Source of the Thames

On random days over the past few years we have been walking the Thames from the barrier to the source which we reached on Friday. Another perfect, golden, Autumn day; quiet water meadows, glowing Cotswold stone, placid cattle munching, our feet tramping the final eight miles from Ashton Keynes to the official source at Lyd Well and on to the Thames Head pub.

 The whole length of the river has given us so many wonderful days each a jewel in itself. Favourites have been: the sweeping park and Observatory at Greenwich, the houseboats and Georgian cottages through Chelsea, the parakeets at Ham House near Richmond, the tiny Stanley Spencer gallery at Cookham, watching the Henley Regatta preliminaries, swimming at Wallingford and Crayfishing at Lechlade. Through Spring, Summer and Autumn, through fields and cities, sparkling grey, sap green and pink with Oxford clay; racing over weirs, slow and meandering until finally just puddles in an ancient Ash grove, the history is tangible. And the lady we met with her poodle in her bicycle basket, the elderly couple parked up in their wheelchairs at Henley, the Chinese grandmother catching Crayfish - unforgettable.

Last weekend of summer...

On Saturday night the clocks go back and it will be dark by 6 o'clock. Every year I rail against it. For three blissful years between 1968 and 1971 we basked in double British summertime: long summer evenings with 10 o' clock curfews and winter afternoons with time to play in the snow. I remember watching field mice playing in the beech leaves at the bus stop as we waited for dawn and the bus to school. Any government that brings it back will get my vote! So we decided to make the most of it and drive to mid Wales for the weekend, from whence we ended up promenading Aberystwyth in the Autumn sunshine. The war memorial is fabulous, as you can see and there were plenty of people in the waves. Sunday found us in Ludlow by the River Teme. Just above the weir is a wide deep part that looked really inviting but someone held me back and I was just a teensy bit worried about an undercurrent. So we are planning to head for the beach on Saturday for that last swim of the summer before the dreaded clocks.

mists and mellow fruitfulness

These have been the mornings: misty, dew dropped, the fresh ploughed earth like slabs of chocolate. Later the sun is warm on my back and the sky the clearest, deepest, farthest blue. The air is warm with a cool edge, faintly smelling of plums and fallen apples and in the night the stars hang low and bright. The trees are keeping their green and flowers think it is still July. Today I walked my favourite valley and ridge and revelled in the last days - is it the last this time - of our Indian summer. Scout kept me company and reminded me of what it is to be a young pup, no longer startled by the clocking of pheasants and the mewling of buzzards, he enjoyed foxy smells and the occasional rabbit bone.Soon it will be time to change my header, but for now, the rainbow over the beach, for just a little longer...

O, such a perfect day...

Englishcountrywalks

Just surfing and found this fabulous website - I haven't booked on one of their walks yet but just browsing through the pics I feel as if I have done one. Of course my favourites are in the Chilterns - Miss Whistle, you will love this one . The photos and the blog layout are really dramatically effective making you want to haul out the walking boots and get on out there. Today was a perfect September day - summer has at last arrived without a cloud in the sky. Sadly the swallows have flown but the still air was full of lazy wasps and flighty ladybirds and one solitary Red Kite circling high on the thermals. I must get my camera out tomorrow and capture the wonderfulness of it all.

Wild Swimming

When we were kids all swimming was wild. My dad would plunge naked into icy water at the drop of a hat and expected us all to do the same - we drew the line at naked. Nowadays all the pools are indoors, the beautiful Chess valley is 'protected' by barbed wire and the rivers round here are depleted streams. However this weekend promises perfect weather perhaps for the last time this year so the urge is strong despite a heavy cold. Kill or cure in fact. Favourite rivers: the Thames - nearby, steady and very clean west of Marlow; the Wye - deep pools, flat rocks, quiet places; the Elan - cold, peaty, invigorating!  Best beaches: Manorbier, Walton on the Naze. Join me!                                               

Summer slips into Autumn

Summer came early this year and so it seems has Autumn. The mornings have been misty this week and though the sun has broken through and the skies are clear and blue, there is an edge to the air. The upside is that the cloudy August days and frequent showers have kept the garden flowers blooming long after they would normally have faded. This is my newly planted shady corner - I thought I had chicken proofed it but they seem to be able to get in anyway and the plants are doing ok.

The patio rose has flowered since early May, bright and clear, smothered in blooms. I bought in a batch of ladybirds and have fed it a couple of times but it seems that water is the thing that really keeps it going - this good old English weather!

I have half a dozen similar single roses in all shades of pink ranging from a coral one climbing below my window to a wild dog rose at the gate. They seem quite happy here and don't, touch wood, suffer from all the usual pestilences.

 I have watered and dead headed this beautiful little pink marguerite - tell me the name if you know different- all summer and it has been covered

in flowers like this for almost five months. They start off a bright, deep pink but look pretty as they fade and all the time more are coming on. I bought three little plants on the market and planted them in an old beer crock; they lift my spirits every day. 

The lupins are on their third flowering and even the rhodadendron that my husband had a hack at has a second flush of flowers. The holly round here was white with blossom in late Spring and is now heavy with berries. Does this mean it will be a hard Winter? 

it's all about me!

I don't usually flaunt pics of myself, in fact I notice every lump and bump and delete anything unflattering before anyone else gets to see it. Also I'm sorry to say I am not at all a smiley person although I would very much like to be. But when I saw this I could not stop smiling at that triumphant, smiling alter ego of mine. This is how I like to be seen: fit, healthy and happy, a real Alpha female. The truth is that I am not. I have some lucky genes, boost my energy levels and mood with caffeine & sugar and always carry prescription drugs in my bag. I entered the event in a fit of high minded optimism and could not back out. How anyone can be both lazy and competetive is a mystery but I have registered for next year, sworn to better my time by at least 30, shall we say 40 minutes and if I am out training before next August it will be a miracle!

Cycletta South

Shamefully, I have neglected my blog all summer, but today I have something to write about and then, with the aid of a few pics, there is a bit of catching up to do!

A few months ago I read 'Cutting for Stone' by Abraham Verghese - a haunting and evocative novel which led me to the true story behind the plot: in 1958 Catherine Hamlin and her husband moved to Addis Adaba thus beginning a lifetime's work to restore health and a livelihood to women damaged by birthing injuries. The story, of young girls often genitally mutilated, married very young, left to labour for hours without medical support or intervention is a tragic one. The child is almost invariably lost and the mother left incontinent and thus a social outcast. Over more than half a century the Hamlins have pioneered repair, treatment and care. In her eighties Catherine is still at the heart of the hospital.

I have just finished a fundraising ride - see the link - over our beautiful Chiltern Hills and hope that as well as raising my target amount I will have flagged up the charity. This is my first pic - me with the Olympic gold medallist Victoria Pendleton.(I am the one with the cheesy grin and the chinstrap double chin, she is the drop dead gorgeous, totally fit one!) There were lots of cameras and a couple of profile raising opps that I did not miss out on so hope to have some more links up soon! I am now off to spend the rest of Sunday afternoon on the sofa with a good book...........

chicken tree

In all the years I have kept bantams and all the years I have known my friend Janet, I had never seen the 'Chicken Tree' performed. Indeed, a week or two ago I had never even heard of it. Until this Bridget Jones moment when a local cub reporter was brave enough to broadcast live at the Boxmoor Canal Festival. I make that nine perfectly happy hens and one good sport! Janet is my old friend who manages to eke out a living sharing her animals with the unsuspecting public and apparently I had missed this party piece up until now. You never know what riches life will bring.

A lost month

A bit of a tricky act, reappearing after such a long absence, but anyway, no excuses! What am I doing? Too much work, some dogsitting, walking and on the bike again, this time fundraising. Through a series of coincidences I am taking part in a 40k, gals 'breeze ride' from Whipsnade Zoo in September - join me or sponsor me online. There are so many worthy charities out there it was hard to choose - until I read 'Cutting for Stone' by Abraham Verghese. It alerted me to the existence of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital and the invaluable lifetime work of Dr Catherine Hamlin. Read the book and the facts, then tell your friends. Also enjoyed 'Let the Great World Spin' by Colum McCann.

 Spent a recent weekend walking in Constable country on the River Stour and strolling the pretty beach at Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast. Nearby Snape Maltings is the setting for The Benjamin Britten festival and this perfect Barbara Hepworth piece. Maggi Hambling is represented on the shore by her piece quoting from Britten's opera Peter Grimes - not a favourite of mine I'm afraid but I love the sentiment : "I hear those voices that will not be drowned".

fairytale wedding

Beautiful Grace Kelly style dress. The tiara was the Queen Mother's and the veil similar to the one she wore for her own 1930's wedding. But the fifties dress and 30's medieval inspired headdress melded perfectly!

Best bridesmaid. My husband was captivated by this view of Kate's sister but I have to say I was too! The simplicity of the dress complemented both the bride and the bridesmaid.

Best 'mum'. Whether she upset another designer or not Catherine Walker was definitely the right choice for Kate's mum...

I said it first - she should have worn a hat! No doubt terrified of echoing Cherie's grandiosity Sam Cam, style icon, looks fabulous post- latest baby, but a hat would have done it. Best politicians wife of the day though!

Joss Stone leaves Indie behind and scrubbs up as the best looking 'commoner' of the day!

Sorry, but the Bad Fairy has got the better of me - these have to be the two ugly sisters to Cinderella...
All photos courtesy of Femail - link on header. Some great inside stories too...

Butterfly World Gardens

This morning, before the cold front pushed in, the sky was blue and I was wearing shorts in the garden but this afternoon we watched the clouds roll in and the rain pelt down. But before all that we went over to look at the Butterfly World project near St Albans for the first time this year. The project is to build a huge geodesic dome like the Eden project, focused on butterflies, but that is still a year away. This will be the third year and we hope they can fund their ambition. Meanwhile the butterfly and pupating sheds are interesting and the showcase designer gardens are being revamped, and this is the newest one which they were busy working on today. As you can see an Alice in Wonderlandish garden: a house full of indoor/ outdoor rooms with changing views through open windows and doors created from junk and recycleds and growing plants and driftwood and all manner of beautiful, random and tarnished tat that looks absolutely fabulous! The other highlight is the play area which recreates sand dunes so that children can play in the sand in sheltered hollows and grandmas can sunbathe while they bury themselves and each other, haul themselves up the hills on ropes and career down the bumpy slide to land in the soft pit at the bottom.

sometime last summer...

Gardening Weather!

Fat buds on the Japanese Cherry look inviting, especially to bullfinches, but I can't bring myself to shoo them away. Meanwhile blue tits busily scour the tree for small pests - you win some you lose some... The tree  is enveloped in a cloud of perfume and  the humming of bumble bees.

The garden looks its best now with so many narcissus and daffodils whose names I have forgotten but all with a different personality. Jack Snipe, Paperwhite, Pheasant's Eye, Tete a Tete and a dozen more jostle for attention among the green shoots. This week we ate the last of the leeks - they have fed us from November to April - in leek & potato soup, and today I planted the new season's in my smart raised bed. Together with spinach, radishes, onions, shallots and parsnips, all tucked under a covering of warm soil and bubble wrap! Perfect!

Biutiful

Films - Biutiful - Javier Bardem is compulsive viewing in this gritty story of life in the less than glamorous suburbs of Barcelona. The soundtrack is fabulous.

True Grit -  Hailee Seinfeld steals the show with her assuredness and wonderful enunciation of a beautifully crafted script. And again, the soundtrack is haunting.

Books - When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin. A moving portrait of loss - of a country, a family, a life. Some politically correct reviewers have trashed this book but it gets rave reviews from ordinary people. Like me.

Re: Puppy love

I've always fancied Dog Agility but could not find anything nearby when Friday was small. Now I have taken the plunge with grandog Scout and this is our first excursion! Hope it won't be our last.................. For tips on what it really should look like, see scout's friend molliecarter clearing the hurdles.

White Pond Farm

I got really fed up trying to upload my pics in an orderly manner the other night - I know I should update my software but IT is not my strongpoint. Anyway, here are a few more from Sunday...

This is the view of John Stracey's land from the memorial bench.

Violets underfoot....

The old cruck barn at White Pond Farm

Looking in the other direction, west, over chalky fields.

Home is where my hens are - waiting on the doorstep!

 

And this is John, from the family website at White pond Farm. One of many beautiful old black and white photos that make me ache with nostalgia - I also love the one of his wife, Betty, haymaking!



Sunday British Summertime!

Last night the clocks went forward an hour and today it was not dark until 8pm - bliss! We made the most of the continuing good weather to do a circular walk around Stonor House deep in the Chilterns, impulsively stopping at this unpretentious village pub on the way for a pint of Brakspear and a bite to eat.  When I was a child I hated flintwork as I was always getting jostled up against the flint walls of my primary school, but what I love most now is knowing that the brick clay and flints are dug in the local area and reassembled so beautifully. And I love finding these old carriage doors and the small entry doors cut in them. At the back of the pub were long, uneven roofs of patterned clay tiles, red and grey, orchards and sheep.The sun was warm, the beer was cool and we saw two Peacock butterflies and a Brimstone. Stonor is in the heart of the Chiltern Hills, set in a bowl of ancient parkland, surrounded by beechwood, high chalk ridges and mixed farmland. The woods are now carpeted with celandines and wood anenomes, the hedges are black with thorn and white with blosson and the wild cherries are alive with bees. At one point there were over a dozen Red Kites swooping and tumbling above us, their kee ning like whalesong in the spring air. On the hill we sat and admired the farmland tilled by John Stracey for over half a century, sitting on his memorial bench - am I alone in my fascination with these plaques? - violets scattered underfoot. On our way downhill we disturbed a nesting skylark that rose, soaring noisily into the air, passed a stand of humming beehives and back down the valley by White Pond Farm. Then into Henley for a walk by the river where we found the brewery our lunchtime pint originated from!