Five for Friday

June passed by so swiftly and it looks as if July is going to do the same.  Most of the days have been dull, grey and sometimes cold. Damp too with the occasional gleam of sunshine through the cloud.  Yesterday it just rained and rained.  Consequently garden produce hasn't done very well at all.  Strawberries are still hard and green.  A few tomatoes have ripened and so have the gooseberries.

Above the first two tomatoes from the greenhouse. 

 

A few more picked today.

Above the pickings from the only two gooseberry bushes that have produced fruit this year.

 

We've been pottering around locally except for one visit to a friend who lives in Derbyshire. 

We had a quick stop in Bakewell on the way.  We took a couple of bags of clothes to a charity shop, had a cup of coffee and visited a couple of shops before we moved on.  We bought a Bakewell pudding from one of the pudding shops to give as a treat for lunch.

The love locks are still on the bridge over the river from the car park and cattle market.  I wonder if they will have to be removed if they make the bridge unsafe?  I was lucky to catch the bridge with nobody on it.

The flowers at Trentham Gardens have been lovely and we've managed a couple of walks in between showers.

The foxes have been very active in the garden.  I took a photo of this one as it had it's nose in a pot of Lupins.

Paul took the one below of a couple of cubs.

Books.  Three from the library and one I treated myself to.

I couldn't resist 'The Book of Wildflowers' with words by Christopher Stocks and illustations by Angie Lewin. It's delightful.  'Hands of Time' is by local watchmaker Rebecca Struthers and is her personal history of watches and time.  The 'Geometry of Holding Hands' is an Isabel Dalhousie novel from Alexander McCall Smith.  It's a while since I read one of these and I'd forgotten how soothing they are.  It's a gentle antidote to some of the gruesome crime novels I've been reading recently.  'The Man in Black' is a book of short stories by Elly Griffiths.  I picked it up from the library today and I see it has a Ruth and Nelson story in it as well as others including her characters Harbinder Kaur, Max Mephisto and Flint (Ruth's cat).  I'm looking forward to this.

 

All for now.

Seaside and Strawberries

 We've been away in Wales for a few days.  When we got home the first strawberries of the season had ripened after spending lots of weeks looking hard and green.  

The first sweet pea flowers had opened up as well.

I've popped a few photos of where we've been below and I'll be back with more on some of them in a later post.

Colwyn Bay

Llandudno

Bodnant Gardens

Sheep grazing near the cafe at the top of Horseshoe Pass

Inside the Home Front Museum, Llandudno

Swan and cygnets at the Rhuddlan nature reserve.

Welsh Dragon on a 20mph road sign near the school in Acrefair.  

All for now.

A Profusion of Plums

The old tree at the top of the garden is laden with plums

Last year we had about a dozen fruits from it - this year there are too many to count!

We are watching them every day as they ripen and fall so quickly

It is hard to pick them at exactly the right time

We picked a bowl of soft plums this morning to make a plum crumble with.  I expect that over the next few days we will be making jam and chutney which means a trip to the shops for sugar and vinegar and a delve into the box at the back of the garage to find empty jam jars and lids.

 

We have a profusion of tomatoes too. I think that this week I may be busy in the kitchen!

From the Garden

It's that time of year when the garden starts to produce lots of lovely goodies; not just for us but the wildlife too!

We have lots of cabbage, some new potatoes and courgettes to eat.

Also lots of gooseberries - I love sitting in the sun to top and tail gooseberries it reminds me of when I was a child and my job was to sit on the back steps and top and tail the gooseberries or pod the fresh garden peas into a colander ready for Sunday lunch. I always had to move for a while so Dad could sharpen the carving knife on the step ready to carve the Sunday joint.

We've already made gooseberry jam as well as a gooseberry crumble or two.

The tomatoes are ripening in the greenhouse or on our kitchen windowsill when they fall of the plants a little early.

Yesterday we collected enough blackcurrants to make both jam and cordial.

I also made some apricot conserve with some cheap apricots I saw in the supermarket. The cupboard is beginning to fill with enough jams and jellies to take us through to next year and to provide us with little gifts for people too.

Simple Pleasures

Here are some of the things that have pleased me today

Fresh flowers from the garden

Pretty foxgloves seen on our morning's walk

At last! A goldfinch tries out our new nyger seed feeder

New cat on the block - don't know to whom it belongs to but it really likes pond dipping!

The first gooseberries - gooseberry crumble anyone?

Healthy courgettes growing in the raised beds - this means tasty courgette bake or ratatouille for lunch or tea!

Food from the Garden

Beans, Beetroot, Cauliflower, courgettes, cucumber, gooseberries, mint, onion and strawberries plus natsurtium flowers from the edible contents of the hanging basket

There are some still left for us after we got rid of loads of caterpillars - this hanging basket was full of them - the other, which has exactly the same contents, had none!