TULIPS FROM AMSTERDAM

 I was absolutely blown away by the beautiful Tulips and Narcissi that were to be found in the gardens that were open in Guilsborough. I know that many years ago fortunes were made and lost on the sale of Tulips and now I understand why. 

As promised in my earlier blog here are a few that were on view.

Please accept this bouquet of flowers from me to you.

MY THANK YOU SPEECH - BLOG AWARD

I have just had a visit from the Felt Fairy and when I looked under my pillow I found this award

Thank you so much Annie it is nice to know that someone reads my ramblings and enjoys them.

I have thought long and hard about who to send it on to and here is my list

Vintage At The Corner House – Because Ann you are my friend as well as my partner in crime

Ted & Bunny – A lovely thoughtful lady – this is a thank you for the Bluebells

Clover Cottage – Sharon for having the confidence to ask a shop to stock her wonderful creations and getting them accepted.

Ticking Stripes – Wendy thank you for your support with our Vintage and Home Made Fair.

Birdcages & Butterflies – Annie for being so helpful and offering to sort out my head piece for my daughter’s wedding – must sort that!!!

Dollytub Cottage – For always making me chuckle with your wonderful stories.

PepperPi – Claire you are so supportive of the Etsy Midlanders team and this is a thank you for all you are doing with the team blog.

Ivory Faces– Hannah my wonderful daughter – keep those creative juices flowing.

Pennyblossoms – Zoe for always coming to the Bike Bazaar and supporting us at our fairs.

Suzy’s Vintage Attic – Isabelle whose blogs are always full of wonderful eye candy photos.

Sorry ladies tried to do the hyperlink thing but it never worked - so just put you all in italics.....

GREEN FINGERS AT GUILSBOROUGH

Got up yesterday morning to a dull drizzle and all the plans I had made went out the window. Friends were coming for dinner and I thought we could perhaps go for a walk along the canal tow path before dinner, but it looked like that was not quite such a good idea.

Over coffee it was mentioned that Guilsborough was holding its NGS open gardens day and we decided to don our cagoules and brave the weather – what are we fair weather gardeners, my goodness they have an allotment, a little bit of rain.... you know the story, so without further ado off we set to have a nosey around other peoples gardens.

There were nine gardens open and what gardens they were – it was like walking around National Trust homes and gardens , the majority of them were huge, you could have got my courtyard garden into one tiny corner of their acres. I was not jealous, well not much, well actually I could feel myself turning green, and I am not talking about my fingers.... Mind you we all agreed we would not want to have to cut the lawns.

Anyway take a walk with me around some of the gardens and see what I mean.

How is this for a vegie patch.

A view from the bottom of the garden.

Our favourite garden.

Most people have a dog as pets....

I have to say that the gardens although spectacular, having love and attention heaped on them they were just a little too large and over the top for my suburban taste but they were well worth walking around and of course all the money raised goes to charity so we were doing our bit for that too.

One thing I did enjoy was the dazzling array of daffodils and tulips that were on show they were breathtaking and I will take you on a visit to see them in another blog.

A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME

For those of you who follow my blog you will know that I have moved into a house that used to be the bicycle shop in the village.

As the sun has begun to shine we have turned our attention to the garden and have been busy planting and sorting out. I had noticed that there were some old planks of wood by the side of the shed and pulled them out to put in the wood pile. I turned them over and noticed that they appeared to have some writing on them. On closer inspection I gave a huge shout of “bloody hell Del look what I have found !!!”. The two pieces of wood were the original sign that would have gone over the door of the shop. You can make out the W.W. and the B of Blincow can just be made out, this is together with the remains of the words “Gents” and “Bicycle”.

As you can imagine I was so excited I gave them as gentle a clean up as I could without removing any of the paint that was remaining and then armed with nails and a hammer got hubby to pin the sign to the garden fence.

I am not sure that he was as impressed as I was – I did hear the mutter “I don’t want the garden filling up with junk” this was followed by a defeated sigh as he struck the top of the nail. Has he not looked around and seen what I have done so far.....

MESSING ABOUT ON THE RIVER - WELL CANAL

We had a lot planned for today, look for a new summer house, sort out some fencing and shelve out the utility room. When we got up the sun was shining and all our plans went out the window, we did get as far as going out to look for a summer house and priced up a couple but decided the day was just too nice to waste on chores and we took ourselves off for a walk.

We are now living close to the canal at Buckby Wharf and decided to take a walk along the tow path and then treat ourselves with a drink at the pub that sits on the canal on the way back.

I want to live in this little cottage it is in the most idylic spot

In the banks by the canal I found two of my favourite spring flowers

Cowslips and

Violets

After the walk we sat outside the pub and had a drink while we watched the canal boats going through the lock.

Could not resist taking a photo of this lady who was seeing her boat through the lock gates, she was a dab hand with manouvering those heavy gates and she had the most wonderful array of dreds and matching necklaces - brilliant.  What a wonderful way to people watch than to sit on the canalside, glass of wine in hand and the sun shining down on us

Oh well did not get much done today but there is always tomorrow and sometimes it is nice just to take a day off from the plans and chill out - now back to my glass of wine.

BORN TO BE WILD - EASY RIDERS IN NORTHAMPTON

Ann and I met up in Northampton on Saturday for a coffee and a perusal around the Northampton Antiques Market that is being held on our Market Square.   Although there were not too many stalls we both managed to find some goodies – well that’s a surprise I hear you say.

Suddenly we heard this almighty roar and rumble, we both rushed to the end of the market to see what the heck was making all the commotion only to be met by the sight of line after line of Harley Davidson’s making a procession up the road. They were giving it full throttle and lots of wellie even if they were only going very slowly. The noise was vibrating it was that deep and powerful.

The parade of bikes was in aid of the local Cynthia Spencer Hospice here in Northampton once they had finished parading all the bikes were parked up and the collection buckets came outThis lucky lad managed to get on the bike and see how it felt , I bet the guy in the back looking on was green with envy.I rather fancy this one myself, lovely and pink.

This one is great for your picnic basket and rug when getting away into the country, double seater and stow away.  OK so not really the look one envisages when thinking of Harley’s and Bikers but some of us are not getting any younger and need a bit of comfort – Born to be wild, well nearly.

DECORATING IN THE GARDEN - A LITTLE BIT OF D.I.Y.

When I was 36 I threw in the towel with my boring office job and went to back college full time to learn horticulture. I had the time of my life as a full time mature student, this time an equal with the tutor so could voice an opinion and soaking up all the knowledge that I could was just a blast. I had the confidence to change courses three times until I found one that suited me and I even received the Student of the Year award for Garden Centre – goodness knows how...

The garden in the new house is tiny compared to the 180 foot that we used to have, it is more of a large yard than a garden. I will not miss the maintenance as it took so much of our time up but this one needs to have some work done on it. Lots of hard landscaping in the form of decking and gravel areas but no plants. I THINK IT IS CALLED LOW MAINTAINANCE.

Yesterday the sun was out and it was time to tackle the problem. There was one small area that had been slabbed over that I could make a bed for some plants. Got hubby to lift the slabs for me and he put in my water feature – I do love to hear the sound of water and that gave me an area to work in.
























I planted French Lavenders, Choiysa Ternata, Hollyhock, Hardy Geraniums, Turks Head Lily, Bleeding Heart mixed with some pansies and now all I have to do is sit back and wait for them to grow.

Talking about downsizing I have only got so much room in the house and so have decided to spill my vintage collecting bug out into the garden – I refuse to be beaten....

I wonder who F Pogson was and what did he store in this trunk.

EASTER SURPRISE

I got home from work yesterday and outside my door was a plank of wood...I gingerly picked it up and underneath it was a parcel that my Postie had hidden for me.

I took it inside and opened it up and found to my delight a wonderful present of two little lavender chickens in a basket with some Cadbury’s chocolate eggs and a little Easter card.

They were made for my by a lovely lady that follows my blog Carol she had a stall at out Easter fair. She sells under the name “Sara Carol Makes” and the reason for the name is so sweet I am sure she won’t mind if I share it with you.

My daughter is 29 now but when she was little we always played shops and I had to stand still whilst Sara did "clothes alterations" she used to write in a little book she called Sara Carol Makes and draw pictures of things in our "shop" and put prices on them, I still have the book so when I started making my knitted goods and other bits and pieces I had some labels made with the name on and they have a lovely picture of a little girl playing with a dolly tub.

Thank you Carol for your generous gift and also for sharing that great little story I just loved it and am sure other bloggers will to.