7/52

Portraits of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014.

We went to Wisley today, an RHS garden in Surrey, mainly to see the butterflies that are living in the glasshouse.  As butterflies go, there were not enough of them to the cubic metre, but the ones that were there were pretty and we saw some up close and personal.

It's been the first sunny day in what feels like weeks, but is actually only about 10 days.  We made the most of it, dining al fresco in coats and all that.  What is about the British?  Make hay while the sun shines and all that, and really, when the wind dropped and the sun was out, it was very pleasant outside.  Briefly.

Lucy, in a willow hut contraption in the teaching garden, a rare unposed shot.

Hattie looking for stones to feed to the fish.  There is nothing else to say about this.

Orchids

A while ago, I wrote about my orchid.  I am not green fingered.  However, something I am doing must be working as the orchid has gone from this:

to this:

to this:

Flowers!  It's thriving!  It has nearly lost all its leaves, but there is a very healthy looking flower stalk and a couple of flowers, which is tremendous.  

Simon has been at the Beer Festival tonight, so I have made the girls a dress each.  Photos tomorrow; the light is too bad now.  They are both pink and floral; I confess to having chosen the fabric myself with a view to dressing them at some point, but I gave the girls free range through the stash, and these are what they chose.  Lucy's dress I made her a few weeks ago is still holding together, I have great hopes for these ones.  

Green shoots

Now all the snow has gone, hopefully, I'm starting to think about Spring and change and new life and growth and all that.  The garden is starting to think about it too, and stuff is pushing its way up out of the ground and making its presence felt.

A rather poor quality photograph of the snowdrops that are under the Magnolia, where the buds are getting ready to burst into flower and leaf.  When we first moved here, there was a Labernum and Ceanothus with the poor Magnolia in the middle; we took them both out and the Magnolia has gone mad, tripling in size and flowering away like anything.

The mint is starting to think about growing again, after a lot of time dormant.  As you can see, I didn't cut it back at all, or clear leaves or anything and I think my laziness good practice meant that it's another one that is growing away happily.

I bought some daffs the other day;  just from Sainsbury's but they are gorgeous and smell wonderful.  The sunshine today was really great; Hattie and I were able to play outside, albeit briefly.

The solo parenting lark seems to be going fairly well; we were at the zoo all day yesterday, which was great. Very cold, and the normal cafe is closed for refurbishment, so we squeezed into a fantastic tent with tables and catering and all sorts for lunch (chips).  Hattie was most excited about seeing a tiger, fairly close to, and they are BIG; Lucy was happy to see the lions, announcing that they were all GIRL lions actually and then was very pleased to see the male strolling around.  The penguins were noisy and smelly, the little spider monkeys were delightful (Hello little monkey!), the Komodo dragons were forbidding but the best animal of all was the grey squirrel that was climbing around the monkeys' enclosure.  My favourites were the gorillas and the Tropical Birds Pavilion (selfishly, lovely and warm in there); we are members which is why I suffered London Zoo in February.  I'm looking forward to taking them in the Summer, as going there on my own was a piece of cake.

I'm knackered though, and I'm constantly feeling I'm running twenty minutes late.  And some bastard in the States has cloned my card; it's only thanks to first direct being great that I found out.  So no credit card for a week and a half, irritating.

Have a zoo picture courtesy of Lucy.  Hattie and I are Great Apes.  As are you.

In which I come out as WI curious

I'm trying to be a gardener but I'm really not very good at it.  It's not instant enough for me, the idea of waiting for things to happen is anathema to me, and I either over-water my plants, thus killing them, or shamefully ignore them, thus killing them.  I have had a very hardy Dracaena marginata for the past 15 or so years, which I haven't managed to kill yet, although it was touch and go at one point, but a  bit of pruning and a lot of feeding saved the day.  I've kept my basil plant around for a while, and most of the plants that I've put in the garden have survived and even, whisper it, thrived, including a French Lavender and two English Lavenders, so perhaps I am getting better.

Last week, I decided that the time was right to go to the local WI meeting, and went along to Northfields Community Centre with my mug and my poorly orchid, and listened to a very interesting man from Kew talk about gardens, gardening and caring for orchids.  Apparently appearances are deceptive, and my orchid is not on the verge of the compost heap, but has a whole bunch of healthy roots just under the surface.  With this in mind, I have fed it a bit, and watered it over the draining board so it is not standing in any water and it doesn't look any better yet.  Instant gratification - why isn't it perfect immediately?  Ah well, and I'm sure it will pull through soon, I have faith.

I did enjoy the WI meeting.  Disappointingly, we only sang the first verse of Jerusalem; having had to sing the damn thing frequently at school, I like to show off a bit and put in a bit of vibrato on the whole bow of burning gold line, although no one else likes it much.  The talk was very interesting, and I learned a whole lot about orchids, so much so that I was inspired to look after mine a bit better, and actually follow instructions for the first time in years, and the cake was delicious, so I'm really looking forward to the September meeting.  I might even take my crochet along next time.

Green tomato chutney and spots

We tried growing tomatoes this year, but they've been a total washout.  The seeds took ages to germinate, and were then totally drowned by all the rain.  Such a disappointment, especially as the packet was something daft like £3 for 6 seeds.  Of course, Lucy was very upset about this, so last weekend we went to the garden centre to buy a tomato plant as a replacement.  £8 later, and a rosemary and a lavender, and an ice cream, we were the proud owners of a yellow tomato plant. 

Alas, the course of true love etc, and it developed some form of blight, involving the leaves turning yellow and curling up but the fruit being unaffected.  We decided to cut our loses and make green tomato chutney, loosely based on a recipe in Beryl Wood's book Let's Preserve It, which has over 500 really great ideas in.  It's currently doing its thing, and the whole kitchen smells of vinegar.  It should be cooked in about an hour, and ready to eat by Christmas.  Most expensive chutney ever though.

In other news, Lucy now has chicken pox; she is covered in spots and very sad and sorry for herself.  She understands that she mustn't scratch, and is dosed up on a cocktail of Piriton and Calpol, and is hopefully sleeping it off.  It's a bit of a pain, as we're supposed to be running a playgroup on Monday, but that's impossible now.

I want to write about the Olympics Opening Ceremony, but I need to think a bit first.  I've not done that since about 2005, so wish me luck.