Glastonbury and the Very Elderly

Aaaargh!   This blogger thing is playing games with me today.   Here goes again... with apologies.


During my usual morning call to Aunt Lillian I asked whether she had watched anything on television yesterday evening...suddenly she burst into excited, jumbled, chat.    It seems she had watched the Rolling Stones perform at Glastonbury and LOVED it.     She is 91 years old and suffers memory problems, but their music proved to be so powerful that she enjoyed it immensely.     The power of music - any kind of music - even elderly rockers strutting their stuff.

My weekend duties included helping out at the Village Hall Jumble Sale - as it was also Armed Forces Day we put out the red, white and blue bunting to join in the celebrations.   We were kept busy selling 'jumble', books, raffle tickets, tea and cakes...and enjoyed a catch-up on all the village news.   It raised some much-needed funds for the village hall fund and we had a lot of fun along the way.

The next village event will be the Show at the end of August.   That's our biggest fundraising event of the year and brings out the competitive spirit in everyone.

I made my very first ever batch of elderflower champagne - inspired by Cro's post.  I'll let you know how it turns out.       It was so easy to make that I got another batch under way today.

I don't think I have ever looked closely at elderflowers before - obviously I had to check for bugs and horrid things - this is what the flowers look like through the macro lens of the camera.  

I also made a jar of chive vinegar.   Lots of people have posted about it -  it is quick and easy to make and I couldn't resist the idea of pink, mildly pickled onion flavoured vinegar...a novelty if nothing else.

Toby Too behaved impeccably when the wonderful Dominic, of Belleau Kitchen, stopped by.     Thanks to Dom's kindness we now have lots of wild garlic planted in the woodland.    I look forward to seeing what happens next spring - perhaps in a year or two it will have spread sufficiently for me to be able to harvest some of it.

Because wild garlic leaves are not dissimilar to my beloved lily-of-the-valley, which is poisonous, we have planted it on the other side of the wood.    I would hate to be responsible for the unwary picking the wrong ones!






Later in the afternoon I had the opportunity to grab a few photographs of this lovely cottage garden at Belleau, which The Viking of Belleau Cottage Blogspot has created.

It is an absolute delight with drifts of colour and form mingling, little glimpses of picket fences and velvet lawn - and lots of lupins.    Mine usually get decimated by slugs - but The Viking has far more success.   I suffer from lupin envy when I see his garden.

One final delight - the Canada Geese and their little goslings are in fine form, the youngsters are growing quickly now.    This photograph was taken peering through the hedge - they are on a difficult to access part of the fish pond field.     Clever geese.