Busy weekend

I have to admit that I am glad that this weekend is over ! It was a busy week altogether as on Wednesday George had his Rotary Kids Out when they entertained some 120 disabled children for the day at Wimpole Hall.  I and a couple of other Inner Wheel ladies did the packed lunches in the morning and fortunately the day stayed dry until George came home - with an painted face of course.  It is jolly hard work but he loves doing it every year, the children enjoy it so, with kite flying, clowns,  miniature train, bouncy castle etc and a visit to the Home Farm.

On Thursday Anthony Green invited us to go to the Buyers Private View at the Summer Exhibition (not that we are in a position to buy anything, I hasten to say, either financially or space-wise) and we thoroughly enjoyed it after  not having been for 4 or 5 years.  It had become such a  splash and daub show - in MY opinion!  But this year it was better, very well hung  and there was some very interesting work.  I especially liked the gorilla made out of coat hangers - such a clever idea.  But my friend next door was turned down again for the third year and I honestly could not, looking round, see how his pictures were inferior or less desirable than much of the work on the walls.  There was a print in the small gallery by a certain lady and it was covered in red dots but it was, again in my opinion, downright ugly and rather nasty but she is a NAME!  And as for her big piece of work....well, dear old Brian Sewell made his views plain!   We met up with  dear friend Sandra who is a volunteer at the RA and went out for a meal together which was fun.

On  Saturday we had a  Safari Supper in aid of our lovely Community Hall behind the church, now two years old.    It was a lot of hard work making sure that no one met the same people at each course but a good friend helped me  and quite a lot of wine facilitated the planning and it was a great success. We all met up at the Hall for cheese and coffee at the end and everyone was still chatting away until nearly midnight!  It is the third year running that I have done this and each year it grows a little as people realise what fun it is.

 We saw  Sandra again  when she came up to see our Open Gardens on Sunday (she is a very keen gardener and also a volunteer at Kew, a lady of many talents) which George organised in aid of the church.  I was busy in the Hall taking the money for the teas but I did manage to slip away and see a couple of gardens with Sandra -

this one is Angela's and was delightfully neat - puts my garden to shame - and this one

 

is a little corner of Anita's

garden, a tiny garden but just packed with interest.  At the end of the day all 10 of the garden owners and their partners came back to our house for a glass of bubbly and some nibbles and we did a post mortem on the day.  Why didn't we have so many people going round?  Was it the weather or the world cup? Should we hold it at a different time of the year?

Sandra is good at telling me what I should do and I MUST TIDY MY SEWING ROOM and throw away a LOT OF STUFF.   Yes, Sandra, I do know that, but it is very hard.  I am going to make a start tomorrow.....

Three coins in the fountain...

Now guess where we have been - here flying over the Alps.......

Does this give you a clue?   Note the little Smart car nestled in amongst all the Vespas and Lambrettas

And if that doesn't tell you, what about this...

which was an invitation to a general audience with

THE POPE !!!

Yes, we were in bella Roma for five days and quite co-incidentally when we went into the Vatican we got the opportunity of seats for the next day  at a public audience - not bad for three C of E's and a Greek Orthodox.  It was an opportunity not to be missed and it was surprisingly moving, watching the reaction of the mainly Catholic crowd.   Behind the compound of chairs the rest of St Marks Square soon filled up with thousands of tourists and it was all very impressive.  The Pontiff arrived and got into his popemobile and drove all around us in the seats so we had a really close view, then he went up to sit under the canopy as you see here and I understand that he mentioned the names of a lot of the people who had come specially from afar for this audience.  Some bits of the ceremony were in English (and other languages) so the whole process was quite longwinded and I have to confess that when we noticed other people getting up to go when their 'bit' had been done, after 3/4 of an hour we too decided that the heat was too much for us and we needed to retire for a restorative drink.   It felt very rude to walk out, but no-one knew who we were!

Rome was beautiful, heavenly weather, marvellous food, good wine and history at every turn.  George used to go to Rome on business but I had never been before so I found it very exciting.  In a narrow little street, the Via de Cappellini, we saw this mirror on the wall and people were taking photographs of themselves - what a clever idea!   See George holding the camera up between us?

I think we look a bit like an Old Master (and Mistress)

I am always fascinated by shop windows when I am abroad and the shops in Rome are to die for.  Clothing and shoes, oh my.  I did buy two pairs of shoes - I'll take a photo of them later -fortunately George is a retail animal and enjoys the shops as much as I do.  I really liked one of the shelves in a wine shop, the labels pictured Mussolini, Stalin, the Pope, Hitler - I mean, who wants to drink Hitler wine?

We stayed at a lovely hotel, very centrally placed, and it had a wonderfully old fashioned lift as well as a very modern one.  We liked to clank up in the old one as it seemed a real adventure, but the modern lift was made by 'Schindler' - and it amused me greatly to be in Schindler's lift !!

In the Compo del Fiore there was a super flower, food and vegetable market - I have to tell you  that I took nearly five hundred photographs and that most of them were of quirky things like this man sitting demonstrating kitchen  gadgets which peeled and sliced and cored and coiled. What did he do with all those vegetables?  Did they go into one of the restaurants to make minestrone?   Only a quarter of my photographs are of classical views, but then we all know what the coliseum looks like, don't we?

But who could resist taking a photograph of this little fellow with

his golden wings, tastefully placed fig leaf  and rather strange harnessess!

And this is what we came home to ! Down to earth with a bang.  But lovely as it was to have (another) lovely break in the sunshine, it was oh so nice to get home again.  Then we had that glorious rain which has done wonders for the garden - and we have Open Gardens in our village on Sunday which George organises and at the end of the day all the garden owners come to our house for a drink - and so of course, our garden has to be a bit spick and span as well.  What with that and the Safari Supper on Saturday, it is going to be a  busy time and Rome already seems a long way away.  And yes, I did throw three coins in the fountain of Trevi !

Beauty & the beast

After the wonderful rain which has at last fallen here  in one of the driest parts of Britain, this morning I did some gardening .The rain has really perked everything up but with this morning's sunshine George was able to cut the grass and I planted another row of radishes and spring onions.  .   I am mad about clematis and at the moment the early ones are really putting on a good show.  This is The President of course.

                                      

I was working near the honeysuckle tree - an old dead tree which George wanted to chop down some years ago but I persuaded him to leave it and I planted a honeysuckle and a climbing rose - Rambling Rector.  In the evening this smells divine and when the honeysuckle has died, the rose takes over.  This is BEAUTY!

                                            

And this is the BEAST !  a huge grub which I dug up whilst edging my island bed.  Actually, I dug up two - but  I am afraid I put the trowel right through the first one !  Oooops.  Then I unearthed another - it must be the size of a fifty pence piece - I should have put one beside it for comparison.  I bet there is some bright spark out there in the ether who knows what it is - a June Bug, perhaps?   Anyway, I left it writhing on the grass and went to find George so that he could see it and when I cam back it had gone.  I hope Mrs. Blackbird got it.  It was breakfast, lunch and dinner rolled into one, a veritable feast.

                                        

Stitching ? No, not this week apart from the U3A class on Thursday and shortening the sleeves of a white blouse I bought in France last year..  But I have been thinking a lot - I must get cracking as I have to produce some new work for Open Studios in July.  I put four items into the Fowlmere Art Show last weekend but they were not very well placed, in fact I had to really hunt to find two of them.   A lovely show, but overcrowded.
On Tuesday George's Rotary Club (plus wives & partners) met for a meal at The Green Man at Six Mile Bottom (highly recommended) and then went on to have a guided tour of Tattersalls in Newmarket.  Most interesting - it was founded in 1766 and is still a family owned business and, if I heard the figures correctly, they have a turnover of bloodstock sales of over two hundred & seventy million pounds a year !  Howzat! It is possible for members of the public to go into the selling ring and witness the horses being sold - I think that would be quite exciting.  There would be no danger of accidentally bidding for a horse, as all the buyers are corralled into one segment of the ring.  There are also some very elegant rooms which may be hired for weddings or  product launches and everything, but everything was immacculate.  We saw a portrait of the founder which bears a dent in the top corner - evidently where it was hit by a champagne cork when the sale of the  first million pound horse was being celebrated.  A very nice evening, but golly, it was cold.  Come back, summer.

Sunny Spain

Guess where I've been !!!

Yup, that's right - George and I flew to Gibraltar to visit my brother who works there, although he and Annette actually live just down the coast in Sotogrande in Spain.  We had a wonderful time, the weather was perfect and Annette is a very good cook so we had some delicious meals.  Their house is just fabulous with a delightful garden and pool and so many courtyards and terraces and arbours that I got very confused and frequently found myself lost!  We haven't been to this house before.

This is one of the terraces - it is hard to realise that you can just go in and leave all the cushions and lamps out all night!   And this is PART of the dawing room! There is a lovely garden and during the night pipes rise up from the lawn and sprinkle away so that the grass is always green.  Sotogrande boasts the Royal Golf Course and several polo grounds and the whole village is within a cordon manned by armed guards who monitor who goes in and out - they are very security conscious, with iron grilles at the windows and electronic steel shutters.  It took a lot of getting used to !  One day we went to the market and I spotted these -  SNAILS

But more excitingly I also saw this wonderful stall full of the most vibrantly coloured fabrics - Annette told me it was all in preparation for the Flamenco season.  Stupidly I didn't buy anything (I could fill a market stall any day with the stuff I've got in my workroom) but when I got home I thought what wonderful bunting it would have made for Open Studios!

There were mountains of rolls in every shade and pattern you could imagine!   We went to Tarifa, the nearest village to North Africa where the Africans brought in their goods, which were taxed - hence the word tarif ! You could look across the straits and see all the houses on the opposite coast, it was so clear.   It was a delightful little village where we had coffee and browsed the shops -  I bought a very colourful cotton skirt for 10 euros. Then we went  to find a little shack near the beach where we had plate upon plate of wonderful fish, including fried sea anemone!  It was very windy on the atlantic coast and the sand was so fine it whipped against your legs and really stung.  Oh, and I also bought that necklace that I am wearing !

It was lovely to spend time with Ian because he has always lived and worked in Europe and therefore I don't get to see him very often. They made us so welcome and it was nice to see how the other half live !  But it was equally good to get back home and smell  the honeysuckle festooning the dead tree and the daisies growing in the grass.   Sometimes things can be just too perfect !  I don't have a maid or a gardener but I do have lots of special  friends and the lovely Brenda and George next door invited us in for a BBQ when we got back so I didn't have to think about cooking. Home, sweet home ! 

First of May - Muguet day

Today is the First day of May and my maternal grandmother who married a Frenchman ('mais malheuresement il etait mort avant que je suis nee ' as I was taught to say) always had to have a corsage of muguet  de bois  - as I believe is the custom in La Belle France.  Well, they can be jolly expensive to buy - so I grow it, the only trouble is it has a mind of it's own and grows where IT wants and I dont  i.e. in the lawn!   I always hope that there will be some to pick on May 1st and then I think with great affection of Grandma Daisy, who was a real character .  I insisted on having Lily of the Valley in my bridal bouquet and in June, in 1957, they were extremely difficult to get hold of.  Nowadays you can get anything at any time!

I don't wish to put the boot in (in this case a dear little Victorian green glass Wellington boot) but this morning I have picked some Lily of the Valley and it smells divine.  And if the sun shines today even more will come  out and I shall be able to give small bunches to friends - everyone is delighted to receive this dear little flower.  

 

All gardens look lovely at this time of the year, especially after the welcome rain we had yesterday.  Looking at this picture I have decided that the pink tulips are far too large for the island bed and when they have finished blooming I shall put them underneath that wonderful acid greeny yellow in the border at the back where they will look ravishing next year - I love that colour combination.  We bought all our hanging basket plants at Scotsdales on Wednesday at the Rotary Gardener's Question time which George is involved in running - and  they all have to be planted up - sooner rather than later!"

So I guess that this afternoon I shall have to knuckle down to it, although I would really like to go into Cambridge and mosey round the shops.  George cannot understand this.  But when I feel 'mongy' as I do at the moment I just want to go and be amongst lots of people and I suppose if I am honest, enjoy a bit of retail therapy. I need a friend to say, come on let's go. On the other hand, if I stay here and do the gardening I shall save some money! At least we are going out to dinner tonight so NO COOKING !  Have a lovely Bank Holiday weekend everyone - I'm off now to have lunch and do the D.T. prize crossword with George.

Into the Hop Gardens

Today we travelled down into deepest Kent to visit Aunty Win in Faversham. She had coffee and toasted teacakes waiting as she is certain that we will be starving after the 1 1/2 hour journey from Cambridge. Later we drove to The George at Newnham for lunch where I had some delicious fish and then we went back into Faversham and had a little poke around down by the quay.   Of course, it was a lovely day so everything looked at its best.  Can you imagine the  wonderful views from the top of this house? 

There was an interesting old building with lots of bric-a-brac booths selling all the things your mother threw out twenty years ago or more.  Please note the trendy knitted muffins !

I nearly bought a 1930's dolls pram for £40 but common sense prevailed .

These are the hop gardens near Win's house - hop GARDENS, you note, not fields.  Win was reminiscing about the days when whole families of  Londoners came out in charabancs to pick the hops and stayed in tents or huts - this was their summer holiday.  The  area  is now a housing estate.  The George, where we had lunch, has bunches of hops all over the ceiling and they smell lovely, very soporific.  A pillow filled with hops ensures a good night's sleep.  I looked in vain for the carpets of bluebells I remember from childhood but apparently we were two weeks too early!

We found some horsey friends

We were also too early for the apple blossom but the countryside did look lovely, fresh and green and full of blossom.  And I do like the Kentish houses with their pantiles and shipboarding (or is it clapboarding?) it is all very picturesque.   George did a few little jobs for Win before we set off for home about five o'clock.   We don't see her more than 4 or 5 times a year nowadays, but I speak to her on the telephone every Sunday morning at 8.30! She will be 90 in November, she keeps on reminding me !

Meanwhile, back in the real world, DD2 went to a Jazzercise conference last week and  is stuck in New Orleans - a victim of the volcanic ash.  I can think of worse places to be stuck! 

Little red lily b-----s

This is one of my lovely crown imperials - they are so beautifully exotic amongst the very cottagey daffodils and primroses - and what a glorious colour. And THIS, Gina, is a LILY BEETLE or as it is known in this household, a little red lily b----r
It is like a ladybird only more elongated and without the spots, and this is the damage they do -

They also have rather nasty personal habits in laying their eggs - not nice at all and we score big Brownie points for killing them. (I could never become a Buddhist, I kill these and earwigs and wasps). Needless to say, this is now an ex-lily beetle.

We went to church this morning and asked some friends to come back for coffee but they said no, they were going out to lunch. So we came home to sit in the sunshine and look at the papers over our coffee before planning what to do in the garden. We had just decided to think about lunch when the telephone rang - it was Pauline our organist. Aren't you coming for lunch today? How awful, we had completely forgotten - are we losing our marbles? We leapt in the car (fortunately we were already brushed up in church clothes) and dashed to the next village where all our friends sat in the garden waiting for us. So we did not get any gardening done but had a lovely meal and lots of village gossip and got home at half past five!

On Friday evening we went to the preview of the Cambridge Drawing Society Exhibition - what talent! We saw our friends Rachel Haynes and Anthony & Sylvia Hopkinson and their lovely work. We were most impressed by the standard, there was quite a crowd there plus delicious nibbles and wine. We couldn't eat too much because we were going out to dinner but it all looked very scrummy. Although it is the Drawing society there were oils and acrylics and pastels and prints BUT no textile art! I talked to the Secretary about it and he said they were quite open to all sorts of media so I am thinking of trying to join - it is a challenge, isn't it?

I am slightly worried about my son-in-law as I think he must be going through a mid life crisis. He has a new hairstyle and has shaved off his moustache (which all makes him look much younger) AND he is talking of buying a motorbike !!! He says I can only ride pillion if I have all the leather gear - watch this space.... There is a precedent, because my father had a motorbike at one time and there is a wonderful photograph of my mother in 1932 wearing a leather coat and helmet, big gauntlet gloves and long boots and looking VERY glamorous. It is very tempting. Can I keep my vest on I wonder?