Tuesday, July 12, 2016

A Late Miscellany

I missed writing Monday Miscellany yesterday because when I checked my blog in the morning the photos had gone all awry not just on my last post but throughout the whole blog.  After an initial panic thinking it was something I had 'clicked' in error I found out that many others were experiencing the same problem.  I slept on it and lo and behold things are back to normal today.

Here are a few of the things I have seen and done over the last week.


It hasn't been a week for gardening as it is too wet and blowy.  The poppies have been lovely but it was hard to get a photo because as soon as they opened up the petals were blown away by the wind and dashed by the rain.

 We have had some garden produce but out of the greenhouse and tubs rather than the raised beds.

 
 The french beans, courgettes and Charlotte potatoes made a lovely meal with courgette bake and steamed beans and potatoes.  We need some sun to ripen the tomatoes.

Also struggling this year are the strawberries and this is about the best we are going to get from the gooseberries.  Such a contrast to last year's bumper crops.
 
 We popped up to the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in the city centre to look at the latest exhibition.  There were about ten dresses from the television series worn by the Dowager Duchess of Grantham, the Duchess of Grantham and her three daughters, Lady Mary, Lady Edith and Lady Sybil plus paintings of the era and accessories from the mueum's own collections.  No photos allowed inside the exhibition.


But there were a selection of hats to try on.


I've always been a fan of Rosy Thornton's novels and I've reviewed a couple of them on this blog.  Rosy kindly sent me a copy of her new book which this time is a collection of short stories set in and around the Suffolk countryside that she knows well.  At the moment I am reading a book on loan from the library and have to finish that as it is requested by another reader so I can't renew it.  I will then reach for Rosy's book with joy and write a review on here as soon as I can.  I've already had a sneaky peek and it looks wonderful.  Here is a - link - to her website.

 We took a walk around the lake and gardens at nearby Trentham last week and the wildflowers are just starting to flower.

 We were lucky as the morning we chose to walk the sun came out for a while and it felt lovely and summery and  there were some extra planting areas this year.

 Last year the wild flowers were amazing and ever changing throughout the summer.

 It looks as this year's flowers will be just as stunning.

20 comments:

  1. Strangely I have had a much better crop of goosegogs this year than last. Everything else has been fairly disastrous though! The slugs got to my mange tout before I had much chance so we only got one crop off them. The tomatoes went really leggy then mostly snapped off at the stem. Well done for getting anything to grow this year!

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    1. It has been a strange year hasn't it? I've never tried to grow Mange Tout I may try it next year. We have had our first small bowl of tomatoes today:)

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  2. So jealous of your gooseberries, I bought some at the weekend and they cost an arm and a leg! Nothing like nice tart gooseberry compote though.

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    1. Gooseberries are one of my favourite fruits and I love anything made with them. I just made a crumble with the few we had:)

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  3. Your vegetables look delicious as do the gooseberries - we used to grow them here and I used to make a gooseberry cream snow which was very tasty :) Poppies (and peonies) here seem to have been ruined by the rain before the flowers even open properly :(

    The Downton Costume Exhibition looks as though it was very interesting and lovely to see the wild flowers at Trentham.

    The book looks very interesting - look forward to your review. I am so grateful to you for introducing me to Anne Cleeves - nearly finished Red Bones and have enjoyed it immensely :) Have already bought the rest of the Shetland books for my Kindle!!

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    1. Poppies and peonies are such beautiful flowers, I guess because of their fragility as well as their colour and sheer exhuberence. Glad you are enjoying the Anne Cleeves books, she writes so well and I'm instantly there with the characters in each book:)

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  4. It's lovely to see the garden produce and the wildflowers - two of the best things about this time of year. But I agree about the sun and the tomatoes. This wet summer is really having an impact on the garden. I didn't know about Rosy Thornton so I shall look her books up.

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    1. We have had our first few tomatoes today and I've noticed a few raspberries coming along. I would love to sow a patch of wildflowers in the garden but am not sure where yet:)

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  5. What fabulous wild flowers. You are certainly doing well with your produce. We have only managed strawberries, loganberries , spinach and carrots so far. Our tomatoes are very green! That exhibition look interesting. B x

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    1. We had a few strawberries early on but they have never really been good this year and lok very sad now. Our large tomatoes are still very green but the small plum tomatoes have ripened now. The exhibition was interesting and some of the dresses were lovely:)

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  6. Wonderful wildflowers! Whenever I've seen any costumes, I'm always surprised at how tiny they are! They look normal size on my TV!! :-)

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    1. The wildflowers were very prety. The dresses were quite small and ranged from the almost Victorian dress for the Dowager to a gorgeous 'flapper' dress of the 1920s:)

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  7. Lovely cheery photos Rosie! Your home grown produce looks very edible especially the green beans. I have not grown any this year and the ones in the shops have been horrible! I also like the look of your gooseberries. I look forward to your book review. I have not been able to get into any books recently. x

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    1. The green beans have done very well this year, better than anything else but they were grown inside the greenhouse rather than out in the garden so the skins were quite soft. I don't like stringy beans:)

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  8. Thanks for showing us some of your pretty flowers and your yummy looking produce. For the first time that I can remember at least, we have some red poppies in bloom!

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    1. I do love poppies and they they seem to grow here wherever they self seed:)

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  9. The exhibition at the museum sounds interesting, I love looking at period clothes both originals and replicas. The weather has affected gardens a lot this summer, a few things are loving all the rain but most are getting battered or looking unhappy.

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    1. Yes, the gardens are looking unhappy at the moment, I just long for a few dry days together but it doesn't seem to happen at the moment. The dresses were lovely and one or two I actually remember seeing on TV but the paitings and accesories, jewellery and etc were very interesting:)

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  10. Lovely to see your produce and to hear about the museum visit too. We had a couple of the Downton costumes at work on display and they were amazing so I am sure you enjoyed it a lot. Glad your photos are all OK, I know how scary that is, I still have some that are really lost from some time ago so I get it!

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    1. I thought I was going to have to change my blog to another template or something but google seem to ahve put things right again thank goodness:)

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