Autumn Cottage Diarist

T'was a Damp and Drizzly Day...

...I should have been painting skirting boards or writing essays...but I have cabin fever, and however much there was to be done at home, I needed to get out. I have a membership to the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, just outside Winchester, which means that I get free entry for 364 days of the year - and as gardening particularly fires my blood at this season, off we went for the afternoon. It might have been better if the sun was shining, but British weather is never that predictable, and I think you will agree that the rain lent a certain softness to the colours that might otherwise have been more strident. They are technicolour enough as they are - and as you will see as you scroll through the photographs.

If you would all like to put your wellington boots on, you can join me as I retrace my afternoon garden walk. As we stroll along, I hope you enjoy the peace, the birdsong, and the soft patter of the misty rain.

Always there are sculptures scattered around the gardens

The Winter Garden - but with something interesting at every season

Burgeoning heads of Euphorbia chariacas

I love this sharp, acid green!
Harebells, bark pathways...the planting shown off to perfection by the dark brown of the composted bark mulches

The pathway down to the pond

The Leaf-House shelter

Bather

Ornamental rhubarb just unfurling

The marginal plant Orontium

Mother and young Moorhens fossicking about for insects along the pond margin

Hostas and Gunnera mannicata just emerging

Candelabra primula alongside the stream

Himalayan plantings leading up to the Ghurka Memorial...azeleas and rhododendron

Memorial to Sir Maurice Kadoorie, "benefactor to Ghurkas and their homeland"

A perfect place to rest awhile...

Exquisite rhododendron

New growth of Pieris behind another bank of azeleas.

**********

If you have enjoyed this walk around the gardens, you might like to send me (click the 'email me' link at the top of the page) your snail-mail address...I have three sets of three postcards showing plantings from Hilliers, which would look nice on an office pinboard, or in simple little frames. Free to the first three who ask for them :-).

Thursday, Thursday...

The Victorian Town Hall

Each week I take a walk though the old Market Square in Newbury, on my way to work as a volunteer counsellor. I love the work that I do there, but I'm also fortunate to have a pleasant route to walk which takes me there and back.

I thought you may also like to see some parts of the town walk with me - and you can see a number of other historical images here (which you can keep open in another window to compare) - It's fascinating to see just how little things have changed!

The medieval cloth hall - now the Museum and Tourist Information centre.

The wonderful 'garlic man'

- a produce seller from the Isle of Wight who comes up each week to sell honey, pickles, organic flour and several sorts of superb garlic. What's more, he is ALWAYS in a good humour, through fair weather and foul, so it's a pleasure to chat to him whenever I pass - he's happy to pass on knowledge and advice, even if I am not purchasing that day. (a rare event!). Those are the sorts of little incident that brighten the day and make it just a little bit better.

Looking from the other side of the garlic man towards the Old Corn Exchange

- now a wonderful theatre, cinema and arts venue - lots of old views of this building on the forum website above, and if you'd like to see what's happening there now, here's a webcam link of the Market Place for you to view.

And finally my last port of call for the day - the good old village hall, where I got to place my mark to elect our new government here in the UK - at both National and Local levels. It's General Election Polling Day here in the United Kingdom.

It only took me five minutes, but those few minutes  gave me pause - to think about how I got to place my mark in peace and quiet and absolute secrecy...without threats of having my fingers or ears cut off, my children butchered or my home burned - experiences which all too many people, in all too many places, suffer, still. People have died in the past to give me this right...which is why I don't joke when I said this morning 'I'm off to do my duty'. it's an old fashioned concept, but I reckon  it's little enough to ask that I at least use my vote, when it has been paid for so hard and can be taken for granted so easily. It is my right - and it is my duty - and I am both proud and fortunate that I live in a nation of freedom where this is so.

Sermon over. Just saying...

Nature Red in Tooth & Claw - White & Fluffy, Too!

For the last three days I've been fascinated to watch this live webcam broadcast from Derby Cathedral, where a Peregrine falcon has hatched four chicks in the last couple of days. This afternoon I was lucky enough to look in when she had returned to the 'nest', with a tasty morsel for the chicks, which she proceeded to feed to them by ripping bits off and delicately proffering them to each upturned beak in rotation.

She is sitting again now, but if you peek in occasionally, you too may see the white fluffy bundles with beaks - it can become very addictive!

(Image above screen captured from the Derby Cathedral site).

Little Finds of Fancy

An original, good quality watercolour of my favourite city of Venice - found for a pound at a car-boot sale on a Sunday morning at Newbury Racecourse

Whatever else I do with my time, I still try to 'run away' to hunt for antiques and bric-a-brac for a couple of hours each month. (I think the French terms 'Antiquites', 'Brocante' and 'vide grenier' are  much nicer!). My budget is very tight these days - but I do allocate a few pounds 'play money' to buy things that may seem useless in one context, but give me the great pleasure of being able to enjoy items which are pleasing to my own eye for a very long time, and also seem to please others who visit Autumn Cottage  (though often accompanied by enquiries as to 'who does all the dusting?' :-))

Here are images of some of the little finds I have made over the last couple of months from various sources. They already please me - I hope you enjoy them as well.

Facebook readers will have already seen this...a pair of Victorian beaded wall pockets to hold pocket watches

An astonishingly bargain-priced pair of Victorian hand-coloured prints in original frames

Another little gem - barely 10 cm (4") wide - but look at the quality of modelling in their expressions...and notice - NO damage to the corners of the paper that they are reading! This couple will join my cabinet full of mostly German Victorian fairings.