In a Vase on Monday

In a Vase on Monday: saving daylight

~ Sam ~ 11 Comments

It’s flipping cold outside today with the wind blowing from the east – the waves on the sea are heading in the opposite direction to the way they usually go. As I sit here looking out over the Channel, the sea is pewter grey and a dull greenish brown where the sun pierces through the dark clouds. The boiling waves are topped by white horses and I can see a yacht in the distance valiantly riding the wind.

What a difference a week makes – last Monday I was wearing a light jacket over a t-shirt when I walked the dog ; this week I was wrapped up in several layers wearing my winter coat and sheepskin mittens! Brrr. Not only is it colder, the clocks went back at the weekend so it’s now dark by 5pm and soon it will be getting dark even earlier. Boooo. We had a large log delivery last weekend and spent a day splitting and stacking wood so we were prepared for the cold weather and have already had the two wood-burners going. I’m just not mentally prepared for winter, though. It’s crept up on me this year. I don’t like going out in the dark – I need all the daylight, preferably with sunshine.

Anyway, on to this week’s vase. It’s always a great pleasure to join Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for her weekly get-together of flower-arranging bloggers (or, in my case, flower-plonking). I have a feeling my jug of flowers might be rather similar to one I put together a few weeks ago, but never mind – it’s the taking part that counts.

I’ve gone for an autumn colour berry-and-seed combo: a few  guelder rose stems with red-tinted leaves and bright red berries, a couple of stems of snowberry, a tendril of jasmine with green and black berries, beautiful seedheads of Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ and a Miscanthus (can’t remember the exact species), some Euphorbia oblongata, a few hardy geranium leaves that are turning red at the edges and sunny orange marigolds and blue hardy geranium flowers to add a bit of contrast.

I hope you’re keeping well and warm and enjoying as much of the light as possible. Wishing you a good week.

 

In a Vase on Monday: Quinces and Valerians

~ Sam ~ 17 Comments

This week’s Monday vase is inspired by The Runaways by Elizabeth Goudge. First published in 1964 as Linnets and Valerians, it’s an adventure story with dollops of magical realism all skilfully woven together with wonderful descriptions of the characters, the rooms and landscape they inhabit and the food they eat. It had me entranced and I loved every minute of reading this delightful, comfort blanket of a book. It is a children’s book but do not, for one minute, let that put you off. If you haven’t yet read it and you’re in need of a reassuring and satisfying read, I highly recommend it.

The valerians in my jug are red valerian aka Centranthus ruber. This is an incredibly hardy plant which some people view as a weed but I admire its tough constitution and ability to keep on flowering for months and months. There are no linnets, obvs, but there are sprigs of rosemary – “…But you must each have a sprig of rosemary in your pockets. Ezra says rosemary is a holy herb and not much harm can come to you if you have it in your pocket.” That’s good to know 🙂 Joining the valerian and rosemary are white and pink Japanese anemones, because they’re prolific here at this time of year, and some stems of guelder rose (Viburnum opulus) which are starting to show their gorgeous  autumnal hues.

There are no quinces mentioned in The Runaways but I feel sure that wise Ezra would definitely bake them for supper or include them in a steaming apple pie. Just look at their fluffy skins! They’re rock hard and seem incredibly dry when you peel, core and chop them but bake or stew them with brown sugar and they turn into the most deliciously fragrant fruit you’ll ever taste. Culinary magic.

We were lucky enough to be given a bucketful by a friend who has loads this year and I put a few in a ‘windfall cake’ yesterday. We ate half of it for pudding with lashings of custard and it was heavenly. I adapted a recipe from Sarah Raven’s  Garden Cookbook (she originally got her recipe from Monty and Sarah Don). This is a much simplified version:

2–3 medium-small quinces (or 1–2 large ones)
2 cooking apples
zest and juice of 1 lemon
200g brown sugar
150g butter
2 eggs
85g self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
100g ground almonds

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees C (fan oven). Peel, core and chop the quinces and apples and pop them into an ovenproof dish, sprinkle with the lemon zest and juice and 50g of the brown sugar and bake for about 20 minutes, until softened. Grease a deep 20-cm cake round cake tin.

Wait until the fruit comes out of the oven before you make the cake batter so that the fruit can cool a little. (You could bake the fruit well ahead.) Cream the butter with the remaining sugar and add the eggs one at a time, beating well. Fold in the flour, baking powder and ground almonds.

Lift the fruit out of dish with a slotted spoon (there will be juice) and fold into the cake batter. Scrape into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30–40 minutes. Put a piece of baking parchment or foil on top if it’s browning too much. Eat hot, warm or cold with custard, cream, ice-cream or yogurt or all of them at the same time. Close your eyes and feel the love.

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I’m joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for her usual Monday vase gathering, so do hop over to her blog to see her dahlias and what other bloggers from around the world have put in their vases today.

Wishing you a good week.

PS Thank you very much for the lovely comments on my previous post. I’m sorry I haven’t replied yet. I will get round to it.

In a Vase on Monday: flowers to the rescue

~ Sam ~ 8 Comments

My usual approach to a Monday vase is to pick whatever is in abundance in the garden (or whatever is flowering) and hope it’ll work together. Sometimes it does; sometimes it doesn’t. Today, there are two jugs of flowers because it was the latter, although I think they work well side by side. In the blue jug there are a few dark purple osteospermum, lovely pale burgundy-tinged Calendula officinalis ‘Sunset Buff’ (self-sown from last year), pink Japanese anemones, red salvia and lavender seed heads. In the flowery jug there’s a tangle of Clematis tangutica ‘Bill McKenzie’. I’d been chopping this back because I thought it was the invasive wild form but will stop hacking it now I know that it’s not! I love the little yellow lanterns, fluffy seed heads and twirling tendrils of foliage.

I’m glad to be joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for her weekly gathering of Monday vases. She has a lovely sky blue arrangement today, so do click on the link to see it and find links to many others from around the world.

A little flower faff is just what I needed today. Along with hundreds of other parents all over the land (we passed several on the M25), we drove our son to university on Saturday. It was pouring with rain when we arrived, there were families huddled under umbrellas trying to keep piles of bedding dry, scurrying from cars to halls as fast as possible without dropping anything. We helped our boy unpack and find a place for all his stuff in his very small room; he put his pictures up on the wall and logged into the wifi (essentials first). We popped out to buy him the groceries we’d accidentally left at home in the fridge… Then we said our goodbyes and headed out into the gloom. I’m sure you know exactly how that feels if you’ve been there. If you haven’t, I can’t really describe it yet. I’m still a bit dazed. I know he’ll be fine, he’ll work things out and, hopefully, he will enjoy the whole experience and come out with a degree at the end of it. As for us, we will get used to him not being here all the time – there will be lower food bills, less laundry, fewer missing glasses and mugs, it’ll be quieter – but in the meantime, the dog is doing her mournful small whine (she knows something isn’t quite right) and I am trying to not think about it.

Wishing you a good week.

PS If you love ballet (even if you don’t), you might like to click here to read the latest Agnes Q&A with Royal Ballet Principal Francesca Hayward – she’s an inspiration.

Wider than the sky

~ Sam ~ 21 Comments

After yesterday’s heavy rain and winds, the garden definitely feels less summery – apples have dropped off the trees much to the delight of patrolling wasps, there are blackberries ripening in the hedge, fallen beech leaves are scattered all over the back lawn and the air has that smell of damp earth, fruit and slight decay. Autumn. It’s coming.

David has resumed the mammoth task of cutting our hedges, chopping back a large briar rose laden with hips in the process and this inspired my vase today. Joining the rosehips are a few nasturtiums, marigolds and geranium leaves with reddening edges. The photos are taken with my new 50-mm camera lens (it was my birthday yesterday) and the vase is sitting on a beautiful tray sent by my brother and sister-in-law – the perfect Monday vase prop.

I was quite happy it rained all day yesterday as we had no great plans other than to go out for lunch. Afterwards there was nothing for it but to curl up on the sofa and do very little indeed. I managed to persuade my family to play a round of Rummikub (“Ok, Mum, but only one round…”), then I watched a film (It’s Complicated – undemanding and funny in parts), Fake or Fortune about some Henry Moore sketches (much more interesting than the show title suggested) and the new Sunday evening drama, Bodyguard, which had us gripped. It’s the longest I’ve sat and watched TV for ages and it was great.

My eldest returned home from Reading Festival today. He looks as though he’s spent five days in a field (which he has) and his voice sounds as though he’s been shouting and singing for five days (which he has) and he smells… not too bad, considering! He has existed on cereal bars, tap water, alcohol and cheap burgers so this evening we are having roast chicken, roast potatoes and all the veg, followed by a vanilla sponge filled with strawberries and cream made by my daughter. This is tripling up as a birthday, exam results celebration and welcome home cake.

Thank you very much for all the kind and generous comments on my previous post. You are a lovely lot and I am grateful for your understanding and compassion. One of my favourite Emily Dickenson quotes is “The brain is wider than the sky.” There is always something to learn about oneself, about others and about the world and by facing challenges, whatever they may be, we learn what we are made of.

Until next time, my friends. x

PS Thank you, as always, to Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for hosting the Monday vases. Do pop over there to see what she and other bloggers have found to share today.

In a Vase on Monday: still hot

~ Sam ~ 21 Comments

Phew, cor blimey and good grief! It’s still hot; hotter than is comfortable when you have to get on and Do Things. These temperatures are absolutely lovely when you can lie about reading, swim in a pool or the sea, then lie about some more but not lovely when you have to sit at a computer (which gives off heat), or scrub toilets or do anything that involves expending energy. Earlier this morning, I spent 30 minutes picking up the small apples that have dropped off the old apple tree in the back garden, deadheading a few plants and picking blooms for a Monday vase and that was enough! Any gardening has to be done early in the morning or late in the evening, so there’s not a lot going on here. Watering and dead-heading is about all we can manage.

Having missed a few weeks of Monday vases, it’s lovely to be able to join Cathy (who hosts this weekly gathering) and her dahlias today. I started off by cutting a few stems of Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’ which were lying down (overcome by the heat, no doubt), then picked my way through the wild patch to reach two Buddleia bushes at the bottom of the garden – one is a common-or-garden massive weed but we have left it there for the butterflies and the other (the darker one – Buddleia davidii ‘Black Knight’) is one we planted. It smells lovely. I thought it would all look a bit too same-y, so I added nasturtiums (‘Jewel Cherry Rose’) and red salvia (I think it’s ‘Royal Bumble’) and a few amber Heuchera spires to make it more interesting.

It seems that here in the UK we’re not alone in having a drought. Jane, The Shady Baker, who farms in Australia, has written eloquently about the severe drought they’re facing. Her family’s livelihood depends on the weather and reading her post put my concerns about the garden into perspective.

Keep cool, wherever you are, and have a good week.

In a Vase on Monday: cornucopia

~ Sam ~ 12 Comments

The lavender is blooming and the bees are going bonkers. It’s a veritable highway of busy apian foragers out there, all heavily and slightly drunkenly flying from flower to flower, stem to stem, plant to plant. There’s the heady scent of it, too, mingling with that of honeysuckle and privet, especially in the early evenings.

Hasn’t the weather been incredible? It’s so unusual to wake up in the UK and be confident that it’s going to be warm, or even hot. We’ve been pottering about in bare feet and summer clothes for a couple of weeks and the boys can’t believe their luck. No school and sunshine! I do love the blue skies and not having to bother about shoes, but the garden could really do with a good drink. It’s actually a little cooler this evening and it has turned quite grey and gloomy, as though it could crash with thunder and tip it down at any moment, but there’s no sign of any rain yet.

I started my vase pickings today with lavender and jasmine, which is coming into flower (and also packs a punch smell-wise), a multi-headed stem of pink cosmos, a single rudbeckia (the first flower) and added a load of different dried grass stems (dry from lack of rain) and a few poppy seedheads. There are also a few leftovers from a hasty table-centre I put together on Saturday (cornflowers, salvias and love-in-a-mist seedheads).

It is lovely to be joining in again with Cathy and her IAVOM-ers this week – last Monday I was in Cornwall visiting an old schoolfriend. We hadn’t seen each other for far too long and it was wonderful to see her, and our other friend who came too, and to see the beautiful part of the country she lives in. The three of us were military kids and boarders at a state school that had a small boarding wing in the late 70s and early 80s. There was no such thing as pastoral care in those days; benign neglect (putting it kindly) was the order of the day. It was character-building and we stuck together in adversity, making us firm friends for life. We are determined not to leave it so long until the next time.

If seeing them wasn’t fabulous enough, this weekend another old schoolfriend of mine came to visit. She was a day girl who I became great friends with and we have kept in touch over the intervening years. She now lives in Australia but is in the UK for a few weeks and slotted in a couple of days down our way. It was so lovely to spend time with her and to catch up. Honestly, I don’t see old friends for ages and then see three in two weekends! My heart is full and I feel enormously lucky to have such long-lasting and dear friends. It’ll keep me going for a while.

Right, I must go and find something in the fridge for dinner. I spotted half a pepper, an end of parmesan and some tired salad earlier. It’s going to be a scratch meal most probably involving pasta.

Wishing you a lovely week.

In a Vase on Monday: midsummer

~ Sam ~ 13 Comments

Hello! I hope this finds you well. Is it glorious weather where you are? It is absolutely, most definitely, totally summer here. I can see the sea from my desk (which is a little too distracting) – it’s a gorgeous cerulean blue with lighter stripes where it must be completely calm; the sky is a lighter blue and there’s a slight yellow haze between the two which is a layer of fumes from the shipping. Despite this, I can see the cliffs on the opposite coast of France and ferries are crossing back and forth with the occasional yacht gliding past and massive container ships in the distance. I’m able to enjoy more of this view since we had a large sycamore felled last week and the height of the yew reduced. It’s made such a difference to the view from the house and I keep stopping to take it all in. Not good when you’ve got lots to be getting on with!

All is calm in this house. My boys have finished their exams and are on their summer holidays. They don’t quite know what to do with themselves. One has gone to visit a friend and the other is lying down somewhere. My daughter is due home from school any moment, so the peace will shortly be interrupted – she’s bring a friend home with her, so I’m braced. I’m busy working on a few book projects, which is keeping me out of mischief, away from my blog (and blog reading – I am very behind) and out of the garden. I walk around outside usually before I’ve walked the dog in the morning to water pots and anything else that needs it (tomatoes, newly planted stuff) and to check that the gooseberries are still ripening and haven’t been pinched by the bloody pigeons. They are ‘bloody’ pigeons not ordinary pigeons because they eat everything. They’re in cahoots with the slugs and snails, I reckon.

I snipped a few flowers for a Monday vase this morning and photographed it at lunchtime, not wanting to miss Cathy’s weekly gathering for two weeks on the trot. The flowers are a red-purple cornflower, deep pink pinks (with the most delicious clove-y scent), lavender (we are a week or two from peak lavender), Nigella seed heads, Alchemilla mollis, Erigeron karvinskianus from the steps and one stem of Cosmos atrosanguineus because I can only spare one flower!

Wishing you a lovely week. More soon…

In a Vase on Monday: kitchen flowers

~ Sam ~ 16 Comments

I bumped into a friend this morning while walking the dog. She has three daughters, all in their 20s at various stages of university and work. She asked me how the exams were going and I remarked that she must be glad it’s all behind her. “Don’t think it’s ever over!” she said, and laughed. There was me, thinking we’re coming to the end of an era (which we sort of are) and feeling a little wistful already, when really we’re just moving towards another phase. I should know this by now, that parenting is a series of phases, but this one seems more dramatic because it’s the one where they start to leave home.

In the meantime, though, I am thankful that I work at home, that I can collect the children from the station and listen to their exam debriefs and soothe their frayed nerves, I can make sure they eat well and get enough sleep, I can bake cakes and I can put flowers on the table. Oh, wait… Those flowers are for me. They’re to brighten the kitchen and put a smile on my face.

This week’s IAVOM is a cop-out – they’re supermarket peonies, popped into the trolley during yet another whizz around the aisles to stock up on gallons of milk, bananas, apples, bread, Cheerios… But, look – aren’t they exquisite? Totally worth the few pounds they cost. And they need no accompaniment in the jug; they’re perfect as they are.

As a bonus, I’ve also refreshed last week’s vase which, apart from most of the roses, is still going strong. It’s good to know what lasts longer than a week in a vase. I’ve been reading up on the best way to get as much vase-life as possible – pick flowers that are mostly in bud, cut stems on a slant, pop a little vinegar or Milton in the water to deter bacteria, etc. Have you any other top tips?

Do visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden to see her Monday flowers and find links to many others. Wishing you a thoroughly good week (with flowers and cake, if that’s what takes your fancy).

 

In a Vase on Monday: roses

~ Sam ~ 14 Comments

Each week, Cathy at Rambling in the Garden hosts In a Vase on Monday and encourages fellow bloggers to find something in their gardens to photograph and write about. It’s such a lovely thing to do on a Monday morning that I try to take part every week. Some weeks, it’s just not possible due to lack of time but whenever I can squeeze it in, it’s a prompt to get out into the garden and find something, anything, to stick in a vase. December can be tricky but June is not. June is when there is abundance in my garden and when I’m in the happy situation of being spoilt for choice.

I’ve grown increasingly fond of roses in recent years. I used to think they were fussy and over-the-top and too much like hard work to keep happy but I’ve come round to them. I mean, what’s not to love about layers of silken petals in delicate shades of pink, say, that smell delicious?! Our latest addition to the rose tribe in our garden is ‘The Generous Gardener’ and I snipped two blooms off it this morning (the two palest pink ones). They were heading in the wrong direction so can be spared for the vase. The other two roses are unknown varieties – they were overgrown in the garden when we moved here. The brighter pink one, in bud in the centre of the first photo, is from a rose growing at the base of a pillar in the windiest spot in the garden. We cut it right back to its base last year to paint the pillar but it’s come back brilliantly. The two darker pink roses are from an old climber at the base of the back garden wall that was also cut back to renovate it – the flowers smell amazing.

Joining the roses are Geum ‘Blazing Sunset’, a couple of pink scented pelargonium flowers, Salvia ‘Hot Lips’ (from a plant that was moved, trimmed and has come back mostly red, which I prefer), Linaria, one Heuchera flower stem and a couple of leaves, copper beech leaves, a stem of mint, a lovely snapdragon, and really tall Briza (which has seeded everywhere, thank you Cathy!).

You can see from the photos that the light is pretty low today. It’s been overcast and dull all day after a sunny summery day yesterday but that’s perhaps fitting as it’s back to school for everyone here and all the teenagers had exams. History GCSE for the younger son, Psychology A-level for the elder and Science, Spanish and RE end-of-year exams for my daughter. It’ll all be over quickly for her this week, and all over for the other two by 19th June, thank goodness. They’re all home now, tired, hungry and a little shell-shocked so I’m off to make a cake. I know we’re all meant to be reducing our sugar intake these days but sometimes a large slice of cake is just what you need.

Whether you’re taking exams, baking for exam-takers, working hard or holidaying, I hope you have a thoroughly good week.

In a Vase on Monday: distraction

~ Sam ~ 20 Comments

I’m taking a little of my own advice to my revising boys: if you’re stuck and nothing is going in, stop and do something else productive for a while. Well, I’m proof-reading a book and needed a break, so out into the garden I went, scissors in hand, to snip some blooms for a quick Monday vase to join in with Cathy and other garden bloggers.

Gosh, it’s lovely and warm out there in the sunshine – the birds are singing, the bees are buzzing and the flowers are, well, flowering. Tempting as it was to sit on the Erigeron steps and soak it all in, I quickly snipped a few sprigs of the Erigeron (which is looking gorgeous), some hardy geraniums (which are just starting to flower – look at the delicate veining on that pink one!), ox-eye daisy (coming in to flower), Cerinthe major (self-sown and seemingly flowers for ever), chives, forget-me-nots (almost all gone to seed but still flowers to be had) and Centranthus ruber in bud (I prefer the tiny flower buds as they’re a darker red than the pinker flowers). They’re all plonked into a lovely new jug from Waitrose which I bought as a present to me last week for this very purpose.

I’m off to the Chelsea Flower Show tomorrow with David – a whole day out in London looking at beautifully designed and planted gardens and loads of other garden-related stuff. Yippee. I’ll take my camera and will share my highlights here later in the week. Have a good one. Bye for now.