Summer: August 2021

Summer seems to be coming to the end and temperatures have become a little chillier but here we are hoping that, maybe, the summer will last a little longer as we had such a slow start to spring back in April and May. The swifts have left us making their return journey to Africa during the middle of August but the swallows are still around. A week ago we counted 22 on the electricity cable above our garden and more in the skies above, but there are none today. The Great Tit family are still coming to the feeders - there were eight juveniles and two adults at the start but now the youngsters are getting the sharp black head decorations of their parents so I suppose that they may venture further afield from now.

On Monday we paid a visit to HRH Prince Charles garden at Highgrove which is about 40 minutes drive from home. I was interested in visiting to get some ideas from the organic and wildlife friendly methods used there and there were lots of different plants to look at -  I particularly liked the Heliotrope 'Cherry Pie' which was being paid much attention by the bess and butterflies.

At the entrance to The Orchard Room where the tea rooms can be found, there is a small family of elephants made from cane and highlighting the plight of habitat loss for Asian elephants along with the charity Elephant Family.

Our holiday in Dorset during the heatwave of July seems far away now but the photographs I took then serve to remind me.

 

Today I am continuing listing the Vogue and Homes and Gardens magazines from the 1950s and 1960s on MillCottageRetro which provide such a useful source for social history and decor from that time period. There are more to go but quite a few listed already, so take a look!

We have been attending a local car boot sale which happens once a month as sellers, not selling any items from Etsy but taking some personal items from the house and garden, which might help our personal spaces declutter somewhat. We still have some of Roy's mum's glassware and china from years ago - mostly useful pyrex baking glassware - which needs to go somewhere to be used. I have culled my personal bookshelves and stored boxes to find volumes that need to go on to a new life! There are two more to go at the beginning of September and October but we have no plans to make it a regular activity having been caught out by the weather on the previous occasions. Whatever is left in October will go to various local charity shops.

Happy shopping, people - Christmas is coming!

Julie

Road map diaries May 2021

 We can look forward to this Bank Holiday weekend for some warmer and drier weather after the wash out that was April and May. My other half and I have been thinking about taking part in a car boot sale for a while so it would seem like it may be the time to do it - we have both sorted out some things which we can live without.

Last weekend we were pleased to welcome our son, Carl, and his girlfriend, Beth, who live in Cheltenham, to the cottage. As indoor mixing was allowed for the first time we thought that Beth may like to visit, not having been here before. Carl had a look around his old room and took some things that he would like to have with him and also had a look in the garage where we store most of the belongings of our two children. The day was grey and damp so we couldn't enjoy the garden to its full extent, but it was a start. The house over the road is normally a holiday let but the same family has been staying for a few months during the lockdown. They have jusy moved out and I expect that we will be having a changing parade of visitors during the summer months. 

We are still getting a regular Abel & Cole weekly delivery which always includes a veggie box, plus a few extras!

We also have a regular delivery from online supermarket, VeganKind, who sell some very nice vegan cakes and chocolate. This is topped up by a monthly delivery from Ocado who, since last September, offer a full range of M&S vegan ready meals.

As far as reading goes I recently read Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse' for the book club of which I am a member and decided that I should read more of her work. For the next meeting it will be my turn to present the book which will be 'Possession' by A S Byatt, winner of the Booker Prize in 1990. I wrote a dissertation on the book for my MA in English Literature a year or so later. 'Culpepper's Herbal' is very useful at this time of the year so that I can identify any new species that has arrived in the garden, I am also currently reading 'The Screaming Sky' by Charles Foster which is all about swifts who usually visit us around this time of year. The book takes a month by month view of their life. We have had three swifts with us for a few weeks and they have just been joined by a fourth. I have ordered a swift box from the RSPB which is quite a different shape from the other bird boxes.

I am still filling the bird feeders every day with sunflower seeds, suet balls and peanuts in protected feeders for the smaller birds. In the protected ground feeder for blackbirds and robins I sprinkle a seed/suet/mealworm mixture and some soaked raisind and sultanas. On the front lawn I put a seed/suet mix and more soaked fruit. 

Among our regular visitors we can now include a number of pheasants (2 or 3 cock pheasants and 3 or 4 hens). One of the cocks seems to be a fighter but looks something of a wreck at the moment as his tail feathers are askew, his chest feathers are pulled out and he is bald on the top of his head. We still see plenty of blue tits, great tits, goldfinches, chaffinches, the odd woodpecker, robin and blackbird, but seem to have lost the collared doves, the long tailed tits, the nuthatches and the marsh tits/willow tits that were around in February. As always, the rooks, jackdaws and wood pigeons dominate the front lawn.

In the wild garden I have sewn many seeds of various mixes plus cornflowers, poppies and corn marigolds. In the front garden I have planted some crocosmia bulbs for some colour and have also bought some geranium plug plants for the same reason.

As a subscriber and viewer of Gardener's World I have received a steady supply of free seeds along with the magazine, so I have sewn yesterday, in the greenhouse, some zinnias, and, in the wild garden, some cornflowers. 

At the moment, in the wild garden, the pink campion is flowering as is some garden escaped purple aquilegia. There are still some primroses and cowslips and grape hyacinths providing yellow and blue. Roy's metal sculptures that he created during the first lockdown are looking good. 

On TV we (or should I say I) are watching 'The Great British Sewing Bee' and 'Gardener's World'. I also watch 'The Curse of Oak Island' on a regular basis which I am fascinated by, but am not sure why! The 'Pursuit of Love', from the novel by Nancy Mitford, has been our Sunday night drama viewing and I think that it has been a good adaptation with Lily James fully embracing the spirit of Linda.

As I have finished writing up Part Two (1600-1700) of my family history research project, 'The Rigmaiden Story' (now at the printers), I can turn to the addition of more listings in my three Etsy shops, of which MillCottageRetro was the first.

I have a few pieces of blue and white china (teapot and coffee pot) and some jewellery boxes waiting on the table at the moment.

I wish everyone an enjoyable long weekend including gathering with friends and family,

Best wishes,

Julie

February/March Lockdown 3

I have just realised that my last blog post was way back in October, so I thought that I would catch up. I tend to 'hibernate' through the dormant winter period (even though I do take extra vitamin D), with which this phase of the lockdown has coincided, but with spring on the horizon I am waking (slightly) earlier in the morning and enjoying the lengthening evenings. I think that spring must be my favourite season with its signs of  new life. Even so, I am quite in awe of people who can regularly produce a new blog every week, or even every few days. 

I have continued to feed the birds during the winter, and have added red millet and niger seed to their regular diet of suet nibbles and sunflower seeds. The unprotected peanut feeder is broken and they are out of stock at my usual supplier, so there is just the 'squirrel and big bird' proof one for now. As another new thing I have ordered some sultanas for March as I have read that this is a good time to spread some round the garden. 

Last weekend, on the one warm day, Roy and I pruned back the large buddleia which had grown to over seven feet in height. There are also some smaller shrubs that I managed myself and also cut back the old fennel and mint growth from last year while I was at it. Indoors, I have been potting up some of the many spiderlings that have been thrown forth by the two matriarchal spider plants that are taking over the stairs window sill and I discovered a small oak sapling in the pot of the aloe vera, where I must have plunged an acorn after our collecting walk at Westonbirt Arboretum last autumn. I must pot that up separately too before its roots entwine too firmly with the aloe vera which is also growing at a rapid rate. The Sweet William seeds which I sewed in pots in the greenhouse last September have survived the winter without any watering. Also there are some shoots coming through in a pot which I planted up last autumn and which I think may be hyacinths.

 

Roy and I have both had our covid vaccine jabs - mine last week and his nearly three weeks ago; he had no ill effects with the AstraZenaca, whilst I had a sore arm from the Pfeizer vaccine. We now await the second booster jab, though he has been asked to go back to do some mowing for his various clients in the village and nearby. We had a National Trust cottage weekend booked, which was carried over from last year, at the end of April so I am currently trying to find out what their plans are. The original idea was that we should spend the weekend with our daughter and her boyfriend, but I think we will let them have the cottage for the weekend and perhaps drive up to spend a day with them, as we probably won't have had our second jab by then. They live in the suburbs of Manchester which has had a persistently high rate of infection since last year.

On a recent walk, among the various things spotted were this fire hydrant sign which had fallen into a small stream and a small wooden door next to the church which seemed to lead only into a field.

 

 

I have re-opened the Etsy shop, MillCottageRetro, and wait to see what will happen. Collection will be by courier as before for the time being. The current state of the pandemic is puzzling at present with some areas like ours (the south west) having reduced infection rates whilst others (the midlands) the rates are going up.  I suppose it is early days yet. I have introduced a special offer on the glassware with a 'buy two get one free' deal which might help to get things moving, though I would imagine that there are many people short of money for anything other than essentials.

'Til next time,

 Julie

October 2020: Tier I Medium

 I started this post over a week ago but soon became distracted by Arts Society Zoom meetings - something new to me! After a few basic instructions from a drop in meeting I learnt enough to be able to attend a talk - mute myself, make myself invisible and give myself a name. The first talk was '1929-1959: The Glamour Years' by Arts Society lecturer, Andrew Prince who gave an informative and colourfully illustrated history of jewellery and glamour linked by Hollywood actresses mainly from the 1930s and 1940s. Last week we had an extra event which was a virtual tour of the East End by Pepe Martinez, a Blue Badge guide, and was Part II of his talks (unfortunately I had missed Part I). This was called 'From Bangladesh to Banksy' and featured a potted history of graffiti artists operating in the East End from the 1960s, and the cultural influence of the Bangladeshi community who began arriving in the area from the 1950s onwards. Using a combination of Google Streetview and photographs we felt like we were almost there and it is an idea I would participate in again.

Meanwhile, in Gloucestershire we have been placed in Tier 1 as regards the covid 19 pandemic which means that we are under The Rule of Six and a 10pm curfew, although it is quite a long while since we have been out in public after 10pm! We did visit Burford in West Oxfordshire a few weeks ago to collect some books that I had ordered from the local independent bookshop, The Madhatter Bookshop. As I knew that I would be going into the shop I wore my mask before I got out of the car and was surprised to see that over half of the population was also wearing masks in the street - maybe because the local population is somewhat older than the average. It may be working, as the rate of infections in West Oxfordshire is lower than that in Gloucestershire.

As regards my Etsy shop, MillCottageRetro, I was thinking about what would be a good range of items to feature in this blog and thought that serving dishes and tureens are always useful for family meals - perhaps for the Christmas season. I have a selection of vintage tureens which would create a talking point and some small Denby soup tureens which. as they are oven to tableware, are very useful. The early ones are quite unusual; some ideas are below:

I know that not everyone will be looking forward to a big family Christmas this year (my daughter is in Greater Manchester which is now in Tier 3, so will be affected more than some others of us), but most people could perhaps think about something on a smaller scale. We are fans of Strictly Come Dancing, like many others, and this will help to keep us entertained up to Christmas, hopefully. In fact, the last event we went to before lockdown was the Strictly related show featuring Giovanni Pernice called 'This is Me' which was in Swindon in early March. Also on the show was Strictly professional dancer Nancy Xu and husband and wife team Oksano and Jonathan Platero. As tomorrow is my daughter's birthday I have been remembering a show that we took her to in Cheltenham as a birthday treat a few years, 'Rip it Up: the 60s', which starred Harry Judd, Louis Smith and Aston Merrygold - previous Strictly winners. As it was her birthday she wanted to meet the stars so we went backstage and waited and eventually out they came. As photographer mum I took her picture with each of them - all were very polite and amiable - and fortunately the photos came out all right! A favourite band of hers during her teenage years was The Wanted and we took her, and a friend, to a number of concerts including a VIP ticket one in Cardiff where she got to meet and greet all the band. She was somewhat disappointed that Jay McGuiness (her favourite back then) joined the Rip It up show later in London, but she is interested to see how another band member, Max George, gets on this year.

I hope that everyone stays safe during these difficult times,

Best wishes, Julie

September 2020

 It's almost a month since my last post for MillCottageRetro during which we have had some warm sunny weather (like now) and some colder damper weather - I think I prefer the former as it enables me to do what I enjoy - potter about in the garden and read in the fresh air listening to the sounds of nature. I have sewn some Sweet William seeds and pricked about half out for planting out next year and have also potted up some little seedlings that have started to appear in the garden in the hope that they will survive until next year in the greenhouse - I think that they are lychnis that have self-seeded in the wildlife area. We have had no further trips since my last post but I think that we have now left it too late as the coronovirus infections start to rise again. We had hoped to see my daughter as her birthday is at the end of October but she is currently living in Greater Manchester which is something of a covid hotspot at the moment.

I have been busy listing new items, and my husband discovered some boxes of kitchenalia and glass vases, in the garage, that used to be my mother-in-law's - it's amazing what keeps appearing in there. I have taken many photographs so will be ready to add them to Etsy in the coming week or so. Below are some items that I have already recently added.

I have also spotted a couple of things on Etsy recently which I have bought for myself: firstly a small sized Hornsea muramic dish as designed by John Clappison with the enamel circles on the base which has joined the three I already have and which live on the chest of drawers in the bedroom. Then I spotted an art deco confectionery tin decorated with butterflies which goes nicely with one I purchase earleir in the year which features pansies.

We have recently discovered (via our cctv cameras) that we have a nocturnal hedgehog visitor to the garden, so my husband has made a hog hotel from pieces of wood which he had in the garden and I have begun to put out hog biscuits in the vicinity so that it will be more sure to reach its required weight before winter. If the hedgehog isn't big enough to hibernate it will most probably die, so I am trying to give it a helping hand. So far the biscuits look like a popular choice but the visitor hasn't moved into the hotel yet, but if he already has a good home that is perfectly fine. Soon, I will be ordering some suet balls which help the birds get through the colder months of the year. We still have quite a variety of avian garden vistors but the swifts have gone - I miss their screaming in the evenings - though we have acquired a pair of dunnock (though a common bird, I haven't seen them visiting the feeders this year) and a wren family, which quite likely were responsible for the nest that my husband found on his old David Brown tractor at the upper part of the garden.

Postscript: since I started this post last week the weather has become much colder and we have actually switched on the central heating which has been off since March or April. In the next day or two I shall have to check our FIT reading - we have fourteen (?) solar panels in the garden which produce electricity for us during the sunnier months and the surplus goes into the grid. It is the latter meter that I have to check to submit the reading. To give you some idea, the reading for the last quarter brought in just over £400 but it was an unusually sunny spring here. Now there is just the two of us, we don't use half as much electricity as before, and I always try to hang the washing out on the line when possible as the tumble drier (along with the washing machine) are two of the guilty culprits as far as energy consumption goes.

Anyway, I will stop now and hope you have a healthy and peaceful couple of weeks,

Best wishes, Julie

August 2020: visits and days out

 I hadn't realised that it had been such a long time since I had written a post for MillCottageRetro - six weeks or more; I can only think that I had a post in mind and had written it in my head but not actually written it down. Anyway, here I am now! I am planning to reopen MillCottageRetro next week having had a short break to enjoy my birthday (at home) and the lovely sunny weather - possibly the last we shall have this year unless we get an Indian Summer in September or October. I am still adding items to the shop as well as renewing - maybe one or two new items on most days. When I have added the larger homewares items I still have a lot of vintage and retro jewellery and perfume bottles, so that will keep me busy for a while!

Yesterday we had a trip to Cheltenham (about 12 miles away) to see our son and his girlfriend who live near Pittville Park, so we walked round to the park and had a picnic lunch which was all vegan as they are too. I had managed to get some vegan doughnuts from The VeganKind Supermarket (online) which are as rare as hen's teeth so we sampled a few different flavours - lemon drizzle, chocolate hobnob, maple pecan etc. They are only on sale from 2.30pm on Wednesdays and sell out quite quickly. We were lucky with the weather which, although quite cloudy, didn't drench us with a shower or blow our picnic away in the blustery wind.

A week or so before that we had a day out to Buscot House, Buscot Weir and Buscot Lock on the River Thames (all National Trust) topped off with a refreshing cold drink at The Swan at Radcot. We didn't have to book for the House which, although NT, is a less busy destination, The Weir was popular with younger folks and families who found the river tempting as it was one of those very hot days we had. Here are one or two pictures:

It was probably our most adventurous day out so far as previously we had only been to a National Gardens Scheme open Garden near Tewkesbury which was for a couple of hours.

I have discovered all sorts of new products during lockdown: when there was a shortage of soap I started buying handmade soap which has the added advantage of not adding palm oil to the ingredients - as we all know we should avoid products that include palm oil! I also use vegan skincare products including this Vitamin C range from Superdrug - the facial wash has a very refreshing effect. There are many small producers on Etsy that make handmade soap and skincare products and I am sure that is worth giving them a go.

This is a selection of colourful ceramic jugs that I have and which reside on the bedroom window sill of my daughter's old room. I acquired them a year or two ago on a collecting spree when we visited antique fairs and flea markets (remember those!) and they make a cheerful display, They are a mixture of old French jugs, WadeHeath, BurleighWare and fun Victorian majolicaware in the shape of ears of corn. On the left are the more subdued tones of the blue Hastings Pottery bowl which lives in the kitchen (which I have had for decades) and a small beige and brown studio pottery vase which moves all round the house ( I have had this for more than five years, probably)

These are two pieces of Toni Raymond ceramics - the 'Mops and Things' sink tidy I purchased a few months ago from an Etsy seller which, along with the wooden soap holder, was my attempt to make the sink area more eco friendly instead of using some old plastic pots which had been there for ages. It's the small things that make a difference, eventually. The pot with the orange or peach on and which I use as a candle holder would have originally been a preserve pot but now missing its lid. I have had this for ages and don't recall where it came from, but I love the design. I find that some Toni Raymond pieces I really like and some I don't like at all, but they mostly date from the 1960s and were made in Torquay in Devon. Apparently the company also acquired the Babbacombe Pottery in 1967. The Pottery Studio website has examples at: http://www.studiopottery.com/cgi-bin/mp.cgi?item=219 and sellers on Etsy also have various Toni Raymond pieces.

I think that is all for now - if I carry on much longer I probably won't get it posted until too long after I began and there is only a week left in August,

Stay safe and Staycation, Julie

July: social distancing, masks and wet weather

Here we are in July, but unfortunately without the glorious weather that we had earlier in the year though the rain was much needed for the garden. We have ventured slightly further afield to the Post Office  and the Pharmacy (me) and Gardners (a home and garden store) and APD (a car parts shop) (Roy), but are still getting our groceries delivered by Ocado and Abel & Cole and VeganKind Supermarket. I have taken the opportunity of the wet weather today and tomorrow to catch up with the blog.
I have changed the MillCottageRetro sections around after having a bit of  brainwave - making fewer of them and relating to activities rather than being over specific. It's a good idea to have a change around now and then. I am having quite a few sales in this shop at the moment for some reason but hopefully the others will catch up!
I am eying up the next jigsaw on the pile - one that I bought from Postcript earlier during lockdown - which will be the fourth one I will have done and which are all 1,000 piece ones. I do like a challenge but two that I bought from the Literary Gift Company were fiendishly difficult; fortunately my daughter sent an easier one as a belated Christmas present.

The above book on St Ives artists is one of the factual books that I am reading at present, also purchased from Postscript which is mainly about the modern art movement there since the end of World War One, rather than the Edwardian and Victorian artists that came before.
I am still adding items to MCR from the 'Draft' section that I wrote up during lockdown whilst the shops were closed, but have nearly run out of those so will have to raid my stash of objects to photograph and describe.
We had quite a magical couple of days this week as far as wildlife goes as, in addition to the various birds visiting the feeders, we saw: a lizard that lives in the stone wall; a weasel just outside Roy's shed and a hedgehog, late at night. We think that the last probably came from the neighbour's garden as there is a small gap at the edge of the wall around which he could walk, but today some workmen are installing a fence and wire mesh to fill the gap to keep the neighbour's dog in so it looks like he won't be able to get through any more - but at least we saw him once!
Anyway, I am hopeful of better weather tomorrow so will probably be distracted from Etsy and be sitting outside - never mind!
Stay safe and look after yourselves,
Julie