Tuesday 14 April

 Yesterday's walk - beautiful old tree at the junction of Wilfrid Road and High Street. There used to be one opposite but they had to cut it down, such a shame. I must find out what the tree is, it's an evergreen, maybe a sessile oak? Not sure. (Asked on the local FB group and it's a holm oak.)
 The building behind used to be the Clark's Shoe Museum, and the factory before that. Never got to see the museum, it's closed to the public now, although I'd be more interested in the architecture than the shoes, to be honest. I'd like to get up in that tower, fantastic view I should think.
Not many people around, quite a chilly wind - all the men have reverted back to trousers rather than the shorts they were wearing the day before!
Beautiful pink and white cherry blossom in Leigh Road.

View of the Tor from the field between Leigh Road and Hindhayes Lane. Love being able to see it five minutes from where I live, never get tired of the view.
















Plumber due late this afternoon. Feeling anxious about what he's going to tell us and also anxious about having an unknown person in the house at this time. I''m sure he's healthy but will be making a mental note of what he's touched and getting in there with my anti-bac wipes once he's gone!
Done a spot of yoga and tidied up the front garden although it's a bit too close for comfort to passers-by being a postage stamp sized garden. Looks very pretty now with lots of pulmonaria, comfrey and bluebells. Thyme, rosemary, geraniums and buddleia all doing well.
I shall be so relieved when all this is over but looks like we've got a few more weeks of lockdown yet. Better safe than sorry.

Reading: Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver
Watching: The Martian and Discovery of Witches
Listening: Phil Thornton, Solstice

Lockdown Blues (but it's not all bad)

Things are a tad stressful at the moment. You don't say. I am painfully aware that lots of people everywhere are going through far worse things than I am, which adds guilt to the mix.

What's going wrong?

Well, lockdown and being furloughed from work. I really miss the Chalice Well and my colleagues, they're a great bunch and it's such an amazing place to work. Seeing them once a week via Zoom but it's not the same as being there and seeing them in person. Then heart palpitations, I've had them for about two weeks and they are probably anxiety related, but what if they're not? I don't want to cause a fuss at this time but on the other hand want to remain well. So I shall try for a doctor's appointment tomorrow.

On top of this we have water coming through the dining room floor. We are not sure how long this has been happening and we don't know where it is coming from and are in the process of trying to rule things out. We now have a very bouncy, trampoline-like wood veneer floor where it has swollen and warped and I hate to think of the state of the floorboards underneath. We've stopped using the dishwasher and the washing machine and the water levels have decreased slightly; it's no longer seeping up between the gaps of the ruined veneer flooring. I fear it may be an underground pipe that's leaking;  more potential stress as floors are dug up, and the expense, which we can ill afford.

What's going right?

My family, friends and neighbours are all well. Regular Zoom calls with my kids.

I've done a hand wash this morning as it's a sunny day with a fresh wind, things'll dry in no time.

One thing that is keeping me sane and the heart palpitations a bit quieter is a daily gentle yoga practice and a walk, sometimes over to Clyce Hole on the river Brue on the levels between Street and Glastonbury; sometimes just in the field over the way from my home, it has a view of the Tor and beautiful mature plane trees to admire.

I have a job to go back to when all this is over.

We have a plumber coming tomorrow!


There. I feel better just for having written things down, it puts things into perspective.

The humble calendula and nasturtium

There's still plenty of colour in the garden, there's hardy geraniums, snapdragons, nasturtiums and calendulas still blooming merrily away.

I love calendulas, they are such cheerful flowers and will self seed, so once you have them, you'll always have them. They are frost tolerant, and will keep flowering away quite happily in a sheltered spot in the garden. A must for any cottage or herb garden; if you can bear to pick them you can use all of the plant fresh or dried for cooking or for teas.

My nasturtiums are still going strong, I planted seeds beneath the huge clematis/honeysuckle barrier between us and next door. The nasturtiums have rambled up through the hedge and have appeared about fifteen feet up at the very top,  enjoying the autumn sunlight. You have to admire their perseverance! My nasturtiums have kept on blooming throughout the summer, surviving two successive incursions of Cabbage White caterpillars who steadily munched their way through all the leaves and then bogged off to pupate somewhere or other. It looked a real mess for a while but I waited until the caterpillars had all wandered off before cutting the plants right back; new leaves appeared very quickly, followed by the flowers. I also have lots of seeds ready for next Spring.

Callicarpa or Beauty Berry

Look at this stunner. Callicarpa or Beauty Berry.

This shrub graces the Chalice Well Gardens where I do volunteer gardening once a week. I was weeding the long border and every visitor came up and asked me what it was. I'm a keen gardener but I don't know the name of all the plants in the garden, including this one, so I wandered off to find Ark, the head gardener, to ask what it was (he knows the name of every plant in the garden!).

So, in an effort to expand my gardening knowledge I shall record my encounters with plants both garden and wild.

Callicarpa or Beauty Berry -a native of south east Asia/Australasia. Deciduous. The purple berries are very astringent and the birds don't usually eat them until there's nothing else left! Apparently you can make the berries into wine or jelly but you'd probably need huge amounts of sugar to make it palatable. Just admire them and leave them for the birds.

Rowan Tree musings

My beautiful rowan tree has really come into its own this autumn, pale orange berries and amber, russet and plum coloured leaves - absolutely stunning.
It lives in a big pot in my back garden, wasn't sure it was going to survive at first but have kept it well watered, fed and spoke loving words of encouragement to it. It perked up, I'm pleased to report, and rewarded my efforts with this beautiful autumnal display. Rowan trees are said to provide protection for the home, they keep evil intentions out whilst inviting fairies in! I have a fondness for 'witchy' plants, all the old fashioned favourites have a home in my garden, rosemary, lady's mantle, lavender and all my other lovely herbs.

I think autumn leaves are best in November, they're more subtle and never look more glorious than set against a moody, steel grey November sky. There's a beautiful orange cloud of a tree in a garden opposite ours, it's such a beauty. Clouds of pink blossom in the spring and now beautiful amber leaves. A tree that keeps on giving.

This morning we're paying a visit to the Abbey in Glastonbury, home to some beautiful trees, including one of my favourites, the old yew tree by the ruined walls.

Here it is. Perched precariously on the edge of the wall by the ruined Abbey, its branches spreading out towards the walls.

Very quiet in the grounds today, a still, calm day with a little light rain. A few dog walkers and one intrepid lady 'earthing' in bare feet, a braver woman than me!

The trees are magnificent in their autumn finery. Here's a few photos.

Apple trees framing the Abbot's Kitchen

 Beautiful berries against the stone walls

 Such delicate colours

 Stately old oak

 Feathery needles and green cones

Wow!

Gardening and Jackdaws

The front garden. The before photo. Yipes. Full of overgrown, leggy plants, really prickly brambles that have spread through everything and huge clumps of grass. The house has been sitting empty for eight months over the main growing season and things are rampant, we had to fight our way to the front door.
I've been busy clearing the garden for a few weeks; my poor  legs and shoulders, living in a third floor flat for several years has atrophied my gardening muscles.
The garden is now clear of brambles (wow their root systems are tenacious!) and I've started to replant. I've kept some red valerian, honeysuckle and pulmonaria and have added good old cottage garden favourites -lady's mantle, rosemary, lavender, honesty, perennial geraniums, heuchera and cotoneaster for it's evergreen-ness and berries for the birds. I'm enjoying this all so much, I realise now how much I've missed having a garden these past years.
Haven't seen much bird life at all apart from crows so I want to encourage the smaller birds into the garden, I miss the blue tits and robins we used to see all the time in Buckinghamshire. Perhaps they're not so common out here on the Somerset levels?
The jackdaws are fascinating though, they talk to each other all the time with a varied vocal repertoire, flying across the rooftops in a huge group then separating off into pairs, preening and cackling away. Note to self: Find a book about corvids.

Reading: Year One, Nora Roberts -early days, not sure I like it
Watching: Vikings/American Gods
Listening: Nick Drake -autumnal for some reason

New home, new start

Well, here we are in our new home in Somerset.
 Fairly traumatic moving in period as we discovered water leaks, unwanted furniture, cupboard doors hanging off and we had no idea how the boiler worked. Added to that the loo in the bathroom sounded like a foghorn when you flushed it and the downstairs loo didn't flush at all unless you took the cistern lid off and pulled the mechanism up from inside.
However we discovered that our next-door-but-one neighbour is a plumber/handyman who sorted out the boiler, water leaks and toilets in about an hour flat.
Now we've got pictures up on the walls and arranged our furniture the place is really beginning to feel like home. We've had the downstairs loo completely redone and I'm about to paint it this week. The roof and guttering is being sorted over the next few days and the garden is being re-fenced next week.
Our new home is a terraced stone cottage built in about 1840 with add-ons out the back to give it a big kitchen and two small rooms upstairs. The attic has also been converted to a big room which we are using for storage, guests and my yoga practice. The photo shows the kitchen and dining room from the kitchen window.