Views of Sizergh Castle

This was close to our cottage in the Lake District, and was one of the gardens on my Visit Seven in 2020 but what with our plans changing because of Covid, it wasn’t until this year that we made it to our rearranged 2020 holiday. Sizergh is an ancient Scandinavian name meaning ‘summer pasture or dairy farm’ and from our first view that’s a fancy dairy farm.

The whole place is impressive, and I was quickly distracted by the plants growing in the wall and then just as quickly distracted by the typical ‘castle’ style wall. I’m easily pleased. After this we headed up into the stumpery which led to the limestone rock garden.

The honeysuckle here was basking in the sun, unlike the tree fern in the next picture which seemed to be relishing the spray of the hose. I’ve many pictures from this part of the garden, but I’ll save those for another day.

As we walked through the garden the castle kept showing itself and it looked great with the garden in the foreground.

Once we’d walked almost every path at least once in that section of the garden we made our way towards the building we’d spotted from various vistas around the garden. The steps up with their lichen and fleabane were another draw along the way.

But turning round to see the water lily filled water gardens was another spectacular view, this time complete with the scent of the honeysuckle.

As we walked down to see more the walled gate on the left caught my eye, and looked a little odd.

We headed down and along and enjoyed the views of the countryside heading towards the tall gates we could see at the end.

They looked grand, but when we got closer we could see they were made of wood rather than iron, and behind them were rows of yew pyramids - I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t this. Having come from Levens Hall, I was pleased to notch up my second topiary spot of the day.

And looking back towards the castle, the views were just as impressive. You really can’t beat a castle, can you?

Adding a flowery touch to my handbag

I love colour, and quite often my handbags are colourful too. I do have some more sober ones, but they get used less if I’m honest. During the past year and the various lockdowns handbags have become kind of superfluous - as has lipstick - and it was way into the summer last year that I realised my purse and keys were still in my ‘winter’ handbag.

Since then I’ve mostly used a vintage tan handbag - which I’ve had since new! - and my favourite bright yellow Joules handbag, with a few excursions into bags for special outings, which at points during the past year or so could have been simply visiting a restaurant, afternoon tea or seeing family as special occasions have really been few and far between haven’t they?

But both the tan handbag and the yellow Joules bag have started to show signs of wear. I’ve bought some leather nourisher for the tan bag, which I have yet to get onto the leather and I know it won’t do any good until I do. It’s the straps though on the yellow bag, the top coating of the surface is peeling, and it’s not a good look. Since I’ve been wearing the bag on my shoulder more it’s taken to leaving the peeling yellow vinyl on my shoulder, so it looks as if I have a special kind of yellow dandruff on my left shoulder. So this needed fixing, but the bag’s too good, and too much loved, to be retired or fully replaced.

As it’s yellow buying new straps is possible, and I think will be the ultimate solution even if they’re a different colour but I needed something now to get me through. And so I’ve taken a slightly left field and creative solution.

The straps are the buckle sort, not the clip sort, which I think helps a bit. So detaching them from the bag, I’ve glued some pretty yellow and orange flowery bias binding around the straps (having first removed as much of the vinyl that was peeling as I could).

As I was gluing - just PVA craft glue - I realised it would be best for the straps to dry as they’ll be used, rather than dead flat. With the use of some pegs and the bannister on the top landing, I was able to recreate the handbag strap shape. I was quite pleased with myself!

I wasn’t sure how I’d finish the ends tidily, so I took a different approach and decided to stop the fabric just short of the buckle hole that I use. I looks a little peculiar without the buckle, but I was confident that it would look better when the straps were back on the bag.

And I’m really happy with how it turned out.

The next few days I’m going to be out and about for work more than I have since March 2020 and now I’m confident that I’ll be able to use my summer bag, which I know is big enough to chuck everything I need in, without the weird yellow dandruff - which is a very good thing!

And I get a individually styled handbag at the same time.

My garden in May

May’s a great month, and not only because it’s my birthday month, but it’s the month that usually brings sun - and this year was no different, though since then it’s been a bit AWOL. But it’s good to look back over my pictures from the month and see the blue skies and enjoy the blooms from the Gertrude Jekyll rose which had plenty of flowers this month. And to marvel that our well known for its late flowering camellia, was still going strong this month - its latest ever, and no doubt a knock on from the peculiar weather in previous months.

The bluebells and sedums also enjoyed the month and looked good with a layer of camellia petal confetti among their greenery too. The rear of the garden was filled with the scent of lilac, and while we didn’t have many flowers on the tree, what we did have was powerful - and pretty.

May was also a windy month and we had at least three branches down, some of them bigger than others and some managing to balance themselves precariously on the fence, but just in a spot we couldn’t quite reach.

On the patio the border was full of greenery and the new additions of three stone spheres were almost, but not quite swallowed by it all. The alliums rose above it all and provided spheres of colour at a higher level, I think they’re increasing each year but it’s a slow process.

In other developments we did hang our new garden lights. After trying many types of lighting and approaches, this time we’ve gone for battery powered strings of lights across the garden, and they’re fab. I’m hoping we get much use out of them this year.

So that’s my May in the garden, how was yours?