Autumn Cottage Diarist

Digging up the Past at Autumn Cottage

Making a backbreaking gardening job more interesting by looking out for 'treasures'

 

 

In Love with Blue and White!

A little visit indoors today - taking a look at some of my Blue and White china collection

 

Extraordinary Times

What a time to be living, my friends, is it not? So much of our world is in turmoil as a result of the Coronavirus 'Covid-19' pandemic, and I venture to suggest that none of our lives will be the same again when we come out the other side, as we surely shall. 'Every storm eventually runs out of rain'. I myself have been absent from here for a while - in the  first of the two videos below, I explain some of the reasons why.

I am posting regularly to my YouTube channel 'Autumn Cottage Diarist' now, so if you are interested in seeing much more of what goes on here at the Cottage, I warmly invite you to subscribe to my channel (and turn on notifications) so that you get an instant 'heads up' when I post a new video. In the current situation, I hope that my little films will give all of you a little Morale booster, particularly if you are living in 'lockdown' conditions and confined to your own homes. Please do keep in touch with me here at Autumn Cottage Diarist - leave comments letting me know how YOU are faring - let's those of us with common interests link hands across the internet.

Enjoy these Vlogs and if there is anything else you would like me to include in future films, please do let me know!! Keep yourselves and your loved ones safe and close - we'll get through this time all together if we look after each other.

 

 

Gilded Chairs and Fairytale Turrets

Oh, how these enchanted, golden early autumn days set one to idle dreaming!

For the last few days, I've been intermittently watching 'The Chateau Diaries' on YouTube - weekly blogs from Stephanie Jarvis, the Chatelaine  of  Chateau La Lande - one of the Brit-owned Chateaux featured in a couple of series of 'Escape to the Chateau - DIY'. The original 'Escape to the Chateau' series - I think there have now been four of them - was based upon the renovation of Chateau de la Motte Husson by Dick Strawbridge (previously seen in the series 'It's Not Easy Being Green') and his wife, Angela (Angel) Adoree.

I've avidly watched all series over the last four years and - seemingly like half of the UK - fallen in love with the week by week details of the restoration of their chateau; but I find the couple themselves strong medicine - a bit of a love/not so much relationship of being somewhat overwhelmed by their 'full on' personalities and total and utter admiration for the amount of sheer hard work that they very clearly put in to the renovation - they deserve all the success they get in that respect.

But the 'follow on' series that has transpired out of their success is - for me - more of a pleasure to watch. The 'DIY' programmes feature a number of different chateau owners - and both the owners and their properties are diverse; in some cases clueless idealists and in others, deep pocketed, experienced  business men and women. Inbetween, a large number of ordinary people who have decided to live extraordinary lives, and all of them having a vision of the possibility of  life lived with a little more grace and beauty, whatever we believe that to be. For many of them, it is, like myself, to find - and to restore to life and renewed pleasure - the hidden charms of the old, the faded, the long time used, the long time loved. You can catch a glimpse of all the DIY chateaux featured - and their owners - here

I believe there is another series with 'Dick and Angela' coming up - and my fingers are even more enthusiastically crossed for another series of 'EttC - DIY'. Until then, I'll be watching more of Stephanie's weekly Vlogs - a fantasy escape (for now - who knows what the future may bring ?!!), but she is also an inspiration to love what I already have and make the best of the particular and unique features of my own home and life, right here and right now. (I'm also now sharing these on Instagram, so I do hope you might consider joining me there for more frequent daily images of life in and around Autumn Cottage).

The 'Mediterranean terrace' -Tender plants & china chickens; no chateau sophistication here!

 

September Nights and Days and Harvest Moons

An Indian Summer here at the moment - and a few days off during the week to enjoy the last warm and golden days before Brother Frost arrives. We've made a few excursions on those holi-days, which I'll share in other posts - but today we are at home, just basking in the sun, pottering in the garden (and having our flu and pneumonia jabs at the local GPs surgery  - Oooh, ouch, ow!! )

A Harvest Moon last night - shining brilliantly as it has done for the last few nights. No photographs of the full moon…but here are some Visitors to the Night Garden that called in midweek.

During the day - collecting seeds and cutting back…not too much, so that insects can overwinter amongst the dead foliage, but just removing leaves with mildew or signs of other problems. Seed heads can be beautiful to look at over winter, really adding to the interest in the otherwise empty garden - especially with a frost on them. Multiplying plants by collecting seed is one of my abiding pleasures, though - so I am shaking out heads and using old herb jars to store the seeds. Some to sow immediately - some for next spring.

And then there is the matter of bulb planting…!!

 

Under the Harvest Moon

Under the harvest moon,

When the soft silver

Drips shimmering

Over the garden nights,

Death, the gray mocker,

Comes and whispers to you

As a beautiful friend

Who remembers.

 

Under the summer roses

When the flagrant crimson

Lurks in the dusk

Of the wild red leaves,

Love, with little hands,

Comes and touches you

With a thousand memories,

And asks you

Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

Carl Sandberg - 1878-1967

 

Journal prompt - What (thousand?) memories do you have of the summer that is now nearly past?

Gathering In

The days draw in as autumn falls. Golden, beautiful light during the day today - but warnings last night that the frosts are on their way - so the annual 'gathering in' of my tender plants has started. Nothing too severe expected, but it is time. First the Aeoniums - Mediterranean temperatures really required and definitely no frosts. I've been rather too successful at propagating these (the variety in the photograph above is 'Schwartzkopf') - so now I have rather too many - not that I'm complaining as I love them - but I'm having difficulty in finding them a home!

All the Pelargoniums are coming in as well - one by one - from the choice and very tender scented leaved plants to the very 'common or garden' red show-offs, of which I take numerous cuttings in the spring to just fill a number of pots and scatter them around the garden. They give a blast of colour to anywhere that is in need of some. The trailing impatiens has also blazed away in the big terracotta urn - again a rather vulgar colour - but a great 'doer' under the shade of the Cotinus. The Impatiens is VERY tender and will almost liquefy at first frost - so I have taken three pots of cuttings to over winter…and yes, they have all 'taken' - so I have to fit those in as well.

The sunlight is particularly beautiful when shining through the vine over the pergola - it always entrances me - and I know that if I want more vine plants…the branches have probably dipped down into the guttering and rooted there. It will all be cut back after the leaves fall - so then we shall see!

Journal prompt - What have you been propagating - in your garden, or in your life? What do you need to gather in before winter? What do you have that needs some tender care?

Who Did the Poo?!!

We get a number of nocturnal visitors to Autumn Cottage garden, who leave their calling card - in the form of their droppings - dotted around and about. There was one such prominent 'set piece' in the middle of the garden yesterday; about 1.5 cm in diameter and filled with undigested seeds. I had my suspicions as to whom the remains belonged - but the evidence was incontrovertable after setting up the trap-camera and leaving it out overnight. This was our nocturnal guest - fossicking about and hoovering up the remnants of the pheassie food!

A young 'un, I think - and as far as I can tell, reasonably healthy. I've only captured a brief shot here, but I think there could be more if I put out some 'tasty morsels'. I knew that the catfood that Pip refuses to eat would come in handy sometime!

The droppings left behind are rarely unpleasant, and an excellent aid to identifying various species. There's a useful guide here for UK readers - and as we move deeper into Autumn and Winter, I'll be hoping for more 'photo captures' of other creatures that have made this garden their visiting patch or more permanent home.

 

Let There be Light!

I've hardly been indoors for the last few weeks. We are having a glorious summer here in England - not too hot, (with just the odd, heatwave-y, 'phew I need to snooze in the summerhouse' kind of day), blue skies with cotton boll clouds, the garden flourishing and more colour than I think I have ever seen there before (all the composting and weeding have been worth it). I spend most of my 'sitting down' time (which is not much!) eating meals or reading on the patio, under the parasol - and from there, the view above is the view that I have during the day…

But at night time, the patio - and the rest of the garden - is plunged into darkness…until now. I pondered what it would be like to add a little light, and finally we purchased two solar powered spotlights as an experiment. They now illuminate 'The Petticoat Girl', a replica of one of the pair of humble painted plaster figures that my Nana displayed, in pride of place, in her parlour in the 1950's. Our little statue has lived here in the garden for over twenty years. (Her 'pair' - a coy little boy - bought by my mother, was stolen from our front garden a while before that...)

I must say that the experiment has been a great success -  the lights have transformed the space outside! We are so taken with the effect that I've promptly acquired another pair, which will illuminate a portrait bust on the other side of the courtyard. More of that later when they are installed…but for now - what do you think of the difference? ( Don't fear, though, that Autumn Cottage will turn into 'Glitter City' - restraint in all things illuminatory will be the Autumn Cottage Way! )

In daylight...

....and after dark

 

Potstands and Pruning

Down comes the jumble of tangled prunings - bit by bit, snip by snip.My trusty pruning platform!

A little round-up of a satisfying day at this beginning of 2019, which I've mostly spent working in the garden until dark . Did you hear - I'm BACK IN THE GARDEN AGAIN!!! I am now able to wear my contact lenses for several hours at a time (rather than minutes) - they've been disallowed since three weeks before Christmas, due to an inflammatory eye condition, which means that I can now actually see what I am doing.

We are forecast much colder weather in the coming week, so I've been getting on with the pruning of a rampant 'Paul's Himalayan Musk' Rose, growing through an equally rampant Eleagnus. This long overdue job is hard work, but do-able by just setting realistic targets...not trying to do it all on one go, and taking it slowly, carefully and patiently. Standing back lots of times to see what shape is required...then taking of a little bit more...and a little bit more. We'll get there in the end.

I've also cleared a mountain of leaves from the (not so much at the moment) 'Mediterranean Terrace' and opened up the Summerhouse to get ready for Imbolc in just over a couple of weeks time. I sat in the summerhouse for fifteen minutes to just take in the peace of the winter garden and start to plan what I will do there in the months to come. That tiny little shack is such a refuge to me (and plenty of insects!) at all times of the year. I just love it there. If you come to visit, you will no doubt end up here with a cup of tea!

Japanese wind chimes and birdsong are all that I heard at the peaceful pond today.

Snowdrops are coming up *everywhere* - such a symbol of hope in the darkest days...the longer daylight IS returning - only minute by minute, but noticeable (to me, anyway!).

Snowdrops and periwinkle - who said there is no colour in the winter garden?

And above - another symbol of hope, if you are a gardener...six bags of gorgeous leaves, which (in two years time!) will be six bags of gorgeous, black leafmould.

The 'Grotty Potstand'

The pot stand top - with lovely wood underneath!

Indoors, I have 'A Project'…from the Secondhand Furniture barn in Wantage yesterday - a rather grotty  pot-stand, over painted half a dozen times and with a filthy piece of vinyl flooring tacked to the top - but made of lovely pine, and I think will look very nice when stripped. Bought for a tenner (£10.00 uk pounds) - a bit stiff, I thought - but I wanted it, so made 'an investment'. Watch this space for progress.

Welcome back, friends, to another year in Autumn Cottage garden.

And so the Festivals of Light are Come

…Winter Solstice..Yule…Christmas.- all over the Northern Hemisphere, in places where the darkness rules at this time of the year, grew the Festivals of Light, to lighten the darkness of an otherwise mysterious and fearsome world. Though I am not now a Christian, I grew up in a Christian home, so my earliest experiences were of the beautiful Christian story and its artefacts - the Nativity, The Gifts, animals everywhere, an abundance of stars (and one in particular!). A story combined, in my house as in so many others, with the older Pagan traditions of marking the Winter Solstice by bringing in greenery from outdoors; always a decorated Christmas tree (Thank you, Prince Albert!) but rarely a Yule Log - except in the form of a chocolate cake with robins, Father Christmas and tobogganing Snowmen, all added with abandon!

When I had my own family, I continued the old traditions and added some of our own - each year I buy and make one or two 'special' ornaments to hang on the tree, to join the obligatory toilet-roll Santa, made by Tim at nursery when he was three, and cross-stitched, bamboo chomping Panda, crafted by Hugh around seven years old. Both of those are non-negotiable. They go on first, in pride of place.

I also made Advent Calendars for the boys for three decades - covering a cereal packet in Chrismassy paper, attaching the annual gift of a religious ('proper') Advent calendar from their paternal grandmother, and filling the box with tiny, individually wrapped little gifts that I had collected through the year. For several years, these included the eternal egg laying plastic chicken from Hawkins Bazaar, which was an absolute treasury of ideas - the arrival of 'The Box of Stuff' from Hawkins was an event in itself each December..

Well, Tim had his last calendar when he was 30 - and now I have decided that Stockings are also no longer appropriate for the moment. Finding 'stuff' to put into them got harder and harder…I know that there was a groan  when the apple, tangerine and banana were retrieved, (but, I suspect, never eaten) and one more can of car de-icer would be one can too far this year!

So  this year, Baskets will take over - now for both boys and their partners - and material gifts will include more creative items than in the past… (can't give away TOO many secrets…) - but the tree is still up, the Naff Gnomes and Nut Crackers will still make an appearance, The Santas will once again convene on the desk in my hall.

The Ancestors will still get their bits of tinsel on their heads (whether they like it or not, though I think Sir Henry, as Queen Elizabeth 1st's Champion was more than used to a bit of glitter and bling) and I will still worry about the abundance of The Banquet (Who can eat what?, will there be ENOUGH? and will the roast potatoes be DONE??)

All will be as it should be - including last minute anxieties and panics. There will, of course, be more than enough…and we will all be, and have, more than enough, because we will have what I value more than anything material these days.  All around me, I will have my dearly loved ones. I need nothing else.

Enough!!

If you want to know what my own childhood Christmases of the 1950's were like - listen to this - Dylan Thomas reading his own 'Child's Christmas in Wales'. It is a blueprint for the way working class family festivities in Wales played out for decades, probably centuries, and a Transport of Delight for me each time I listen to it.

Make time to sit with your families and friends this Midwinter festival time, dear readers. Tell the stories…happy and sad. Write them down…remember them. Remember those no longer with us…for in your remembering, you make them immortal. Remember and love, as best you can,  those who are with us in the Here and Now - for in the end, love is all that is necessary, all we need and all that will remain, when the tinsel and trees are down and disintegrated into dust. 

Make Merry and Make Memories, my friends -  and the heartiest Greetings of the Season, however you celebrate it, to you all, from all of us at Autumn Cottage!