taken great pleasure in creating new beds and broadening the ones I have already. I have ordered 3 bare root roses frm the David Austin nurseries (they were cheap in their sale!) and they arrived today, so are currently soaking their roots in a bucket of water. I have been looking through their catalogue and lusting after so many new roses - but those are for the future, when we downsize elsewhere. I spent some of my birthday money on Cardinal Richelau, a deep purply red rose which David Austin sells, but on this occasion Wyevale actually had their own cheaper. It has its first bud already and I am ridiculously excited about seeing it bloom. The Blush Noisette climber is destined to go beside the gateway into the paddock plot - when we have moved some post and rail fencing down from the top field to enclose it - and built the gate! The Sir John Betjeman and Tuscany Superb will be incorporated into the wider flower beds.

I have fallen for the charms of various Heucharas too - having spent a lifetime thinking they were rather boring plants as they don't have a very spectacular flower. I have finally grown up and realized that foliage colour is important too. I have some gorgeous ones - a really purple one (Prince?) and one like burnished copper (Peach Flambe).

I had to buy an extra seed stack this year as I have so many seeds. The best grown ones are now in the Lidl tomato tunnel, which is housing trays of runner beans and peas. Earlier this week I sowed Nigella, Night-scented stock and Larkspur in the borders and just hope that the slugs don't get them as they did a whole packet of Stardust which I sprinkled on the rockery.

I also started off some Tarragon, more Coriander, about 40 Italian Cucumbers, more Courgettes etc, and the excess will go to car boot sales along with various other potted things I've grown such as Asiatic lilies and Feverfew and Lemon Balm. I have my Nasturtiums coming along now - a deep red one called Cobra, a creamy yellow called Moonlight, which I have planted beneath a deep purple Clematis to clamber up through it I have a tray of Ratibida, which look like Plantain only with big red petals - they're also known as Mexican Hats.

In the reinstated Herb garden in the paddock, I have strewn two packed of Pot Marigolds (years ago I had them self sown everywhere), and I have just planted fresh pots of Thyme, Santolina and Rosemary.

This year I have had a sudden desire for Aubretias in every suitable corner, and they are certainly brightening the place up.

I have masses of cowslips and about a million young plants in trays . . .

Some of my deep red Cowslips.

A corner of the widened bed by the Magnolia Stellata.

These used to be called Wallflowers and sold by the bundle for pennies. Now they are potted up and called Erysimus to try and fool the gullible public into paying up to £5.99 a pot (Wyevale prices!!) Couldn't resist this pretty colouring, and it wasn't too expensive . . . I shall take seeds too!

This side of the garden was planned for years, with a picture from a magazine held on the fridge door with fridge magnets. I never got around to the sundial unfortunately.


I can see it all in my mind's eye, and I can only hope a keen gardener buys our smallholding when it's on the market, but meanwhile I shall take photographs this summer for the buyer's booklet about the history of our house and how it looks through the seasons and of course, for our Master Copy!