Happy Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving day and John and I have just finished a wonderful dinner cooked by John. His pumpkin pie was to die for!

Here we are, sitting in our easy chairs in the living room, "protruding our stomachs" (as my Mum used to say) and sipping our home-made gooseberry liqueur. Life has been good to us this year and we have much to be thankful for.

We're happy, healthy and comfortable. We have a lovely warm home and a beautiful garden. We live in one of the most beautiful spots in the country and we are surrounded by kind people. In addition, we have many good friends scattered all over the globe who write, phone and e-mail and thus bring us great joy. Our pleasure is compounded when they come to visit. Several have come this year and we're looking forward to welcoming others to our home next year.

So, as the rosy glow of our dinner takes us into this rather rainy evening in the borderlands we want to wish all our friends, wherever they may be, a very Happy Thanksgiving!

And ..... don't forget to write!

Animated Cat!

This is a test to see if I can put an animation on my blog. I think I can, although when I uploaded it loads of copies were uploaded too and there were dozens of cats rowing away on this page.

The animation was made with a sequence of still photos of an automaton that I made a few years ago. The cat is smuggling cans of tuna fish! There is a handle at the bottom which you turn to get the cat to row the boat. The whole thing is made of thin card which is preprinted with the design. You cut it out and glue it together.


The reason I wanted to test this is that I have just made another one and I want to post a similar animation of it. I didn't want to go to all the trouble of photographing it if I couldn't put it up.

Stay tuned..................

Catching up with the news

The weekend after we got back from York we had yet another set of visitors! These people didn't come from as far, though. They were John's sister Joy, her husband John, her son Nick and Nick's girlfriend Sam. On the left is a picture of Sam and Nick with one of the carved bears on the Allen Coppice trail. Nick is a real ham and a good mimic, so he's always doing and saying very funny things. We had a lot of good laughs over the weekend.

I've put pictures of the carvings on previous posts, but we still love to take that trail and search for new things. The artist is David Bytheway. Some of his things are nature inspired, like the otters running down a log and others are mythological, like the green man hidden in a crack in a tree.

We had a good walk along the trail after lunch at the Long Mynd Hotel and then we wandered around the shops for the rest of the afternoon before coming home to a smashing roast pork dinner and an evening of badger watching. The next day we all went off to Rhyadder to see the feeding of the red kites.

The next day the painting of the outside of the house started. This necessitated some work by us to remove the vines and branches that were growing all over the house and the upper garage. Here's a before picture of a mass of jasmine and clematis that was clambering up a trellis between the living room and dining room french windows. There's actually a light under there, but we'd never seen it and just a dappled glow would come out of it at night!

I had a helluva time getting this stuff down as it had grown up under the roof tiles and into the soffits and vents under the eves. I've cut it right back to the trellis now and will have to try to keep it under control. I hope I haven't killed it completely! I shouldn't think so, everything seems to grow like the clappers in this climate.

Here's an after picture of the same part of the house. That's Adrian Dann the painter man up the ladder. He's quite a character and we've enjoyed having him around the house for the last couple of weeks.

On the picture you can see the newly exposed light. It's VERY powerful and now we have a floodlit patio! It's also rather old and ugly and we're now starting to think about how we want to change the outside lighting around the house. We have a couple of security lights that are on and off all night because of the badgers and foxes - so they are a bit of a nuisance - and they're also very bright. They're too bright really and tend to blind you as you approach them. In addition the lights around the house don't cast a nice glow, they tend to give you bright spots and leave the rest in shadow which is not good. Then, also, the lights up the driveway end too early and leave the top of the drive and the garage up there in darkness! So I think we're going to have to get the electricians in fairly soon to get this all sorted out. And I suppose, while they're at it, we'll have them run electricity to the other end of the garden so we can have power in the shed and a possible water feature in the pond that we're planning.

The painting is now pretty well done except for a couple of patches on the fascia boards where there was some rot. We're waiting for the builder to come and replace the wood and then Adrian will finish off the painting.

We decided to leave the trim white as we have the white patio doors, but we changed the color of the garage doors a bit from green to bluey green - kind of a teal colour. Terry Olive would love it!

One of the benefits of the new bright light on the patio is that we can see the badgers much more clearly. They don't seem to be bothered by the lights, in fact we've seen them ambling by quite casually as we've been sitting at the dinner table or watching the telly after dinner. We don't even bother to turn off our indoor lights any more.

So the other night I attached my quick cam to my laptop, put the quick cam outside on the step, closed the curtains and waited for them to come for their peanuts. I was amply rewarded! I got lots of pictures and a few videos. I wish I could post the video because it has sounds and you can hear the badger sucking up and crunching down on the peanuts!

So that's all the major news. We're settling into a quieter winter routine now. We try to get out for walks between showers, and of course we're starting the winter clean-up in the garden. Work also continues at the Museum, John has become the web master for the Food Fayre and on the actual day I will be working with the Crafts People at the fayre, although at present I'm just a volunteer doing anything they ask me to.

John has gone back to cataloging his slides and I'm making Christmas cards. This is a coloured pencil drawing I did of some holly and a computer modified version of it will appear on our cards this year.

So that's all for now! It's a great relief to have caught up with all this - jobs like this become daunting when you leave them for a while and then realise how much you have to write! Now I feel guilt free and very relieved! My next task is to try, yet again, to catch up on all my e-mails!

Stay tuned and write when you can!

Our Trip to Yorkshire

As promised in my previous post, here's the sequel to our October adventures:

On Wednesday October 18th we headed off before dawn. Our first stop was Manchester airport where we dropped Julie off for her trip back to Columbus. Then we carried on across the country and further north to the City of York. Our main purpose for that trip was to complete another part of my 60th birthday present, but we decided to combine it with a few days at a B&B and some exploration of this lovely old town.

On our way to York, completely by chance, we stopped in a very interesting country park - The Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Outside, the grounds were full of sculpture, including a good few Henry Moores and inside there were several exhibitions and installations. We really enjoyed our afternoon walking around and exploring the various exhibits.

Our B & B was very good. Clean, comfortable and welcoming with a smashing breakfast. We'd recommend it to anyone. It's called the Bloomsbury. We were able to walk into town and back each day with no trouble at all.

On our first full day we walked along the river to the National Railway Museum. Then we spent the whole day there! It was absolutely fascinating. There were trains from every era of the railways and from all over the world. In addition there were special trains, like the carriages used by the Royal Family and other equipment used by the railway industry.

This first picture shows the complete time span. In the foreground is a full sized model of Stephenson's Rocket. The first steam train ever. The original is in the Science Museum in London.

Behind that is the lovely, streamlined Mallard. This is also a steam train although it looks like a diesel because of its streamlining. It holds the world steam speed record set in the 1930s.

In the back ground you can just see part of Eurostar. This is the train that runs through the Channel Tunnel. In fact there's even a piece of tunnel so you can see how it's made and what goes into it.

Another fascinating thing about this museum is the storeroom and workrooms. A lot of these normally "behind-the-scenes" places are open to the public, so you can wander around a vast hall full of railway memorabilia which still have to be put on show or are just waiting for their turn in a display. If you click on the picture to the left, you'll get an idea of the scope of the store room. It's actually a panorama from three images.

In the workshops we were able to see the famous "Flying Scotsman" engine. But you wouldn't have recognised it - it's been stripped right down to its chassis. The wheels are in one corner, the carriage is somewhere else and the whole thing is being renovated.

Next day, we headed off for our big adventure. This was the trip to the skidpan. It was great fun and a terrific thrill to drive a breakneck speed and learn how to control skids and use ABS brakes. I don't know if I'll remember everything we learned, but it was really exhillarating to do it.

In the picture to the left, I am in the car with my instructor, Andy. As you can see, I have a crash helmet on, but they told us it was almost impossible to roll a car doing any of the manoevers we did.

We did the course on an airfield and the track was laid out with cones, so even if we did go out of control we couldn't actually do any damage. Well. of course we went out of control. That was the point of the thing! It was such a blast! I could do that every week and not get tired of it.

In this last shot I'm doing a "controlled" (sort of) skid around the track - spray is shooting out from the back wheels and if you could hear it the tires would be screaming!!!!!

The rest of our trip was quite tame by comparison, but we did enjoy it. On the Saturday we spent the whole day browsing around the shops and on Sunday we made our way back home via Mytholmroyd where we met up with Pam Jordan (my college flat mate), went for a walk in the Pennines and had a very nice Sunday dinner in a country pub.

So that's it for the Yorkshire trip. I tried to load a few more photos to show you what we've been up to since then, but the blog site won't let me, so I'll save them for the next post.

Take care of yourselves, and don't forget to write.

Waiting for the results

Tonight we're up late, we're going to turn the tv on at midnight so we can see how the US election is going. I thought I could pass the time by catching up on my blog a bit. I'm afraid I've rather let it go over the last few weeks.

I guess I'm going to take you back to mid-October and the end of Julie's visit. After loafing about in south Shropshire for a few days we took Julie off to stay with Joy and John in Nuneaton and then on up to Lancaster to visit Barry and Sheila. These were the people who made up the crew of the Narrow Boat "Serenade" when we did our momentous tour in 1993 with Ken and Julie and they were anxious to see Julie and reminisce about the great time we all had.


The first picture is of Joy, Julie and the two Johns in front of the moated manor house at Baddesley Clinton. We visited it and then went on to Packwood House. Unfortunately, we were too late to tour Packwood, but were able to wander around the lovely gardens. This is just one snapshot taken there.

Up in Lancaster we took a long walk along the canal (of course!) with a nice drink at the far end!



The next day we drove around a bit of the Lake District, visiting Grasmere and Windermere. The weather wasn't wonderful, but it didn't rain and so we were able to get out on Grasmere for a voyage on beautifully restored Victorian steam gondola. Here's a picture of that.

We drove home after that, and spent the next day lolling about and packing ready for ........




That's the next story ..... stay tuned!

And please stay in touch!

Gottit!

The plant I showed you in my previous posting is Nandina domestica - heavenly bamboo. However, it's not a bamboo, it's a member of the berberis family. Thanks to Mark Duffell, who is a horticulturalist living in Shrewsbury for a very quick identification.

George Black - please write again with your e-mail address. I tried to reply to your note and my e-mail bounced.

Sorry to post a personal note like that, but I have no other way of doing it.

Gotta rush - have to clean house for some more visitors. After they leave I'll post a more lengthy account of our doings over the last few weeks. There's lots to tell you!

Stay in touch, please!

My problem child!

Hello all you plant experts out there! I need some help with a plant which is growing right outside my patio door. I have no idea what it is, and no-one who has visited and looked at it has any idea either!

To see more detail, you should be able to click on the pictures and expand them.

My first picture is of the whole plant. It has a woody stem and grows slowly during the summer putting out compound leaves. These leaves stay green through the winter and the bottom ones fall off after a couple of seasons (I think, I haven't been there long enough to know for sure). By the end of the winter the leaflets have reddened edges. The petioles are red where they join the main stem, too.

The plant is about 3 ft or 1 m tall at present, but I don't know how old it is. The pheasants have been digging around in the roots, so that's why we've put the stake in and surrounded the plant with stones.


My next picture shows the branched inflorescence and leaves more closely. I've been waiting for it to flower as the leaves seemed to look like pea-family leaves and I was expecting a pea-like flower. I was wrong!

The leaves are multiply compound and alternate or possibly spiral up the stem (they're definitely not opposite).






Now for the flowers! They are just blooming now in early/mid autumn. The "petals" (they could be sepals - I'm not a great expert) are white and very short lived. Once the flower opens up they fall off very quickly.

During the dry weather the "petals" seemed to recurve before falling off, but now in this very wet period they seem to lift up from the base and fall off the top of the pistil! The lowest flower in the picture is doing just that. I think there were six "petals" when I was able to count them before they fell off.

The petals open to reveal six very long, fat anthers which are yellow with brown backs and a fat green pistil.

I haven't seen any fruit yet. I don't think it flowered last year, so when we moved in (September 2005) there were just the dry shriveled remains of what appeared to be the previous year's berries. I suppose it could have flowered earlier last year, the drought has really messed up the timing for a lot of plants this year.

If you have any ideas, questions or comments please e-mail and let me know. I've spent hours going through books and can't see anything that is just right.

Thanks ..... Joan

Boo hoo!

Yesterday we said a sad farewell to Frankie (I think John actually shed a tear as she drove off up the drive with Dolly!).

But, there's still lots of good things going on around here! On Tuesday, Julie and I went on a hack together. Doesn't Julie look small over there? I think it's a trick of the perspective, but Barney really is a VERY BIG horse!

See that wet concrete? Well, I couldn't get my leg over the saddle when we got back and I fell off Barney and landed on my butt - I'm still a bit sore, but we all had a good laugh and there were no bones broken.

The ride was lovely, across pastures and through the woods. It was very "atmospheric" (translation, foggy) which was a pity as we couldn't see the views, but the rain kept off and we enjoyed it.

We had a day in Ironbridge, too. Here are Julie and John on the actual iron bridge. This is the first iron bridge to be built anywhere in the world and this valley is the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. Now it's a pleasant, sleepy valley full of the ruins of blast furnaces and pottery kilns.

Stay in touch!

A restful weekend

Well, we're having a lovely restful weekend. We've had lots of heavy showers so it's not been good for outside work and I've taken advantage of that. Here I am relaxing in the living room with a glass of wine and Frankie. I've been reading quite a lot, lately, too - a sure sign that the depression is lifting. The new drugs seem to be working, thank goodness.

It rained a lot last night and this morning the stream was running strongly. I don't know if it will keep going this time, it hasn't been flowing continuously for more than hour at a time since mid-July!

The rain is helping the badgers to find the worms, I think. The worms come up to the surface when it rains and so they don't have to dig up our lawn to find them. This explains why we rarely find worms on the paths in the morning like we used to in town.

This morning it was raining so hard that the squirrel couldn't climb up the bird feeder to steal the sunflower seeds. He'd get up half-way and then slide back down. In the end, the skies opened with a downpour and he took off in a hurry, making for the shelter of a nearby tree!

The rain doesn't seem to bother the pheasants very much. Sometimes the male comes out in the rain and just sits in the middle of the lawn looking miserable! One of our females has developed a new feeding technique which I have captured in the photo on the left. She is perched on a dish feeder about 3 feet off the ground and is taking seeds out of the tube feeder. These birds are more intelligent than I realised at first.

Unfortunately, this feeder became the breakfast buffet for a sparrow hawk. The greenfinches actually sit at the tube feeder and eat the seeds, they don't fly off with them as the tits do. This made it easy for the hawk to pick them off and we watched it do this several times. It lands on the ground with its prey and just holds the little bird down till it passes out. Then it flies off to consume it at leisure up in the trees. A few weeks ago we had crowds of greenfinches on the feeders, now we just have one or two.

Frankie and Johnny!

Those of you who have heard John's rude comments about cats will be amused by this picture of him snoozing the afternoon away with Frankie by his side. Frankie is visiting right now and she's really taken to him. She's a sweet cat - no biting or scratching from her! She loves to while away the afternoon on a lap, watching the birds outside and occasionally rubbing her head against your hands. During the day she finds the pheasants particularly interesting and in the evening she's been watching the badgers with amazement.

We're not terribly thrilled with our badgers right now. They've been digging the lawns up. Every morning John goes out, puts the grass back in the holes and does a bit of seeding. Maybe it will help to improve the lawn in the long-run, but in the short-run it's really frustrating to wake up and find all those black holes in the lawn.

It's now edging over from summer to autumn. Actually, it started back in August. It was so dry that a lot of our flowers were over before their time. Then it started to rain and got a lot cooler and windier and we thought that was the end of the good weather. But the last few days have been very nice, with sunny skies, light breezes and highs around 21 or 22 (70F).

On Sunday we decided we needed a day by the sea and went off to Aberystwyth, which is the nearest sea-side town to us. We spent the morning wandering about the town and along the front, then went on to a really nice RSPB reserve on the Dovey estuary called Ynis hir. We're planning to go back again in the fall when all the migrants will be there. Later in the day we went to Aberdovey and after walking around the town had a supper of fish and chips before heading home. It only takes about 1.5 hours to drive over there so I think we may be going back more often for a fix of sea air and different scenery.

Today we woke to pouring rain and after a while the stream started flowing again. Unfortunately, it still can't keep it up and now that the rain has stopped we have a dry bed once more. The water table must be very low and we have to wait for the aquifer to get full before the flow will become continuous again.

There must be enough water in the soil for the plants as they are thriving again. The trees and shrubs are full of hips, haws and berries, and some of our cooking apples are rotting on the branches. And the lawn - it's growing like the dickens! In some places the blackberries are small, dry and shrivelled, but in other districts there are big, black juicy berries just waiting to be picked and made into jam or blackberry and apple pie.

As you can see from my coloured pencil drawing on the left, I have fruit on the mind right now. I've been really impressed by the quality of the fruit we get here, even in the supermarkets. The pear you see was a conference pear. These are very hard and tasty. The nectarine was ripe, juicy and delicious - neither of them lasted very long after I had drawn them!

The other thing that impressed me was the length of the strawberry season. We started off with strawberries from the southern islands in May and ended up with berries from the northern Scottish islands in August - and they were ALL ripe and delicious.

Well, it's time to go down to the living room and read a bit. Since I started on the anti-depressants I've been less nervous and guilty about taking time to relax and I've been sitting down with a good book or two or three!

Stay in touch, please!