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