St Swithin's Day

So today was 15th July, the feast day of St Swithin.

"St. Swithin's Day, if thou dost rain,
For 40 days it will remain;
St. Swithin's Day, if thou be fair,
For 40 days will rain nea mair."

This gorgeous view, long overdue, was overhead all day. Does this bode well for the next 40 days? It had better or the Jet stream will have me to answer to.

My poor brassicas :( Ignore the weeds, its just been too wet to get out there much and sad to say the slugs are winning the battle. Meh.

On the positive side look at these wee beauties. My cheap as chips apple tree from Aldi has it's first babies. OK these few won't keep us going long but least it pollinated, unlike the other apple tree in the garden and my poor courgette plants.

 Whilst looking forlornly at my broccoli I noticed these wild strawberries nestled in amongst my overgrown, non fruit producing raspberries. These plants seeded themselves in my garden from next door, who I think got them self seeded from the school at the end of our gardens. Not bad for free, although don't get your hopes up for a pavlova any time soon ;)

Whilst this summer is certainly turning into a wash out but I am reminded of the old adage......there's no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes.......



What a tangled web we weave.....

After some delightful warm weather we were back to my favourite thing. Fog. Which mean air heavy with dew. Whilst chasing round the garden after Luna in the early hours I noticed these bejewelled beauties.

Layer upon layer of spider web. Clearly spiders have too much time on their hands in my garden to be making such elaborate webs! If only I could knit as well as they do!

Slugs and snails and puppy dog tails....

Sorry for the lack of recent blogging. The arrival of our new addition (more on her in a moment) coupled with half term has meant my time has been spent either being a UN Peace negotiator or being on constant house training watch. The house training is still not cracked.......it had better crack soon or I will!

I was expecting today to be another dull day, limited to where and what we can do due to the puppy (honestly have a human baby, at least these are portable). But joy oh joys the sun has made a magnificent appearance. Time to put my motivational boots on and get out in the garden. Lots of cutting back and tidying up to be done. I can't say in all honesty it looks masses better than before but however the benefits mentally and physically have been wonderful.

My garden lacks colour at this time of year. The pups have worn away the grass in parts exposing mud, plants have either been cut back or pulled out completely and it generally looks an overall shade of brown. With bits of evergreen inbetween. Not very inspiring. Hower during my cutting back in some glorious February sunshine I came across these little nuggets of colour.

My single, solitary snowdrop. I had another in a different place but puppy decided to eat it!

Look at what I spied whilst tidying up my little herb trough. One of many I saw in the garden having a mooch about. A sign that spring is on the way or just like me taking advantage of the sunshine :)

I got all manly.

My axe skills are a bit like lightening. I never strike the same place twice ;)
I went to continue cutting the other side until......

She (I assume all Ladybug's are girls for some reason, I think it relates to the nursery rhyme) came close to be scalped. I told you they are everywhere today :) A bit more hacking and well little flowering cherry tree didn't so much fall as it was pushed ;) I shan't be ready to start singing I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK anytime soon though.

Chopping down has been done for these, my bargain apple trees from Aldi. OK they aren't much more than twigs at the moment but hoping in a few years time to be able to harvest my own apples from my own garden. I'll never quite be Tom and Barbara from The Goode Life but all these little things are a step closer.

So no slugs and snails but I definately have some puppy dog tails :)

Let me introduce Luna our gorgeous little bundle of puppy love :)

A bit of respite for me whilst she sleeps.












Forgive the look of this post.....have been having a play with how I present my blog posts :)

Bounty.

No not the revolting chocolate bar (as if you could lounge on a beach in tropical temperatures eating something like without melting) but a generous gift.

A gift of some fabrics I bought yesterday. The lilac fleece and allsorts fabric (which is just totally fabulous) is going to make a wee present for a pregnant friend shhhhhhhh don't tell her. The red rose fabric is going to become a maxi dress for me. The high viz yellow (sorry but I just LOVE that colour....I know I'm mad) will become high viz vests for kids to wear. When I am taking several kids to the park in holidays it can be pretty busy and these vests stick out like a sore thumb. Besides why buy them when I can buy the fabric for £2 and some black bias binding and voila MSE vests. The last fabric (cream with purple on) might become something for me or for my mum. Man at fabric stall wanted rid so gave it to me for £5, bargain.

A gift picked from the garden yesterday. Yep that's a courgette that thinks it's a marrow! Sadly my veggie patch hasn't provided quite the bounty I predicted. Peas were ravaged by green fly and never recovered, I was late germinating courgettes and complete lack of bees delayed pollination. Broccoli has been a bit disappointing (florets pictured above were the best and even they are yellowing a bit) but I do have some super savoy cabbages taking over. Still life is what you make of it and if the veg has struggled a bit I can only blame myself as I was so late germinating everything.

School holidays, a gift to come next week. I know everyone groans at this and even I thought all the time off at Easter was too long but thinking about it I shall have the beautiful bounty that is the school holidays with my pups. I have made a list of things we're going to do and I am rather excited.

So when I sit and think about it my mind map to remind me of abundance is working. All around me I see plenty. Plenty of laughter and giggles. Plenty of love and affection from family and friends. Plenty of good food. Plenty of projects to keep me entertained. Now I am not saying all this to be smug but it's easy to take things in your life for granted. So I am stepping off the hamster wheel just to appreciate what I have.