Fun in the Sun – flowers

Recently I’ve been in a bit of a slump with regards to my writing. However, last weekend we visited a local sunflower maze and I thought it would be a nice post to write about. Sorry it’s taken me a while to get around to writing it.

The knowledge of this sunflower maze came to me rather late. I saw pictures my cousin had taken and I quickly Googled where it was. It was at a farm in Tarbock, Prescot, some 25 minutes drive from us. The only problem was, that I was so late to the party that it was difficult in getting a time and date for a booking, but I persevered and managed to get an early morning slot on the very last day of opening.

In April some 35,000 sunflower seeds in the initials of the NHS were planted by a farmer, who also planted a sunflower maze. Sunflowers are a symbol of happiness and since Covid-19, happiness has been in short supply.

The day we visited was a gloomy overcast morning, luckily we had missed the rain. David and I, along with my mum and David’s parents all spent a joyful 45 minutes walking along the maze of mostly gone to seed sunflowers, but with the occasional late bloomer standing proud and golden. Along the path were bee related questions. If you answered wrongly you took a dead-end turn. All eyes were on me! I know a bit about bee ID but not that they have two pairs of wings and have five eyes. Well in reality two eyes the other three are ‘simple’ eyes that detect light. However we managed to navigate the maze as a team and much laughter was had. It was a nice way to pass an hour.

Sunflower Selfie

Sunflower Maze

Sunflower Maze

Sunflower Maze

Sunflower Maze

Have you been to a sunflower maze? Or any kind of maze?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

A Year in Books 2018 – July to September

A Year in Books

Thanks to Laura at Circle of Pine Trees for creating the challenge, The Year in Books.

The summer months for me always seem to be the hardest when it comes to reading. Even when we’ve had such a wonderful summer as 2018. This year, I’ve managed to sit in the yarden and sunbathe while delving into a novel or two, but my tally is still low compared to cooler months.

This quarter I have managed to read nine books. Much better than last years quarter but no where near my tally for April to June this year. Here’s what I read this quarter.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman

After what seemed like an age, I finally managed to get my hands on this Costa award winning novel and it didn’t take me long to love it! Eleanor is a young woman struggling to cope with a traumatic event from her childhood. She has been mentally and physically scared and her out look on life is shaped by her past. This book is not only about survival but about facing and dealing with daemons. It is funny and sad but ultimately it is about redemption.

What are your thoughts if you’ve read this novel?

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Bird Box – Josh Malerman

Bird Box – Josh Malerman

As a suspense novel, the narrative just didn’t grab me. Perhaps it had a lot to live up to after Eleanor Oliphant? Even so, despite the tension, this Stephen King-esque failed to hit the mark. There were some weird episodes but I couldn’t feel for the characters and was left feeling deflated at the end of the novel. It felt like a poorly written M Night Shyamalan script.

The Ice Twins – S K Tremayne

This was a novel suggested by my mum. The premise was of twin sisters, where one had died. A year on the surviving twin begins to believe she is the dead sister. Did they get the identity of the dead twin wrong? The narrator, Sarah is estranged from her husband and still mourning her daughter. Angus (the husband) inherits a house on a remote island on the west coast of Scotland and moves the family there. This isolation brings the psychological drama to a head. It was a quick read but I didn’t enjoy it as much as Tess Gerritsen’s Playing with Fire.

The Ice Twins S K Tremayne

Animal Farm – George Orwell

Animal Farm – George Orwell

Surprisingly I enjoyed this political satire. George Orwell wrote his critique on the Russian Revolution but in theory it could be a reflection of any revolution. The animals of Manor Farm have had enough of being ruled by farmer, Mr Jones and stage their own revolution led by the intellectual pigs. However as time progresses, life under the new regime seems at odds with the origins of the revolution and to stop the dissenting farm stock the pigs unleash a brutal regime which cripples, maims and kills many of the cast. You can’t but be sympathetic to the likes of Boxer and Clover who are ground down by the machine that the pigs enact. The final act of betrayal is when the pigs are seen to walk on two hooves. This can be read that the pigs are just bad as the humans they hoped to replace. It is a piece of writing that makes you think!

Have you read this satire, what were your impressions?

Sarah Millican – How to be Champion

I am not a reader of autobiographies. I only downloaded this book as it was on offer for .99p. It took me a while to get into the narrative but I quite enjoyed it in the end. Sarah isn’t much older than myself and I noticed we did similar things and used the same items when we were both growing up in the 1980’s.

How to Be Champion Sarah Millican

Outlander Diana Gabaldon

Outlander – Diana Gadaldon

I’m still slogging my way through this tome, and there are several more sequels in the series! Though a good premise, of a woman from the 1940’s travelling back in time to Jacobite Scotland, however I found the narrative boring. I don’t think I’ll be reading any more of the series. Perhaps the TV adaptation is better?

Have you read this book? What were your impressions?

Swim Wild – The Wild Swimming Brothers

I delved into the realm of wild swimming again. This time I quite enjoyed reading about the tales of the three brother’s expeditions, of swimming the entire length of the River Eden and the maelstroms around Norway and Scotland. The narrative is fractured by personal reveries and memories of growing up by the author, Jack Hudson, but I found it a nice book to read none the less.

If you’d like to read more of the Wild Swimming Brother’s adventures, then follow the link to their blog.

Swim Wild: The Wild Swimming Brothers

Me Before You 0 JoJo Moyes

The Girl in the Spider’s Web David Lagercrantz

Me Before You – JoJo Moyes

I bought this book on the recommendation of comedienne Sarah Millican, from her autobiography (see above). I got into the first person narrative quickly enough and really enjoyed the banter between Louise and Will. Both characters are scared but in different ways. I liked how the writer sculptured their unlikely relationship and the ending had me shedding silent tears. I am a softy sometimes!

If you have read the book? Seen the film? What did you think?

The Girl in the Spider’s Web – David Lagercrantz

I thought I would give this sequel to the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson a go. I really enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the other sequels not so. So far it seems a slow burn. I’ll let you know how I go.

Have you read any good books lately, any recommendations?

Thanks for dropping by,

Christine x

12 Hours of Day #8

Many thanks to Louise at Ramblings of a Roachling, for giving me the heads up on this weekends #photoanhour on Instagram. I love participating in the challenge, even though most of the time I don’t have anything interesting planned. This weekend however I did have something planned but events conspired against me and I was left trying to fill the time up. So here’s what I got up to during my 12 hours of day!

Photo an Hour – 16th June 2018

8am to 9am:

My Saturday began at 8.15am. I awoke to a drizzly morning. The plants in the yarden had a well earned drink while I made breakfast.

The yarden at 8.30am

David visiting Bennie

9am to 10am:

David and I took a visit to David’s Mum and Dad for Father’s Day. We were also meeting David’s brother, sister-in-law and nephew for a family trip to a nearby farm. We enjoyed hugs from the family’s Newfoundland, Bennie.

10am to 11am:

We were still waiting for David’s brother and sister-in-law, so David took to drawing on a chalk board while his nephew Ewan drew with felt tips.

Visiting Family

Cactus

11am to 12pm:

We were still waiting. I was running out of things to photograph. I liked this cactus display David’s Mum had created.

12pm to 1pm:

With no communication from family, David and I decided to go home for some lunch.

Home

Mersey Tunnel

1pm to 2pm:

Finally after 1pm, we got the call that family were ready. So we headed towards the tunnel, to the Wirral.

2pm to 3pm:

Our destination was Claremont Farm, where we all went strawberry picking!

Strawberry Picking

The Liver Building

3pm to 4pm:

On our way home, I quickly snapped this shot of the striking Liver Building.

4pm to 5pm:

Time for a quick break before housework. I decided to make a start on the day’s 30 Days Wild blog.

Blog

David cooking dinner

5pm to 6pm:

While I tackled the hated vaccuming, David rustled up an egg fried rice in the kitchen for the evenings meal.

6pm to 7pm:

During mealtime, David snapped this sunlit viper’s-bugloss.

Vipers- Bugloss

Strawberries and Raspberries

7pm to 8pm:

To end a particularly tiring day we sat down to hand picked strawberries with a mix of shop bought raspberries and ice cream. The strawberries were yummy!

Thanks to Janey and Louisa for setting up the challenge.

How did you spend your Saturday?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

30 Days Wild 2018 – Day Sixteen

Day 16: This Saturday we decided to head to Claremont Farm, Wirral to pick our own strawberries.

Last year the weather was gorgeous! A blissful summers day. Today however the weather was changeable but we spent a leisurely time walking the field and picking the juiciest of fruits.

Strawberry Field

Picking strawberries

Picking strawberries

Picking strawberries

Harvest

Have you picked your own fruit? What is your favourite?

Thanks for reading, and stay wild!

Christine x

30 Days Wild 2017 – Week 3

Well week three has been a much more enjoyable week. I think the sunshine and 25°+ temperatures have helped raise the mood.

With a bit of forward thinking I was also able to plan my posts and managed to gather enough photographs and subjects to hopefully make the post more informative. Let me know your thoughts.

Day Fifteen: Thursday.

Last year I didn’t have much luck with growing my own vegetables. I tried growing peppers, green beans, spring onions and tomatoes. All perished. The only success of the summer was the maris bard potatoes, and I got two harvests from them!

So this spring I decided to get the same variety in the hope of getting a bumper harvest of gorgeous new-potato-type earlies. However, ‘the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry’. I planted the chits in March/April and waited for the plants to grow and the flowers to appear. This year nothing happened, save the plants in the grow bag yellowed and some died. I watered them during the dry spell and decided on Thursday to rummage in the soil to see if there were any potatoes grown. There were, but they all looked like this!

I was so upset! What had happened to my lovely potatoes? After doing some reading online I found there could be a number of reasons my potatoes looked like they had acne.

1. The spots could be a nematode, or microscopic worm.
2. There was a lack of moisture in the soil during hot weather.
3. The spots could be early blight, a fungus spread by rain and hot temperatures.
4. Probable potato scab which is a bacterium.

I suppose you only learn as a gardener if you make an attempt at growing. Perhaps last years harvest was a fluke? I have centurion onions growing in a bag too. I wonder what they will look like come harvesting?

Have you had a diseased riddled harvest? Let me know your stories.

Day sixteen: Friday.

All week, our female blue-faced parrot finch (Forrest) has been laying tiny white eggs. This got me thinking, how is an egg actually made? So I did a little research.

5 eggs

The egg as we know it is assembled inside out! The yolk comes first and is released via the oviaries. Fertilisation (if applicable) occurs once the yolk is released. The yolk then passes along the oviduct where the albumen and membranes are created. Calcification occurs at the shell gland and this produces the egg shell. Shell production can take up to 20 hours and the whole process lasts around 24 hours!

If you are interested to know more, then follow this link here, and here, and here.

Day Seventeen: Saturday. 

Two of random acts of wildness are: 1. grow borage for bees and 2. take a picture of something blue.

Since 2015, when I began participating in 30 Days Wild, I have grown borage for bees. This year has been no different. I harvested the seeds from last years plants and sowed them this spring. Right on cue for June the new plants have begun flowering. The bees love them and they are also my something blue for 2017!

Day Eighteen: Sunday.

Having never picked our own fruit before I was very excited to try! I found a local farm, Claremont, on the Wirral, who have a pick your own season. So David and I visited this weekend. On arrival we opted for two small punnets and headed towards the field where hundreds of strawberry plants were growing. The farm was very busy with families. We chose our row and began foraging among the strawberry plants. We found big juicy fruit, the smell was delicious!

Strawberry picking

Strawberry picking

Strawberry picking

Strawberry picking

Having filled our punnets to the brim we took them to the farmer who weighed the harvest and the cost was £6 for the two punnets. I thought it was reasonable, with the guarantee that the fruit is fresh having picked them straight from the plant. We will definitely visit again.

Have you picked your own? What fruit do you prefer?

Day Nineteen: Monday.

Nicky at Too Lazy to Weed wrote a wonderful blog about plant pots for pollinators an initiative by Butterfly Conservation. They offer a planting guide for beginners and ask for participants to log their pots on a map and state what plants you have for pollinators. I have numerous pots and plants for pollinators so it wasn’t difficult to participate in.

Here are a few pictures of some of the plants I have in the yarden for pollinators.

Bumblebee on Dahlia

Honey Bee and Passion Flower

scabiosa

Some pollinator friendly plants are:

• Hellebore
• Chives
• Lavender
• Honeysuckle
• Sunflower
• Michaelmas Daisies

Perhaps you can plant a pot for pollinators and help out our hungry insects?

Day Twenty: Tuesday.

I’ve decided to showcase two bees who have been seen visiting the yarden. 1. the leaf-cutter bee and 2. the honey bee.

Leaf-cutter bee:

• One of the solitary bees.
• Nests in cavities.
• So named due to cutting out leaves to make their ‘cells’ for larvae.
• On the wing April to August.
• Feeds on nectar and pollen which they carry on their abdomen.

Leaf-cutter bee

Honey bee

Honey bee:

• Are hive bees and live in colonies.
• A colony can be between 35,000 to 60,000 bees.
• The hive is structured with a queen, worker bees (females) and drones (males).
• Prefer simple, open flowers.
• Carry their pollen in baskets on their hind legs.

Day Twenty-one: Wednesday.

The Summer Solstice. Last year I got up at 4 am and listened to the dawn chorus. This year since having a long day at work, (and I mean a loooong day at work). I decided to look for alternative ways of celebrating the solstice.

Solstice is the Latin for ‘sun seems to stand still.’ Some see the solstice as the beginning of summer, whereas others see it as midsummer. The sun is at its most northerly position (and at winter it’s the most southerly). The solstice occurs due to the tilt of the Earth at 23.5°. In summer the Earth is tilting towards the sun and for the UK the summer solstice means approx. 16 hours of sunlight, the longest day. During the winter solstice the opposite occurs (approx. 8 hours of sunlight), meaning the shortest day.

Thought.co have some good ideas on how to celebrate the summer solstice.

WikiHow suggests doing some sky observations.

I can’t remember where I saw it now, but I read that making a herbal brew was also a way of celebrating the solstice, so I decided on attempting a rosemary tea.

Rosemary Tea

Rosemary is full of antioxidants (supports the immune system), has vitamins A and C and is helpful in boosting memory. Shakespeare in Hamlet, (act four, scene five,) has Ophelia saying (in her maddened state), ‘there’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.’ It can also aid relaxation, ease anxiety and help digestion. So I thought I would give it a try.

Ingredients (makes one small mug):

• I used two tablespoons of finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves (cut fresh from the yarden).
• One cup of boiled water or 250ml.
• Leave to steep for 5 to 10 minutes.
• Strain and drink.

My thoughts:

I decided to drink the infusion whilst listening to Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, based of the William Shakespeare play. I listened as a muggy day turned to a cooler evening.

The infusion created a green tea. Rosemary is a very aromatic herb and the tea was very florally. I think I preferred the music to the drink.

What is your favorite herbal drink?

Summary:

What a diverse week, week three has been! From failed potato harvests to gorgeous strawberries! I have tried to share new experiences and facts I’ve learned.

What random acts of wildness have you enjoyed doing this week?

A Look Back:

2015: Bees and growing borage.

2016: Wild swimming and birds.

Thanks for dropping by,

Christine x

Sunday Sevens #32

I haven’t written a Sunday Sevens in a while, and I so love doing them. So thanks to Natalie at Theads and Bobbins, who devised the wonderful series, and here’s my seven (plus a few more), for Sunday!

New work space

DIY: Last weekend, David was busy sprucing up the guest bedroom/study. We spent most of Saturday driving back and forth from Warrington’s IKEA to purchase box cupboards which would conceal all our detritus. I think he’s done a fantastic job! We have so much more storage space and a bigger work surface.

#walk1000miles: I think it’s always nice to update you all on how my walk 1000 miles challenge is going. This week I have managed to rake up a reasonable 34 miles, (my best tally so far!), which brings my total for the year so far to 601 miles! My miles are mainly made up of hours on the treadmill, walking between bus stops, lots of scanning in work (the scanner is at the opposite end of the corridor from the office) and walking the dog. I think Riley appreciates the increase in walks. He is eight now and carrying a few extra pounds due to being neutered when he was three. I thought I was doing the right thing by neutering him, but no one told me he would put on weight after it! Anyway, Riley (and myself) has loved his park runs and visits to Crosby Beach, even if the wind was fierce the last time we visited!

Riley at Sefton Park

Riley at Crosby Beach

Another Place at Crosby Beach

Collecting: It’s been a while since I found a Beatrix Potter 50p. This week while counting the petty cash in work, my boss and I found a third collectible, Squirrel Nutkin! How cute is he?

50p Squirrel Nutkin

5 eggs

Pets: This week our Blue-faced Parrot Finch, Forrest has been laying eggs. Her mate Leaf has been busy lining the nest with feathers and straw. I wonder if any of the eggs will hatch? We shall see in a fortnights time! I’ll update you all!

Book I am reading: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I’m only 50 pages into the book but it’s accompanying me while on my daily commute to work. I am enjoying the characters so far. Have you read this book? What were your thoughts?

The Book Thief

Hans Zimmer Live

Culture: This Saturday (17th) was the day Hans Zimmer and his Live on Tour came to Liverpool. This was my second time of seeing him live on stage. You can read my review on the Birmingham 2016 concert here. Though it was the same programme as his European tour, there were subtle differences. The orchestra and choir had been paired down. I personally preferred the energy of the Birmingham concert, but there was the same chat by Zimmer with anecdotes on the films he had scored. The lighting was just as fierce but I think there was less camaraderie between the principal performers. The Liverpool audience were a little too vocal for my taste but the show of phone torches after Aurora was touching, though I wish he wouldn’t talk over all of it. It is a beautiful composition, reminiscent of the vocal version of Barber’s Adagio for Strings. My two favourite pieces did not disappoint, in fact One Day from Pirates of the Caribbean Three brought tears to my eyes. The Dark Knight medley was just as energetic and inspiring! I felt blessed to see my music hero live onstage!

Have you been to see any live music recently? What’s your experience of arena tours?

Days out: The weather this weekend has been beautiful. Perfect summer days filled with lots of warm sunshine and mild clear evenings. I must say it has been a very full weekend! I was going to end the post with Hans Zimmer’s concert but I just wanted to share with you my wonderful Sunday.

After visiting Claremont Farm in the Wirral and picking our own juicy strawberries. David and I headed for the coast and Thurstaston Beach, to have our lunch overlooking the sandy estuary. I’ll write more in my 30 Days Wild – Week 3, but for now here are some pictures of our wonderful day.

Strawberry picking

Thurstaston Beach

Strawberry picking

That was my week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

30 Days Wild…Week Four.

As I embark on the last week of The Wildlife Trust‘s 30 Days Wild, it becomes important more than ever, to continue to value and respect the wildlife that is around us.

Monday:

I find it difficult to enjoy nature while I am out and about going to work. However today I snapped a picture of a flower that was gracing the gates of my employment. I did a quick Google search and found that it was a Rosa canina, or Dog Rose which is a deciduous shrub.

White heart shaped petal flower

Tuesday:

James Horner

Though not nature orientated, I woke up this morning to the sad news that composer James Horner had died in an aeronautics accident. I admired Horner’s music well before Hans Zimmer’s. My first CD of his, was his stunning American Civil War soundtrack to the film Glory!

---

The weather turned out to be half decent today. In the afternoon I managed to sit out and potter about my garden. The Passion Flower has grown ‘madly’ again and has hundreds (maybe an exaggeration) of buds on it! There are also purple flowers on the Hebe!

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Wednesday:

I decided to follow a suggestion from the 101 ‘wild’ things to do which was to watch a nature webcam. Years ago I used to visit a websi from a farm in Yorkshire, called Marlfield. The website is called Lambwatch. (It’s best viewed on IE.) I checked it out today and found that they not only have one webcam pointed at a field, which during spring is filled with lambs, but have three others! One of which was a webcam in a Swallows nest. Knowing I love Swallows I spent a good hour watching the brood of about 4 growing baby Swallows.

I wonder if the visiting Swallows near me will also be feeding a brood of similar size? I shall have to wait until they fledge, it was mind July last year! I shall keep my eyes towards the sky!

Thursday: – Norwich… ‘a fine city!’ (Indeed!)

Thursday was the beginning of our night away to Norwich to see the Go Go Dragons street art exhibition! Mum kindly looked after Artie while we were gone the night.

It was not the first time we have gone on a hunt for dragons. The first was in 2010 in Newport!

Newport dragon 2010

We set off on the M62 around 9am. I didn’t see much nature along the motorways, save for a few silhouettes of Buzzards and Kestrels hunting and along the A11 there was a field full of purple and white foxgloves!

We got to Norwich by 1.30pm and spent the next two hours walking around the city streets. The weather was very humid and come the evening the sun shone through heavy laden clouds.

We first visited Norwich two years ago when we popped in, on our way to Colchester, to see their Go Go Gorillas trail.

Go Go Gorilla – Optimus Prime

I was impressed by the artistic talent, so much so that come news that dragons were going to grace the city’s streets I had to pay them a visit!

The dragons I think even surpassed the gorillas! Here are just a few from the first day!

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With tired feet we made our way to the B&B for the night. We stayed at the same B&B, 175 Newmarket Road, and incidentally the same room as two years ago!

175 Newmarket Road, Norwich

For the evening’s meal we went to The Merchant’s of Spice, curry house north of the River Wensum. David ordered Chicken Tikka Pasanda, which was flavoursome while I had the Vegetable Karahi which was filled with peppers, green beans and new potatoes. The naan was nice though was drizzled with a lot of butter! The atmosphere of the restaurant was luxurious and the ambient music was not overpowering. The service was efficient and they cleaned unused plates and cutlery swiftly. At the end of the meal we were once again handed orange soaked hot towels to wipe our hands, always a plus in my book! 😀

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Friday:

We had breakfast early on Friday so we could leave the B&B and head into Norwich before 9am! While we were packing I noticed a colourful Jay amongst the tree canopy around the house. It moved too quickly for me to get a picture so one of David’s taken on a day trip to Yorkshire Wildlife Park will have to do!

Jay

I must comment that Norwich has fully embraced planting for wildlife and on most of their roundabouts and along the sides of dual carriageways there is an abundance of wild flowers!

We spent the next four hours walking the city’s streets with map in hand! The positive of following a trail map is that you get to see parts of the city you wouldn’t necessarily see! There are some lovely churches and narrow tudor-esque streets in Norwich. However the north of the city is a bit derelict, like many towns. We found ourselves in a part of the city that was covered in graffiti! We did not feel safe! So we hurried back south towards the river.

We saw 31 dragons on the Thursday and the Friday we saw a total of 32! So we saw 63 out of the 84 dragons on the streets, though we did see several more but could not take photos!

Here are some of my favourite dragons from Friday’s hunt!

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Even though we never got to see the whole 84 dragons, I found following the trail map more satisfying than going to see them all in one place which we did last year when we went to Aberdeen to see ‘all’ the dolphins!

Wild Dolphins

Here’s a selection of some of the art work found on the dragons and of David and myself posing with our favourites! 😀

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After lunch at around 1.30pm we said goodbye to Norwich and set off on our journey home, and what a ‘long’ journey home it turned out to be! Instead of the 4.5 hours it should have took us, our journey lasted over 7 hours! Arriving home around 9pm!

There was news of the M6 being shut around junction 16 and then the A14 was at a snails pace. There was nothing to do but to try and stay cheery, listen to the radio and try to keep hydrated and well fed. We took regular breaks. We tried to get the sat-nav to navigate around the blocked part of the M6 but it wanted us to go further afield into Wales, so we decided to see what was in store for us on the motorway!

We paid the £5.50 to go on the M6 toll and the first junction was at a stand still. I thought that it was a waste of money but once we past the first junction it was smooth travelling until the M6 toll merged into the M6. Then the travelling was in fits and starts, so much so that I got a migraine with the stress. I thought we would never get home and my phone decided to die! We stopped off at Keele Services and had a fast food dinner! It was not what I had planned. I had planned something more healthy, after the curry the night before, but there was nothing to be done. So a Burger King it was. I had a vegi wrap while David had a chicken sandwich and chips. I also had a Costa coffee which, with the Zomig I had taken, helped ease the migraine!

For the next two hours, though fuelled, we continued on our slow journey home. To break the monotony David said I should take some pictures of the Cheshire countryside.

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On our arrival home, we were welcomed by a familiar sight. Artie looking out of the window at us!

Artie welcoming us home

Saturday:

Back home to ‘normality!’ I found that the Passion Flower had started to bloom! There was one sitting proud for all to see! I look forward to many more budding!

Passion Flower

For Saturday’s dinner I made a healthy Roasted Pepper and Bean soup.

Ingredients:

1. Two pointed peppers sliced in half
2. One red onion sliced in quarters
3. Two garlic cloves
4. One chilli chopped
5. 500ml of reduced vegetable stock
6. Tin of choppd tomatoes
7. Tin of cannellini beans
8. Pepper to season
9. Serve with wholemeal bread

Method:

1. Put peppers, onion and garlic on a roasting tin and roast for 20 mins on oven 200°/gas mark 6
2. Chop the chilli
3. In pan put in stock, chilli, tomatoes, and beans and warm to simmering
4. Once skin is blackened on peppers take out of oven, strip and chop
5. Return chopped, peppers, onion and garlic into pan
6. Season with pepper
7. Cook for 20 minutes

I served the soup with Wholemeal granary bread that I had made and David had shaped into dogs!

Roasted Pepper and Bean Soup with Dog shaped Wholemeal bread

Sunday:

I spent today’s lunch with our finches. We let them fly around the living room at weekends. Here’s a selfie I took with Chocolate our Bengalese Finch, she was getting very close to me!

Chocolate and Christine

More webcams! This time from Paradise Park in Cornwall. They are streaming a webcam from their Red Panda den. Their female panda has had cubs. You can view the webcam here: http://paradisepark.org.uk/events-and-news/webcams/

I think I am going to have to attempt to separate the Borage seedlings either today or sometime during next week! Look how much they have grown in a month!

Borage seedlings

There are only two more day’s of June and 30 Days Wild, but I will continue to admire the nature that is around me in the coming weeks/months. Will the Borage and Teasel seedlings bloom? How many Passion Flowers will I get? Will I see any fledgling Swallows? Only time will tell!

People Should Visit these Places More Often!

With David taking the last two days off this week to join me in a nice break from work. We took to visiting some old sights of Liverpool.

I know with being a resident of Liverpool it sounds like I am blowing ‘my’ own city’s trumpet, but there are some good places to visit in Liverpool! Some places you may not even think would be nestled inside an urban conurbation!

One such place is Croxteth Hall and Country Park. It was always a staple place to visit for schools in the region when I was growing up. I remember visiting as a child but couldn’t remember much about the hall! It only cost David and I £14 in total to visit the hall (we were the only ones there!), the walled garden and farm. That’s cheap compared to other country homes!

The Hall itself has about 20 rooms open to the public. I presume that the other 100+ are left for public functions. They do cater for weddings! I was hoping to see a ball room, but the closest to this was the dining room!

Croxteth Hall dining room

David and I spent a leisurely half an hour walking from room to room, looking at the set displays of Kitchen and living quarters of the once residents, the Molyneux family. There was no tour guide or other visitors. It was lovely and peaceful. I had a riot on the elegant stairs. If only I had brought my evening gown!

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I had wanted to visit Croxteth Hall as I had been writing my ‘Jane Austen-esque’ novel… though at present it has gone by the by! However on a glorious ‘heatwave’ day, I thought where better to visit than a stately home with glorious grounds, where we could picnic under a blue sky!

The walled garden was awash with colour! Bees and butterflies milled about lazily and crops of artichoke and fruit graced wooden arches. The farm would appeal to families with small children. They had an array of cattle. David liked the Clydesdale horses.

David and Clydesdale Horse

We enjoyed a happy couple of hours at Croxteth. In the afternoon, David had an idea to take his Mum, Sister and Sister in Law with us to visit Liverpool’s Festival Gardens, made famous in the 1980’s! Now the site has been given over to the people of Liverpool to enjoy as a park! Though when we arrived there were only a handful of cars. Maybe due to the schools not ‘out for summer’ yet?

Bilgen, David’s Sister in Law commented that the park did not look like it was in a city! And it doesn’t with the iconic Japanese Pagodas set against a deep azure sky! Dragonflies skittered over the ponds and a shaded woodland walk was filled with the fluttering of butterfly wings!

I hope the Merseyside people get to enjoy these beautiful places that are on their doorstep! I know I did! 🙂

 

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