Sunday 11 March 2012

11/03: BITTY WEEKEND

Its been a busy, but bitty, few days and I'm quite exhausted with not much to show for all the dashing around.  Thursday evening was the late open/view at the Gallery so as the evening was mild David and I walked to the Gallery and back (about 30 minutes each way) so we could enjoy a glass of wine or two without worrying about driving.    Sales in the first couple of days weren't good - very few red dots to be seen (and certainly none in my corner) :-(     But the weather has been good this weekend so I hope that will have improved footfall/sales - I'll know more tomorrow when I do my 'stint' manning the exhibition for the morning.

On Friday as David was out I decided to tackle the garden and I dug up an expanse of lawn  in the front garden.   We've recently had a horse chestnut tree cut down from this section as we hope to build a car port there in due course.  The newly dug area will be turned into a wildflower bed with an assortment of colourful flowers selected to attract bees and butterflies.    Bees have declined to a dangerously low level due partly to use of chemicals and partly because of the fashion to plant showy flowers bred for their appearance but which don't have much nectar ... the culprits are plants like double begonias, geraniums, marigolds etc.

I've sprinkled several packs of wildflower seeds onto the soil and will sow more in a few weeks time to prolong the flowering time.    It may not look very large (the area is around 16ft x 16ft) but we have heavy clay soil which stuck to my garden fork and my boots and made it very hard work.    This is the 'before flowers' view ... and I hope to photograph it in a few months when it should look very colourful - although I think some of the seeds won't actually flower till next year.


Whilst digging I found several of these seed pods.     Our neighbour has a wonderful display of Physilis and a couple of years ago I cajoled her into giving me a few cuttings, which have been very slow to establish.  But this year we did get a few 'blooms' and now I have lots of seeds to plant.    I know this plant is generally considered to be invasive but so far its behaving itself so I think maybe it isn't too keen on our soil and that may slow its spread. 

But the seed cases are so pretty and delicate aren't they?




Then last night we went to a cockney theme fancy dress supper .... this is the 'Old Pot and Pan'  = Old Man = husband ..


so obviously I'm the 'Trouble and Strife' = Wife

Looking very 'Mary Poppins'  don't you think?


My elderly neighbour loaned me a fantastic hat with a wonderful long ostrich feather attached .. why is it that little old ladies have cupboards/attics full of fancy dress outfits .... ??  Her hat was too small for my head and I was worried about damaging it so I bought a very inferior feather from Hobbycraft and pinned it with a flower to a plain hat and I think it did the trick - at least it fitted!  I'll return her hat tomorrow and she'll never know I didn't wear it - she was so insistent I wear hers.

This was my home made creation


We are going back to Fuerteventura on Wednesday which means we won't be here for Mothers Day (next Sunday) so we celebrated early by taking the two mums (plus Stepdaughter/partner/Grand-daughter) out for lunch today - expensive but it got us off the hook - you know how sniffy mums can get about missing 'occasions' and I didn't fancy 12 months of little 'digs' 

So ... not much done on the art front.  I don't want to start anything major till we get home, but I have been playing at a coloured pencil work (on Pastelmat again) which isn't really going very well.  I may post it tomorrow when I decide whether to carry on or just abandon it - the subject matter is quite different from my usual stuff and I'm not finding it very inspiring

Anyway, enough waffle.   Off to watch Country File on the TV which we've recorded.  This week they visit Kent and part of the programme will feature our friend Debbie and her goats (Ellie's Dairy) so I can truly say I've rubbed shoulders with the 'famous' .... well her goats are famous anyway :-)





4 comments:

  1. Oh don't we look luverly. Hope you had a great night. One day I will show you my dress up costume. hehehe.

    We could have show n tell.

    Look forward to seeing your flower garden. It will be well worth the hard work I'm sure.
    They look very interesting seed pods. I have never seen anything like them.

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  2. What an interesting weekend you are having! I can't wait to see your garden full of beautiful flowers. I also planted many seeds a week ago to attract hummingbirds and bees. :)

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  3. Oh, Sue! You and David are quite the pair! Hope you had fun.
    Honey bees are declining here also but they say it's some kind of mite or disease or fungus or something. We have enough wild/native flowers to sustain them, I would think, so it's not the lack of flowers here. I'm sure your wildflowers will look beautiful! My DH sowed the pasture where we buried Bonnie with wildflowers and it took a year or so but now they're beautiful.

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  4. 'show n tell' sounds good Dors :-)
    Thanks Hilda and Jan. I've sown a selection of 'annuals' and 'perennials' so although they won't all flower this first year I should have a pretty good show in the Summer (fingers crossed).

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