Dahlias

I had no idea that the National Dahlia collection was in Cornwall!

It has recently moved to the edge of a village about ten miles away, so I went to visit last week. It's all very new and work still has to be done with labelling etc.

It's set in a huge field overlooking the water. The sun was shining when I went and the dahlias looked as though they were glowing.

There were so many different varieties, so many colours, and I wanted all of them!

But this one was my favourite. I dont know the name, as the collection has not yet had labels made. But isn't she pretty?

A visit to The Orangery

This is The Orangery at Trelissick Gardens, photo taken from the delightful Cafe in Trelissick House.

 Orangeries first appeared in 17th Century gardens, usually built onto a grand mansion, and designed to protect fragile citrus trees. This one has a lot of palms, and orchids, but I'm not sure if it has orange or lemon trees.

It's a beautiful space, and I have visions of 18th century ladies taking tea, or showing their exotic plants to friends. I believe you can take tea in the Orangery at Kensington Palace, which would be interesting!

You can see here that The orangery was added to the right of the main house. This was not until 1933. When the house passed into the Spode Copeland family the orangery was used to grow exotic flowers used as design models for the well known Spode china.

I am so fortunate to have such a lovely National Trust property only a couple of miles away from me. It is a restful place to visit, wander through the gardens and finish with a morning coffee.

Blogger strikes again. My reading list is about three days out of date and is not being brought up to date. Sigh.

Changes of colour

Earlier this year my Hydrangeas were such a beautiful blue colour. Now as the Autumn is beginning to creep in, this same bush has turned a deep pink colour.

 

Same bush, same flowers.

Isn't it odd!

 

Still beautiful though,

A very blustery day

 I just don't know where the time goes. I have neglected my poor lonely blog , mainly because I've had nothing much to write about. Today we had a bit of a weather change.

As Winnie the Pooh would say 'It was a very blustery day'.

 I came back from a morning with a friend and found my lovely Gazebo lying on its back on the lawn, waving its feet in desperation. The wind had been very strong this morning. The photo below isn't mine but it is exactly what mine looked like. I was too busy trying to sort it out to take a photo, as you might imagine.

It's not damaged thankfully, but is now put away till next year.

My friend took me to an interesting place called 'Miss Molly's Tea Rooms', It's part of a larger business dealing with house clearances, and is set in one of the old mine Counting Houses, a large and gracious 200 year old building. There are various tea rooms, and every single one is full of china and furniture, carefully arranged in a higgledy piggledy sort of way. Typewriters nestling next to china, leather cases perched on a piano, room after room of tea sets.

Every piece is for sale. There were some very lovely tea sets, but sadly not many people use tea sets now.

I don't know how many rooms there were, I got slightly lost wandering around! I might go back sometime just to gaze!

Little patches of colour

 Despite the drought and the effect it has had on gardens, there is still some colour around. I have a dry brownish lawn but in the flower beds there are one or two plants still hanging on. I have been watering as much as I can. Every drop of kitchen water is used for my garden.

Look at this lovely Monarda, also known as Bee balm. The bees flock to it.

A few petunias are still flowering. I love their velvety textures.

A few late roses suddenly appeared. I wasn't expecting second blooms as it has been so dry. This one is called Orient Express.

The last few of a pot full of verbenas of different varieties.

Always on my patio there are geraniums. They cheer any corner.

A lovely thing happened to me today. nothing to do with flowers. I had just entered Waitrose (supermarket) when I was stopped by a lady who told me how much she admired my outfit. What a surprise and how kind! I was wearing white jeans with a rather lovely Italian blue flowered shirt. Not smart, but cool in this hot weather.

What a lift it gave me!

Another year

Yesterday was my birthday. Another year has gone by. I'm going to stop counting from now on. So many lovely cards.

It was a beautiful morning, and as I sat in the garden with a cup of coffee I felt an immense gratitude for my 87 years. A wonderful mother who made everything fun, who walked miles with me teaching me wildflower names, who made amazing dresses and was such an encourager.

A childhood by the sea, running free as we could in those days. A school where I was encouraged to develop artistic tendencies. A teaching career, which grew into working with children with very Special needs.

Three amazing children all in interesting careers. Forty three years with the most perfect husband, building houses in France with him, travelling the world together.

Of course all of life isnt perfect. Now on my own, I take time to develop my garden (which is very dry at the moment), meeting up with a little group of friends, some of whom I have known for forty years. 

We had an afternoon tea party in the garden yesterday, and I'm so cross that I forgot to take photos of the lovely group and the 'Mrs. Beeton' tea that we arranged. 

This was a particularly pretty card from a dear friend.

 

Lewis Carroll once said,  'There are three hundred and sixty four days when you might get un-birthday presents and only one for birthday presents, you know'

Words

 I have a feeling that I am very old fashioned when it comes to the use of words. I find it difficult to like the way certain words are used nowadays.

One is 'like' which is often used in place of a comma. 'So, like, I've got this amazing ,like, deal on my insurance.....'

Like was mainly a verb, as in 'I like this meal'. Now it's random.

Then, 'amazing'. During the last couple of days I have had one or two business type telephone calls which have the word 'amazing' splattered around as in 'Did you get my email? Amazing!'  I can't agree that receiving an email translates as being amazing but.....

The word 'wicked' once meant evil. Now it seems to mean wonderful!

I've just had a look at Wikipedia's list of GenZ slang , and it's a foreign language to me!

Am I being crotchety??

 I think I need to go and sit in the sun for a bit!

A little corner of my garden.