The Bloggers Picnic

Totty told me I must be the last person to blog about this. She may well be right.

This is what I went to, organised by Lucy Locket at Millets Farm near Oxford.

Unfortunately, my car had to go to the garage to have a new head-gasket fitted, so I had a courtesy car instead. Oh how I hated this car. It had absolutely no get-up-and-go and it was 1.5 hours drive each way including motorway driving. I will not tell you what make and model it was, just in case you have this car and love it. I just know I would never, ever own one myself.

 

For this picnic, you brought as many boxed Easter Eggs as you had children with you. Now I wasn’t bringing any children, so I felt I was getting off lightly. I had bought some liqueur (non-alcoholic) filled sugar eggs when I was in Denmark, so I made lots of little packets of eggs wrapped in cellophane. I had also bought several packets of little wooden Easter egg decorations, so tied one of these with a bit of knitting yarn or ribbon to each little parcel. These I handed to each of the children at the picnic. This photo of one parcel is courtesy of Jane

You also had to bring a little handmade Easter gift for another blogger. Here is my photo of what I made.

The photo taken by the recipient Mrs Locket herself, is much better than mine, she has the napkin the right way up!

and here is her photo of what was under the rabbits jumper.

I had also made a little something for Lucy for arranging the picnic, again it is Lucy’s photo, I forgot to take one.

The pincushion is inspired by Liselotte (blog is in Danish). I did (as usual) not follow her pattern, but made my own version, very like hers though. The napkins are part of the “stuff” I brought back from Mums. Both are vintage, I think the little one I used to wrap the pincushion in, is hand painted as there is a signature on the back, hidden at the base of the flowers. I love harebells, it is one of the flowers I really miss in this country.

 

The little rabbit is knitted from a pattern by Julie and much to my embarrassment when I minutes later discovered Julie was present, I asked a question of all (if they had seen a similar rabbit for sale in Tesco) when Lucy had unwrapped her present.  I received this

(photo from Jane as I forgot to take one) lovely little girl. A real Little Cotton Rabbit rabbit, made by the designer herself and much sweeter looking than mine.

It was sooo nice to meet all these people whose blogs I have been reading and some new ones too. I hope we do it again next year. Next time I will remember to bring some food, not just something to drink. We were really lucky with the weather, I even managed to get sunburned!

Thank you again Lucy for organising this.

Returning with a garden walk

I know it is a very long time since I last posted anything here. There are many things I had thought to post about and many photo’s taken to post, but it never got that far.

One of the reasons was that I hate writing in Bloggers posting tool. I heard about Live writer, so this is also to test that out. From what I have heard, photo handling is easier with live writer, so this post is mainly photos.

I walked around the garden today, camera in hand, and took photos of what I found growing and of any interest. Hope you enjoy a window into my garden.

 

 

 

Just look at these buds on the Chives, how long before they burst?

 

These are well past their best, but still nice to look at, with their nodding heads.

 

Weeds are allowed in my garden, well some are.

 

This poppy is known as Welsh Poppy in our village, I have forgotten why, and the old lady who originally told me the story, is long gone, ah well, it is nice. Anyone want some seeds?

This is the slightly more orange version.

 

The self-seeded alpine strawberries in the boxes on the wall are flowering too.

 

Just look at the strawberry-to-be

 

This clump of pink primroses are from a clump I received from my Mum many years ago. She had been given hers by an old lady we both knew.

 

So is this yellow Primula.

 

The Forget-me-not have self seeded. The neighbours, when we moved here 21years ago, had it all over their garden in the spring, along with tulips (she still does though they have moved twice since).

 

 

On the subject of self seeded, this geranium has found it’s way into the flowerbox on the front of the porch. I will be evicted soon as I have bought a few plants I want in there instead.

 

The Cowslips are from seeds I have sown myself. There used to be a whole row of them along the outside of our front boundary.

 

I have always loved ferns, but until recently never had any luck growing them.

I just love the way the new leaves uncurl themselves.

 

On the south facing wall of the house we have this growing, known as the “triffid” in our house. You might know it as Kiwi. We get more fruit than we can eat from it and regularly give some of it away to avoid it going bad. The bird box is equipped with a camera and needs to be connected to the telly in my workroom, so that I can keep an eye on anything going on in there. So far I do not think there are any tenants, perhaps it went up too late.

 

To get fruit on the kiwi, you need both female and male plants. When the flowers are open, it is easy to see which is which as the female flowers have a small fruitlet at the base of the flower.

 

When I returned to the house to transfer the photos, I spotted this poinsettia in the front window. My poinsettias seem to last for years and keep getting new leaves. These leaves do not stay green but turn red. How or why, I have no idea as I have always heard that it need darkness to turn red, but mine never moves from the windowsill, well, perhaps to the greenhouse in the summer to get a bit more light and enable us to open the windows fully.

 

It is time to publish this post. If it works, there will be more posts to update you all on what I have been up to so far this year.