September’s End

Tags

autumn, berries, buzzard, common lizard, crane fly, family, flowers, Fruit, fruit trees, fungus, garden flowers, greater celandine, wasp nest, wild flowers

Common Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)

We have had some very cool nights already and lots of rain.  Autumn has arrived!  The nights are drawing in and when I get up just after six o’clock in the morning on Mondays and Fridays I have to wait for well over half an hour before the sun rises.

Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum

I have no news to give you about Alice – I haven’t spoken to her for about a fortnight so I assume she is busy and coping alright.

Morning Glory

Dahlia

Dahlia

To our surprise, the day after I mentioned in this blog that it would take weeks for probate to be granted, it was granted!  Richard has spent two days in Manchester with his brother sorting out all their mother’s finances.  They also went to a place that Joyce was fond of and scattered her ashes.  Richard was hoping to spend three days with Chris and wanted to travel up in his new car but unfortunately his windscreen was hit by a stone chipping last week which left a four inch crack and it needs replacing!  The insurance company is sending someone to our house to carry out the replacement today (which is when Richard had hoped to return home).  He came home yesterday instead (Thursday).  He will have to go back to Manchester in a couple of weeks to finish going through all Joyce’s belongings and deciding what to do with them – a very difficult business.

Dog-rose-hips (Rosa canina)

Blackberries (Rubus fruticosus agg.)

Pyracantha berries

Cotoneaster berries

Black Bryony (Tamus communis) growing through Cotoneaster horizontalis

Cotoneaster horizontalis

Elinor has almost completed two weeks at college, is working hard and her tutors are very pleased with her.  She is enjoying the course but finds the social side of college life very tricky.  She is very insecure and worries all the time that she is saying or doing the wrong thing.  She has also been badly affected by her grandmother’s death and funeral.  She is afraid of going to sleep in case she doesn’t wake up again and she is frightened of being left alone both now and in the future.

Eating apples ‘Saturne’

Pears ‘Concorde’

Figs ‘Brown Turkey’

Crabapple ‘Evereste’

Crabapple ‘Harry Baker’

Crabapple

I have been busy in the house and with my mother; Richard has had a lot to do in the garden and has also been arranging our finances now that he has retired.  We have had no time for a walk recently and in fact have done very few walks together during the whole year.  We hope that in the next week or so things will have calmed down and we will be able to find time to go out together.

Chinese Lanterns (Physalis alkekengi)

Japanese Ornamental Cherry ‘Fragrant Cloud’

Acer palmatum ‘Atropurpureum’

Spindle (Euonymous europaeus)

Hazel new catkins (Corylus avellana)

Elder (Sambucus nigra)

Fungus

Fungus

Fungus

The photographs in this post were mainly done during one afternoon this week.

This is the entrance to one of the three wasp nests we have in our garden. They took over an old mouse or vole hole.

Crane fly (Tipula paludosa)

Buzzard (Buteo buteo)

Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus)

I saw this plant just inside the stone wall that surrounds St Mary’s church in Bungay.

Greater Celandine

This plant is no relation to the Lesser Celandine we see in the springtime.  It is a type of poppy, similar to the Yellow Horned-poppy I found on Dunwich beach a few weeks ago.  Its orange-coloured sap has been used in Asia for burning away warts and corns since the beginning of Chinese civilisation.  This caustic liquid was also used to remove soreness and cloudiness from the eyes!  It uses an oil gland on its seeds to ensure they are taken a distance away.  Ants feed on the oil and then carry the seed off.

Juvenile Common Lizard

For the second week running, I discovered something hiding under our wheelie-bin.  Obviously, rubbish bins are the go-to shelter for small creatures.

Elinor and I admired these clouds as we neared home the other day.

We turned to our left and saw these!

The following song is dedicated to Elinor.

Thanks for visiting!

A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That

Tags

'The Company', beetles, clouds, cream tea, Fruit, harvesting, insects, Lilium longiflorum, moths, purple beans, Sheffield, Suffolk, sunset, The Man in the Iron Mask, trees, wild flowers

I haven’t published a diary post lately so this is a short resumé of my activities over the past month or so.

To start things off I have a photo of a cream tea that Elinor and I enjoyed while out shopping in Bungay before our holiday.

A very brightly-coloured café called ‘Jesters’ at the entrance to Bungay castle. We were going to walk round what is left of the castle when I remembered in time that I had only allowed myself an hour’s parking . The cream and jam scones were yummy!

Elinor and I went by train to Sheffield on the 2nd of July to visit my elder daughter, Alice.  The day was hot and the journey quite uncomfortable as the carriage we were in on the train from Norwich to Sheffield had faulty air-conditioning.  The ticket collector handed out bottles of water to anyone who wanted some.  We had noticed large quantities of water bottles in the waiting room at Diss Station as well, with a notice saying any customer could help themselves to water if they needed it.

We were travelling to Sheffield in order to watch Alice perform in ‘The Man in the Iron Mask’ by Alexandre Dumas.  We then stayed the night with her in her single room.  It was snug to say the least, but lovely to be all together again.

These are some photos of her that I have ‘borrowed’ from her drama group’s Facebook page.

Alice (in the green dress) played the part of Constance, D’Artagnan’s wife. She is watching D’Artagnan (on the right) fighting his foe.

The man on the left is an expert in weapons and fighting and has an armoury at his home.  He taught all the cast how to fence and fight.  It all looked very real.

I thought Alice did very well especially as she had to wear a costume which gave her a terrible rash for which she needed medical treatment.

‘All for one and one for all!’

Dumas will be spinning in his grave at their version of his very sad and doom-laden book. It was a brilliant, funny, well-acted and well-choreographed play with a happy ending.

As we were waiting for our train back home the next morning I saw and heard the piano in the concourse being played.  The piano is there for anyone’s use at any time.

This young man played well.

Unluckily for me and Elinor, the carriage we were in on our return journey also had no air-conditioning.  This time there was no free water but we were able to leave the carriage at Nottingham (I think) and get into another carriage with AC that they had attached to the train.

The following week was busy with preparations for our holiday.  Elinor’s laptop stopped working and had to be taken in for repair.  She worried that it might not be repaired in time for her to use on holiday.  She used my lap-top all week.  We were able to collect her’s on Friday :).  I shopped with Mum on Tuesday and made sure she’d be alright for food and other necessaries while we were away.  My friend Heather came to lunch on Wednesday and we had an enjoyable time chatting about friends and family.  She gave me a book – Janet Marsh’s ‘Nature Diary’.  Such a thoughtful present.  I had an appointment at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital for a rheumatoid arthritis check-up on Friday – the day before going away.

We were surprised to find on our return from holiday on the 18th July that the field of barley behind our house had still not been harvested.  The weather at home had been warm and quite dry while we had dripped and shivered on holiday.  We did get a superb sunset to welcome us back.

We had another busy week catching up on household and gardening chores and I had two weeks’ worth of washing and ironing to do.  On the Monday I had to take Mum to the hospital for her regular eye check which went very well.  I collected her shopping list as I would be doing her shopping for her that week.  When I got home I started to make a loaf of bread and discovered I hadn’t enough yeast so had to go out again.  I bought some other groceries as well as the yeast and was on my way home when I got a flat tyre.  I managed to get the car into the town central carpark and got the spare tyre out but couldn’t work out how to remove the jack from the car!  Shameful!  I’m also not strong enough to take the wheel off anyway so had to phone Richard who had just sat down with a drink.  While I was waiting for Richard to come and rescue me I got two offers of help from kind gentlemen who saw my pancake-flat tyre.  The age of chivalry is not dead!  The tyre had a rip in it and a couple of nails too.

The next day they began harvesting the barley field.

This combine had just off-loaded its grain into the waiting tractor trailer.

The harvesting wasn’t started until late in the day and continued until quite late in the evening.

The countryside at harvest-time is a very noisy, dusty, dirty place to be.  It proves at this time of year to be very industrial.  Our houses and cars get covered in a thick pall of dust and bits of straw.  We all start wheezing and coughing and anyone with allergies or asthma has problems with their health.  There is a constant roaring and whining of engines as the combines trawl up and down the fields all day and most of the night too and the tractors with full trailers of grain are driven at break-neck speed along our narrow lanes to the silos and barns at the farms.  Woe betide anyone or any creature who gets in their way!

The barley field was only half finished that evening and the combine went off to another field to work on that. Both fields were left with strips of uncut grain.

I am not sure why they left both fields like this.  Bad weather was forecast and duly arrived a couple of days later.  Perhaps less damage is caused by wind and rain when the crop is in strips.

This is a photo of the other field our local farmer cut in strips. We took this picture while on a walk nearly two weeks ago.  The fields were both finished last week – almost a month since they had begun.

This was the first walk we had taken from home in months.

A bee and a hoverfly enjoying the nectar of a Spear Thistle (Cirsium vulgare)

I disturbed this moth as I walked through the long grass. I think it may be a Shaded Broad Bar moth (Scotopteryx chenopodiata)

I remembered seeing a large patch of Common Fleabane (Pulicaria dysenterica) in the corner of a field last year. It was still there though a large heap of prunings had been left there earlier in the year

Fleabane with Pollen Beetles (Meligethes aeneus)

The Field Maple(Acer campestre) was looking bright, not only with its new ruby-coloured winged-fruits and leaf stalks but also with the crimson galls on many of its leaves. These galls are small red pustules probably produced by the mite Aceria myriadium.

New Pedunculate (or English) Oak leaves (Quercus robur) shining in the afternoon sun. There are also tiny acorns on long stalks to be seen.

Interesting cloud formation.

A hoverfly on Bramble (Rubus fruticosus agg. ) flowers

Bramble flowers are very attractive and blackberries go so well in pies and crumbles!

I saw my first Dewberry (Rubus caesius) last year and was worried I wouldn’t find one this year because of all the hedging and ditching that was done in the spring. I eventually found a small plant under a hedge.

Richard and I like this view across a field

This is another view we like and I’m sure my regular readers recognise it.

When I checked my photos on my return home I was dismayed to see the spot just above the trees at the centre of the photo.  However, when I cropped the photo…

Cheeky!

…I realised a bee had photobombed my picture!

An Oedemeridae beetle, perhaps Ischnomera sanguinicollis on a Spear Thistle flower with lots more Pollen Beetles.

We have had our first harvest of purple beans.

These beans sadly lose their purple colour when cooked and end up a rather dull green.  They taste very nice and they have appreciated growing in the cooler summer.

French beans are so quick and easy to prepare and taste wonderful straight from the garden.

My white lilies (Lilium longiflorum) are flowering in the garden. This photo was taken at dusk.

Another sunset – this time with an added rain shower

The rain soon cleared away and as I turned back toward the house I saw the sky to the East was lovely too.

Pretty pink clouds!

Thanks for visiting!

 

Fruity Tutti

Tags

apple trees, blackberry canes, crabapple trees, fig tree, Fruit, fruit salad, honey and lemon drink

I have been craving fruit during the past few days; that and yoghurt and ice-cream and hot tea!

This is my favourite night-time drink when I have a cold.  Hot honey and lemon drink.  The juice of half a lemon mixed with a good sized spoonful of honey and freshly boiled water.  A little sugar sometimes but not always.  R likes to add a tot of whisky with his but I don’t like whisky and prefer the drink non-alcoholic.  The mug was a present from A and is just right for this drink and other herbal teas.  It fits so nicely into my cupped hand!

I also made a fruit salad this evening with the first locally (well Norfolk) grown strawberries.  This is so early for strawberries I was expecting them to be either sour or tasteless but they were very good.  The other fruit was imported mainly from Spain – raspberries, blueberries – I can’t remember where the Galia melon was grown and the blackberries came from …… MEXICO?  I do try to buy fruits and vegetables in season and locally grown but I do succumb sometimes and as I said, I really want fruit at the moment.

While I am on the subject of fruit I will show some photos of our fruit trees.  These photos have been taken over the past week or two.  I haven’t been out of the house today and photographing would have been difficult anyway because of the wind and regular showers of heavy rain.

This is our Concord pear tree on 23rd April and as you see the fruit was beginning to set.  I tried taking a picture of the much larger fruit yesterday but I only got blurred images as it was so windy.  We have found that Concord pears are best as cooking pears.  If we wait until they are beginning to soften on the outside they have already started to rot in the middle.  If we try to eat them while they are hard and crunchy they are quite tasteless.  But, if we cook them when hard but ready to be harvested they are wonderful.  My favourite is caramelised pears!

Our Saturn eating apple tree on 23rd April.

Saturn blossom.  The Saturn has now lost all its blossom and the fruit is setting.

Egremont Russet eating apple tree.  Note the attractive chicken wire which protects the tree from deer and rabbits.  This photo also taken on 23rd April.

Egemont Russet blossom.  As I mentioned in an earlier post the apples on this tree are not like true Egremont Russet apples so either we have been mis-sold or we have a tree that has been adapted to suit people that don’t like the look of traditional Russet apples.  I love them with their dull, rough, RUSSET skins.  They are sweet, juicy and crunchy and the skins are not tough; the flesh has a good nutty taste.  One of my favourite apples.

‘Harry Baker’ crab apple tree, 23rd April.  This is the tree that R has tended so carefully and it is now looking so much better and growing upwards now!  You can see from a lot of these photos that the trenches made by the JCB a couple of months ago are still in evidence.  We have contacted the landscaper to ask him to fill in the holes with top-soil and make good.  We are waiting for him to turn up.  Apparently he is on jury service.

‘Harry Baker’ blossom.  The fruits are enormous and make very good crabapple jelly.

‘Evereste’ crabapple tree, 23rd April.  I don’t make crabapple jelly from these fruits though I could easily.  I like to leave them for the birds – blackbirds and fieldfares – who enjoy them after they have been frosted.  Most of the fruits from last year were left on the tree as we didn’t get a hard enough frost this winter to make the fruits palatable for the birds.  There must have been enough food for the birds this winter without them needing these apples.  I had to cut them off the tree as the leaves were coming out and so we have had hardly any blossom this spring.  I am glad to say that, because of this, the tree is at last beginning to grow again.

‘Evereste’ blossom.

Our weeping species crabapple.  The smell of the blossom was overpowering and when I bent down and went under the tree the buzzing of the many bees enjoying the flowers was very loud.  Mr and Mrs Mole have been working hard on their tunnels under the tree as you can see!

The fruits are very small on this crab tree and are eaten by birds.  I have included this tree because it is so beautiful.  It does have fruit but not fruit that we would want to eat!

I wanted to take another photo of our Turkey Fig tree yesterday to show the new leaves and the enlarging fruit but the wind prevented me.

This is the photo I posted in March and I will try to take a new photo as soon as I can.  We have a Bramley cooking apple but it has decided not to flower this year.  It is growing well so we are not worried.

This is our ‘Norfolk Biffin’ cooking apple tree.  The tree is also known as a ‘Norfolk Beefing’ and is a heritage tree.  The apples are very large and have a slightly spicy taste when cooked almost as if some nutmeg or cinnamon has been added.  They are apparently very good as dried apples and that is how they were often used in Victorian times.  We hope to get a dryer one day so we can try this out (and so that I can dry some of my herbs too).  Norfolk Biffins are mentioned in Charles Dickens ‘A Christmas Carol’ in Stave Three when Scrooge is out on the streets with the Ghost of Christmas Present.  He talks of them being eaten after dinner and it is true that when left long enough they do become sweet enough to be used as an eating apple.

Biffin blossom.

The greengage tree which is quite new had its first flowers this year – four of them.  We may have fruit but it is hard to say as yet.  The damson/bullace trees have fruit setting on them but whether I will get any before the birds, squirrels, wasps etc. get to them is anyone’s guess.

We have been harvesting our rhubarb for a while now and we are leaving it for the time being to grow more leaves.

The flowers on our blackberry canes.  Last year we were able to have quite a few fruit as there were hardly any wasps about.  Usually the wasps get to them and ruin them no matter how I try to protect them.