Delphinium

     Here's a photo of my nice delphinium. It's a bit out of focus, because the wind was waving it around, but you can still enjoy the amazing colours.
        The rain of fruit continues, with pears dropping on the lawn and plums and nectarines ripening. The Washo people of inland California (who have the dubious distinction of being the first native American tribe to be completely wiped out by the activities of the whites) called this harvest time 'Big Time' or gumsaba. 
         There is a wonderful and curious novel about the Washo people, which I read many years ago in a tent on a camping holiday, and it has stayed with me for many years. Thomas Sanchez' novel "Rabbit boss" charts the demise of the Washo through four generations of a family. It has many curious passages of magical prose, entering the thoughts of the people, and starts with a young Washo man watching the disaster of the Donner Party, when white settlers killed and ate others in a desperate attempt to survive a winter in the mountains. It is a long and not easy read, but well worth investing the time if you can find a copy.
       But now I must go and bottle!

Five years ago today. 12.47 February 22, 2011.

Big bottling bash and Enid

My neighbour's free gift of plums transformed into pretty food for winter.

The challenge: to fill all of this recycled glassware with fruit, jam or sauce

As you can see, the big bottle-up has started for this year. I've done a fruit medley of peaches, nectarines and plums, and three large jars of plums. I've still got to do pears, red plums and more nectarines when they ripen. Plus plum sauce, pear ginger and fennel-seed and pear chutney. Phew!
    Also watched a movie about Enid Blyton starring Helena Bonham-Carter as Enid. I hope she wasn't quite as horrible in real life as she was portrayed in the movie, but... One daughter thought she was a good mother and the other loathed her, so I guess the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Enid Blyton is probably the most unsympathetic character that Bonham-Carter has ever played; even Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd has a kind of insane charm compared to this portrayal of Blyton. 
     I can honestly say that I never liked her books when I was a child. In fact, I remember kicking a whole set of Noddy books around the living-room when I was about 4 years old, partly because thought Noddy was a nasty, silly little twerp and partly because I wanted to see what happened when you kicked a lot of books across a living-room. (The spines break). Surprisingly, Mum wasn't as angry as I thought she'd be; perhaps she also thought Noddy was a nasty little twerp and was sick of reading to me about him. 
  And the Famous Five? I was always skeptical about how many summer holidays they seemed to have, (they were always on holiday) and why they always had adventures that no other child ever had on holiday, with secret agents and spies, etc, etc. It's a bit like that with Miss Marple too - wherever she goes, someone always turns up conveniently dead. Probably best never to agree to go on holiday with a literary detective or the Famous Five!

Blog list edited

Hi there, I've just edited my blog list, as sadly most of the bloggers that were there don't blog anymore. Elephant's Child, you are still going strong, my dear, so you are still there, and hopefully will continue. Simply so Good is really just recipes, so it's not really a personal blog, but it does continue to produce good stuff. I'll have to look around for some more interesting blogs, but alas, many bloggers have now gone on to Instagram or have stopped blogging entirely. There are a lot of silly blogs too, which have no appeal at all for me; mommy-blogs ("look how many poos my darling did today") and some of the indie travel blogs ("look how rad I look in this Bolivian serape") are the worst. And also some of the fashion blogs; I came across one that had twenty photos of some narcissistic woman in a pair of oh-so-artfully ripped jeans. Twenty photos! Of the same woman in the same jeans! Why?
    Of course, I know that this blog is probably boring the artfully-ripped jeans off someone somewhere in the world right now. ("Why does she always post pictures of her freaking garden. Twenty pictures of the same garden. Why?") To each her own, I guess. It's just one way of communicating, a way of shouting "Here I am!" to the great big world out there.

Many shades of orange

The garden is full of orange flowers at the moment:

Yay! Holiday!

First day of my holiday today. This is the view from my conservatory (note Kiwi in prominent position).

"Chat Noir" dahlia

"Brandon James" dahlia

Chocolate cosmos

"The Friar"

I haven't got anything planned for this holiday. Usually I have a number of chores to do, (clean garage, wash windows, etc.) but this year I'm going to play it by ear and just do pleasurable stuff. I started the day by going to my local cafe, having a coffee and the best Melting Moment I've ever had. Then I went to my local garden store and bought some new plants, just things I wanted, not things I needed; a yellow abutilon, some blue viscaria, French Cream marigolds and some cascading pansies for a hanging basket. I will do some gardening, but only when and if I want to. Self-indulgence, thy name is mine!