Last Post

 The title which has just popped into my head seems appropriate for Remembrance Day. 

I’ve decided to retire this blog. Here’s why. 

Mainly it’s because I have noticed some strange activity. Most of my posts are read, or opened and not read, by less than 100 people. This does not bother me in the slightest - it’s mostly for me, family and friends. But the last one has had over 3,000 viewings during the month of September. What’s going on? I can’t imagine why my ramblings about the garden etc would be of interest to any commercial venture or dodgy organisation. Anyway, it has spooked me. Perhaps someone is trying to steal my identity or something like that. So I am off to Substack where I intend to write more serious posts about writing and reading. I’m not posting a link but will email loyal followers - you know who you are. And whoever/whatever you are suddenly stalking me, please go away!

I also have found my posts have become a bit repetitive. Another series of photographs snowdrops, primroses, dog roses, dahlias and holly wreaths and another year passes. I started this blog in 2012 when my daughter was still at school and now she is a primary school teacher. Time flies.

Another reason I have been putting off writing this post is because I have to report sad news. We made a very tough decision at the end of the summer. I have written before about our lovely dog Alfie (pictured above) who suffered from epilepsy. His condition had deteriorated over the past year so that the quality of his life (and ours) was severely affected. On the vet’s advice we decided to let him go. This was back at the end of August. He was only four years old and physically strong. Looking at him running across Chester racecourse where we often walk, you wouldn’t have thought there was anything wrong. But the frequency and intensity of his seizures had increased to the level that there was no option. It was so sad to say goodbye to him. I got off lightly - it was Paul who was with him. I stroked his lovely velvety ears for the last time the morning before I set off on holiday with Kate and it was that week that Paul took him - he wanted to do it that way. 

Nothing much else to report - couple of trips. Palma with Kate, Seville/Cadiz with my sister Diane. I’ll do summary in photographs. 

I loved the Gaudi windows in Palma cathedral. Reminded me of kaleidoscope patterns

Evenings were the best - eating tapas and drinking sangria.

It was blazing hot in Palma so we took shelter in an art gallery one day  I loved this version of the Velazquez Las Meninas painting set in a 1970s home.


Seville 

Me on one of tiled alcoves of Plaza D’Espana, Seville. There were huge numbers of noisy green parakeets fly in between in the trees in the park. 

Seville Cathedral. We climbed the bell tower and hadn’t much energy left to look around.

We took a day trip to Cordoba by train - a bit of rain that day and cooler after that which suited me.

We avoided the crowds inside the Alcázar place and spent most of our time visiting the gardens

We stopped off in Jerez for a sherry tour complete with tasting

Cadiz was quieter than Seville and cooler. Until the cruise passengers descend for the day. 

There was a fabulous market in Cádiz

Summer

 

I seem to have dropped from monthly blog posts to one per season. This is what I have been doing:.. 

Dealing with Drought

I spent most of the summer at home and in the garden. It has been the sunniest summer for many years, hot frequently and very dry. We have had hardly any rain - any showers forecast have missed us. As a result the garden has suffered and I have spent a lot of time watering. The water butts are empty now so I’m resorting to tipping the washing up water onto thirsty plants. There’s no hose pipe ban in our area surprisingly but I don’t feel comfortable spraying water around wastefully so I just use a watering can for the droopy hydrangeas and other unhappy looking plants. It has been a lovely summer nevertheless - I’ve enjoyed eating outside in the evening sunshine, 

Swapping Books

A new independent bookshop has opened nearby. It’s called Books on the Wall as it’s on the Chester City  Walls just by Northgate. The owner Kate chooses her books carefully focussing on indie publishers and local writers. There’s a cafe too. I love it and have resolved to buy all new books from there. I also love our secondhand bookshop, Amblognus Books, run by the very knowledgable Sally who often delves into her back room to find me exactly the book I was looking for. These two have got together to host a monthly book swap event. You turn up, talk about a book you’ve read purchased from one of the stores and then swap it for another one you like the sound of which someone else has brought. It’s great fun - interesting variation on the usual bookclub format.

Visiting Stratford-on-Avon

I last went to Stratford around about 1989 when I took a school party to see a production - it was probably Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet, the usual GCSE choices. I can’t remember much about the trip apart from the minibus breaking down. This time I went with an ex-English teacher friend to see a play at The Swan Theatre, not a Shakespeare one, but The Constant Wife by Somerset Maugham, a very entertaining and slick production. We also did the whole touristy thing of visiting Shakespeare’s birthplace and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage. An enjoyable couple of days doing something the rest of the family wouldn’t be terribly keen on.

Doing an Austenathon

The same friend persuaded me to join a group who have resolved to read/reread all the books by Jane Austen as it’s 250 years since her birth. We have a whole year to do it - good job as too much JA at once is tiresome. I’ve read Lady Susan which I knew nothing about. It was quite amusing - mostly written in letter form  - there’s a word for this which I can’t spell. I couldn’t help admiring the way Lady Susan was so unapologetically badly behaved. Quite a character. On Sense and Sensibility now and I am finding both Marianne and Elinor irritating. Will take a break for a month or so after this. There are other books to read. I’m going on holiday to Palma tomorrow for a few days with Kate before she goes back to school and she has recommended The Safekeep. 

That’s it for now. Will do a book post soon.

Gardening Leave

April

April

April

April

April

 

May 

June

This is my first post since February. Where have I been? Well mostly in the garden. It’s been a busy spring of sowing, planting, weeding and weeding some more. Now that the garden has reached its full summer peak, the pace has slowed a little so I’m catching up. Here’s a round up of my spring:

1. A trip to Ireland back in April.

I travelled with a friend who’d never been to the North and we stayed for a couple of days in a holiday home not far from my home village of Ballyronan. She saw the country at its best - the sun shone the whole time we were there. We went to the Seamus Heaney HomePlace and did the exhibition - she’d been an English teacher too and was keen to do this. And we followed the OpenGround trail visiting locations where the poems were set. Some of these very familiar to me like the site of the bombed out Magherafelt bus station. My favourite which I’d never visited was a walk along The Strand at Lough Beg on a beautiful still sunlit evening. I love that poem - a very sad one about Heaney’s cousin who was the victim of a sectarian shooting in the 1970s. 

We also went to Belfast and did touristy things there such as going on the hop on/off tour bus and visiting parts of the city I had never seen despite living there when I did my teacher training. These were generally no go areas back then but now the murals on both sides of the Peace Wall are tourist attractions. We also went to the Palm House and the Tropical Ravine at the Botanic Gardens and honestly they are magnificent. Just as impressive as Kew which I also visited recently and completely free to enter. We had a drink in The Crown and then caught the train to Lisburn from the swanky new Grand Central Station. My friend was astounded that it was the first train I have ever taken in NI - no railway at all where I’m from - we travelled everywhere by bus. Met my sister in Lisburn and spent the evening with her. 

2. A visit to The Chelsea Flower Show. 

I’ve watched the TV coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show for the last couple of years and so was keen when another sister Diane, the one who lives near Brighton suggested going. The big draw was seeing Monty Don’s ‘Dog Garden’ and as I’ve said before I am a big Monty fan. Sadly neither Monty nor his dogs were there on the day we visited but we did see the garden. The lawn looked a bit scruffy yet nowhere near as bad as mine which has got many bare patches and some holes the puppy has dug. As you can see from the photograph, there are three of us there. This is because Pamela, my youngest sister, had a hospitality ticket to the show. While we had only purchased afternoon tickets - and they were pricey enough - she had a free invite through work and had spent the day being wined and dined. By the time we caught up with her she’d had quite a lot of champagne. I loved Chelsea especially the floral marquee - the David Austin Rose strand was spectacular. The show gardens were all very different in how they were designed but I thought the planting was quite similar in many - a lot of foxgloves and some of them looked a bit weedy with buttercups etc. The on-trend plant seems to be Geum TotallyTangerine especially when paired with a blue salvia. I decided to copy this - see below. 

Monty’s Dog Garden

My on-trend planting

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My Dog Garden complete with dog and patchy lawn.

3. A visit to Kew Gardens 

Kate came to meet me in London after the flower show as it was half term for her. On the Saturday afternoon we went to see Les Miserables. London was heaving with tourists, especially around the theatre area. The production was very slick and impressive - I’ve only ever seen a school version. Then we headed out to Kew where we’d booked an Airbnb for a couple of nights. It was actually a ‘garden room’ at the back of a house in a quiet street - well quiet except the noise of the aircraft heading for Heathrow. Lovely little place and it was good to be away from the crowds in central London. The  visit to Kew was originally planned for my birthday four years ago and had to be cancelled because it was forecast to reach 40C that day. That Sunday was perfect - sunny and not too hot and it was really beautiful. My favourite garden was behind Kew Palace - I think it is called Queen Charlotte’s garden. It was quieter than other parts and full of roses. We explored the Palace too. Kate seemed to know quite a lot about it, not entirely because of her history degree - more from watching Bridgerton. 

Kew Palace

4. Writing

I’ve not been writing any blog posts but I have been writing. I now have 80,000 words on my story. Now I just need to write the ending. 

Winter Sun and Winter Storm

 

Last week I escaped the miserable January weather and went to Tenerife with my sister for a few days.  This is the first time I have experienced a ‘Winter Sun’ holiday and the first time I have ever been to Tenerife. I always been a bit snobby about holidays to popular destinations, preferring to delude myself that I am a traveller rather than a tourist.  Costa Adeje, where we stayed was an entirely purpose built resort with zero evidence of local culture.  But oh it was bliss.  Temperatures of 21-23, ideal for me, a comfortable room and nothing to do but lounge around by one of the pools reading. It was a ‘spa’ hotel so there was one of those bubbly pool things. I liked that as it was warmer than the main ones so I left Sylvia to swim up and down seriously with her nose clip on while I took it easy in the bubbly bit. 

There’s a brick walkway along the seafront and landscaped ‘gardens’ with palm trees and neat rocky beds with huge cacti. The coastline is rocky - the first day we were there was breezy and there were huge waves crashing in - it reminded me of Portstewart I where we used to go to the seaside in NI. The sand on the beaches is dark though - nearly black in some parts - as Tenerife is a volcanic island. Turning left from the hotel on our first day, we explored the attractions along the promenade, windowshopping and browsing in the upmarket shops near the hotel. As we walked on there were more restaurants and bars catering for UK tourists with large screens showing Premier League football matches (just what I wanted to escape) and those places where you put your feet in a tank of little fish which eat away the dead skin. Yuck!  And a huge ‘Irish’ bar called Waxy O’Shea’s which seemed to be a popular attraction.  And young men selling fake designer handbags laid out in neat rows on the pavement.  Amongst all of this there were one or two really nice restaurants - our favourite was one called The Moon. Another day we turned right from the hotel and walked along the coastal path to La Caleta, supposedly a fishing village but in fact just more up market hotels and restaurants that offered similar food as the ones to the left but with white tablecloths, better views and extortionate prices. 

Us in the hotel’s rooftop ‘Sunset’ bar.  

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Complimentary liqueur in The Moon served on a tiny glass

 Meanwhile at home a storm was brewing. At breakfast we met someone from Co Down who recognised Sylvia - she tests her children’s eyes. Their flight home on Friday had been cancelled. All dayThursday there were red alerts for Ireland  - schools closing, everything closing - even Tesco. Good job too - the storm was fierce on Friday morning there. Four of the huge Leylandii in front of Sylvia’s house were uprooted, blocking the entrance to her drive and smashing the fence. No one was at home - her husband also away on skiing holiday.  They returned home on Sunday to chaos and a cold, dark house - no power.  Last I heard they still had no electricity and she was showering at the leisure centre.  Luckily local farmers have cleared the trees - they’d be waiting a long time for the council on their little back road. And the good news is that Rossi, their semi-wild cat with even more than nine lives, survived the storm. 

Here in Chester we got off lightly - it was just a bit windy.  I’m back home now to cold, rain and mud. Cheering myself up with Spring flowers. 

 

Another year begins

My Wreath - quite proud of it.

Tried a different design this year using purple berries and rosemary from the garden

Days are already getting longer and sun rising earlier

Happy New Year! Another one. I read an article in the Observer last week about perception of time and how it seems to speed up as you get older so that Christmas comes round more quickly every year.  It does seem like that to me.  Apparently the trick to making time slow down is to avoid routine and constantly have new experiences.  Easier said than done when doggies need walking every day and the only break with routine is choosing a different muddy location to in which walk them. 

After the excitement of last year’s Christmas - a big family gathering - we had a quieter time at home this year. Just Paul, Kate and me and the dogs on Christmas Day with her boyfriend joining us a couple of days later.  We did the usual stuff: eating too much, present opening, TV. Kate and I cooked dinner giving Paul a break.  And I made a Paul Hollywood’s Chocolate Roulade which turned out really well and didn’t even crack. It was very rich though. Next time I’ll use more raspberries and less cream. It looked just like this - honestly.  I wish I’d remembered to take a photo of mine. 

All over now - I took down the decorations yesterday. It’s a bit grim here today. Snow fell overnight and it’s now raining turning it to slush.  There’s nothing much to do and football on the TV again, only marginally better than darts. But we’ve lit the fire and I’m sitting on the sofa planning some new experiences to slow 2025 down.