Post Comment Love 13-15 November

Welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked and share some of that love.

This week has been grey hasn’t it? And quite uninspiring - and that’s from MOH. He’s been keeping himself busy mostly indoors, disappearing off and reappearing to make a cup of tea, or lunch - he’s well trained. He’s been fiddling around with our house alarm, trying to fix a broken sensor - soldering it this way and that, but each time the result was an unnecessary beep, every minute, and masterfully timed so it didn’t coincide with any of my meetings - which given how many there are, is quite something. He’s given up, now I think and another one is on order, so the ‘fun’ will be repeated when that’s added to the system I’m sure.

My photo this week is one from Oistins in Barbados. I’ve been delving through my photos this week for some inspiration, and this one made me smile - as the saying goes, one careful owner…

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Stars and the White Garden

I thought that we should head a little further afield for this post, and while we’re there we can pick up some sun at the same time. Yes, for this post we’re heading over to the Andromeda Botanic gardens in Barbados. Clearly I’ve not been there recently, what with it being 2020 and all that, but we did visit at the end of 2019 and our visit is rapidly approaching its year anniversary, which is also crazy.

It was our second time in Barbados, the first time we went for a friend’s wedding and as part of a larger group we spent a lot of time socialising rather than sight seeing, and it was great. But when we went back - and part of the reason for going back - was to see more of the island, and of course the rest of the reason was sun, rum and relaxing.

There were two gardens on my visit list in Barbados, and this was the second one we visited. We booked a cab and off we set. The Andromeda Botanic gardens, is a wonderful place (as their website says) and is both beautiful and informative. It’s also a partner garden of the RHS, and so - and rather bizarrely - I was able to use my RHS membership to enter.

But anyway, on arrival you’re given a clutch of laminated papers with lists of what you’ll see. I was doubtful that it would be useful, but I was so, so wrong. The list fan in me loved it, as I made MOH visit each number in turn, and yes it was hot.

The white garden, you’ll not be surprised to learn included plants that had - or while have - white flowers and/or foliage. We set about looking for the white ginger, bush clock vine, a busy lizzy (found that one), crinum, varigated mondo grass and so on.

Well we spotted some of them, but more than that we enjoyed the garden, and this part of the garden especially. The ‘instructions’ told us to turn left onto the deck, and to take a seat and admire the views.

Who were we to argue?

But then I spotted something hanging from the branches, and so it wasn’t long before I was off to find out more.

I was mesmerised by the stars. It was instant admiration - and many photos were taken as I was convinced they would be easy to replicate. I think they probably are, but I still haven’t tried.

Looking closer I was convinced they were made of newspaper, sprayed - or maybe even just bleached by the sun - and covered in glitter.

They would make stunning Christmas decorations. I even found a website, which I have squirrelled away somewhere, with a tutorial on how to make them. I’m sure that one day I will.

And then MOH spotted the busy lizzie - a plant he knows, and we were off again. But not before stopping and admiring these leaves, which were not only variegated, but huge!

I think these leaves - which are quite similar in shape to the leaves of my Lords and Ladies - are fab, and could have admired their ‘markings’ for much longer than I did.

But with views like this, Andromeda isn’t a place that you stay still in for long.

Reflecting on my week #144

This last weekend I’ve felt - and been - my most productive in a while, which on reflection isn’t saying much. But things were ticked off my not-quite-imaginary list, including putting the garden away, or as much as we could. The beans were pulled up, tomatoes composted. The handles fell off two of our trugs - seriously, and the pizza oven and the patio furniture were covered up. The barbecue and parasol were moved to one side, as we may not be needing them for a little while, and the fire pit was moved into prime spot, and two garden chairs and the fire lighters were put in a sensible, and easily reached storage space.

I even made some bread. And not sourdough for a change, there wasn’t time for that. We’ve started to buy some unusual (but unusually good) bread, by Jason’s Bakery. It comes in an old-fashioned wax-type wrapper and in our M&S they do three varieties, including one with craft beer, and it is rather tasty. Looking at their site they say the one we have more often is nicknamed the crumpet bread, and it does have a different texture, and to me is almost from a batter consistency, rather than a dough-y one. The plan was to have a cheese toasty with the loaf we had, only we didn’t have enough loaf - that’s the thing about good bread, it doesn’t hang around.

And without bread for breakfast, some hasty kneading was needed. It’s been a while since I’ve made yeasted bread, and while this is small, it is mighty. It also gave me a bit of an issue when refusing to come out of my vintage Hovis tin. Maybe the tin knew it wasn’t real Hovis bread - in the base of the tin it says, only to be used for Hovis bread! But it came out, and in one piece, and it’s good for breakfasts - a little goes a long way!

There was of course good reason why the fire pit was moved into prime position. We had plans to use it. In fact we had plans to use it on Bonfire Night, but it was a bit chilly to sit in the garden, even with a fire. Saturday was much milder, and was good for our first fire pit foray of the winter. Armed with snacks, a hot gin cocktail, and plenty of logs and wearing my coat we sat out watching the many, many fireworks which continued long after we came inside.

It had been another busy week - I know I say this every week, but I truly expect things to be much less busy at some point. Not sure when, but hopefully soon. Though the lockdown 2.0 as it’s being called, isn’t helping with that right now. But I shall remain an optimist, for now at least.

I’ve had a few calls to the doctors this week as well as my ankles, actually all of my feet, have been swelling up throughout the day. It turns out I’m sensitive to the tablets I’m on, so need some more tablets. I’m getting to the point where I think I’ll rattle at the moment if you ask me to jump up and down. After the weekend it’s clear I need to be more active during the day, which is one of the things I’ve missed since we started working at home, some 34 weeks ago. Thirty four weeks. I think that’s also why I’m struggling with it all again. I’m missing walking around campus, catching up with people spontaneously, virtual meetings just don’t cut it. I know that I need to make this happen, but I am very much a just one more thing kind of person, and picking up my crochet is a great way to switch my brain off, but not such a great way to stay active.

And the irony of posting about being more active and following that with a picture of a ginormous cake isn’t lost on me. We’d walked into the Farmer’s Market in the village on Sunday and left with a cake or two, some kimchi and some milk from an Essex farm. All quite random, and I’m sure all very tasty, but it was way busier than we expected. The trader’s too said it was busy, and today our area has been featured in the local news in a report saying that people aren’t really following the rules. Conversely I think they are, but I think people are pushing them to the limits. We weren’t totally comfortable with the amount of people out and about, and the numbers who weren’t socially distancing - despite it now being something that we should all be used to, and reminders clearly on the signs on each stall - and so we donned our face coverings.

The cake was good, let’s hope that’s all we picked up there. We’ll be heading for less densely populated areas where we can, which is tricky, but not impossible when you live in a densely populated area.

I’d hoped to make progress on my grey tiled throw, and in a way I did. Now at least all the outer squares are the same size, and they’re positioned where I’m happy. They’re also pinned together and it’s been put back in its bag to pick up again another day. The plan is for this to be a throw on our sofas, partly to protect the arms, partly to add more soft furnishings and a fair bit to give me something to do. It’s so close now that I don’t think it’ll be too long before I pick it up again.

I’ll leave you today with this shot of my fatsia starting to flower. And yes, I was pretty much in the bush taking this photo, worth it though for the result, and the look on MOH’s face when I emerged, though of course you’d think he’d be used to me by now!