Bennie Finds a Bed

Beautiful Bennie has a very comfortable bed, but she rarely sleeps in it.   She drifts around the house finding a cosy nook here, a comfortable corner there.   She is very adaptable.  I think part of it is so that livewire Sparky can't find her.

Yesterday she decided that my sewing project would make a great bed.

I knew you wouldn't mind ...

George is busy redecorating the Boot Room, everything is topsy turvy...  of course Bennie found somewhere to oversee the operation.

Last night I searched high and low for her ... eventually tracked her down to the 'smallest room in the house', where everything from the Boot Room has been plonked while we decorate.

Her smile says it all.

In order to get into this room she has learnt to open the latch door, she stands on a Lloyd Loom linen basket which is nearby, reaches over and clicks the latch open.    When she does this in the dark of an evening, when all is quiet it can get a little scary hearing the latch click out there - when you just know there is no-one there.  

The Old Butcher's Shop & a Hotch Potch of Stiles

This enormous, split ash tree is around 150 years old.   The ash tree was known as the healing tree, and folk lore used to have it that if a naked child was passed through a split trunk of an ash tree, in a ritual, they would be healed of rickets or a broken limb.

In Anglo-Saxon times ash wood was used for making spears and shield handles.   More recent use is for furniture, walking sticks, sports equipment and aircraft wings on the De Havilland Mosquito which flew in WWII.

I like the way this mighty tree completely dwarfs everything around it, making Arnold, the fencing and the beehives look tiny.  Quite amazing to think of the things which have come and gone while this tree has been standing there.

The brick wall which you can see on the left side of the first photograph belong to these buildings.  They were once an important part of the village, for this was where the village butcher would ply his trade.   This was the preparation area - live animals came in, were dispatched and prepared for sale in the shop next door.

John, one of our wonderful village elders, who lives in the house across the way, gave me a tour of it one day.   When he and Hazel bought the place, way back in the '70's I believe it still had the hooks, hoists and pulley systems, as well as the copper for boiling, hams, etc.

I am vegetarian, but even so, because it was an important bit of village life and history, I still find it fascinating.

These buildings are gradually subsiding bricks are snapping, timbers slipping and I cannot imagine them standing for many more years, I felt it was important to record their existence, their history.

My feet led me on through the meadow and beyond the fish ponds, almost to Thistle Alley, where I encountered this collection of old posts and wire...a disused stile.  Nature is doing her best to reclaim it.

Nettles and elder, brambles and hawthorn are all doing their best to beautify it.

Can anything make barbed wire beautiful?

Here is another kind of a stile - a well-maintained, but infrequently used one,   in a quiet glade.



The wood has turned green because of all the rain we had been enduring.

Climb up over the stile and you are rewarded with a beautiful sight....

A  tranquil place, no traffic, just peace and beauty.


I am happy to be linking in with Jan n'Jer's Friday Fences.
Lots of links to interesting fences can be found on their blog.

Tomatoes from Texas!

Way back in February my very dear friend Meggie, who writes  the  beautiful Meggie on the Prairie blog,  sent me a pack of tomato seeds.  

A few weeks earlier she had held a Garden Seed Giveaway and I was fortunate to be among those drawn to receive my own choice of a pack of seeds.    

After much deliberation and perusal of the seed catalogue, I  requested some Tomato Carbon seeds, which are described as having a wonderful flavour.

Despite the dreadful growing conditions this year, they have shown true Texan spirit and have survived, and done their best in adverse conditions.

Some were grown in the conservatory, others in the greenhouse.

The yield was low, but the flavour was wonderful.

They are sweet and delicious...and did I mention that they are almost as big as Texas?

I thought it would be interesting to compare them alongside cherry and plum tomatoes - so you can get an idea of the scale.

We have saved some seeds, ready to try again next year.  We know the flavour is great, now we need to increase the yield...

Watch this space.



We had a surprise visitor tonight ... he came down to the patio doors in the dark of the early evening, then scuttled off when the light was put on.

A 'teenage' hedgehog.    We made this little chap welcome by leaving him in peace to eat a small dish of cat food.    Here's hoping he returns frequently and eats lots of slugs.     We have two hedgehog houses in the garden, I wonder whether he has taken up residence in one of them.