Planting my Colocasia esculenta

So first things first , a load of washing and another and then to hang out on the line ....we woke up to a glorious sunny morning ... so I like to get my washing done and out on the line good and early . I also scrubbed the kitchen floor and polished my Cornish Piskie bellows that I found in a wondeful bric-a-brac shop in Charmouth .
 All that before Palm Sunday 11am mass at St Michael's Mullion  ...and with the sun shining we were able to do the beginning of the service outside ..which we haven't done for years !
  Anyway after church we took off for Poldhu Beach ....yes coffee for him and a chocolate ice cream for me . There were even more people on the beach than yesterday. Lots of happy children playing in the sand  .
We,ve been pretty much relaxing for the rest of the day and I,ve just been pottering about  .
 I bought a nice Woodlodge terracotta pot , handmade and which is supposed to be frost free from Trevena Cross Nursery in Breage and a bag of compost in readiness to plant my Colocasia esculenta corm .

                                                    Top of corm .

 I have grown one of these before but lost it over winter because I had tried to keep it ticking over in it's pot in the greenhouse . Actually I,ve now been told that you treat these like Dahlias in the late Autumn you dig them up cut off the leaves and roots and let them dry out . Store them in a box of perlite or dry compost and start them off again in the Spring .
 Anyway the first thing one has to decide is ...which is the top and which is the bottom ?
 With my one, it is very difficult to tell ..but the smooth side with the concentric rings is the top  ....see picture above .......

 
                                          This is the bottom side up .
It usually has little holes or is pitted and some hair like roots.  Mine was the last corm in the box  and is a bit on the small side and it is very difficult to tell which side is top from bottom . You can plant it on it's side if you are not sure .

    

So I lined the bottom of my pot with newspaper and put some of the chippings from the drive on the bottom .  I usually get told off for doing this , but he didn't notice me doing it this time ...he he he !

I pretty sure that this is the top , if you look closely you can see little "eyes" which I think are where the shoots/new leaves will grow out from . The one in the right hand bottom corner is even slightly green .

   Here it is all nicely nestled into the compost ... mmm .....I love the fragrance of the earth .

 Beautiful thing . I will be coming along to check on you often , waiting excitedly for those first new shoots .

 So then I thought I,d give it a drink of water and the rose fell off the watering can ...compost went everywhere and the corm turned upside down ....

 I had to re-settle it with some more compost ....laughing at myself ..I wheeled it up to the greenhouse . The greenhouse is really quite warm after all the sunshine today , but I think it will be cold tonight if the sky stays clear .
 I put the pot on a large block of  polystyrene and will cover it with newspaper over night .

                     Blue sky here in Mullion today ,such a lovely day !

                                                          Primroses .

                                                       Cowslips .

                      I,m keeping everything under fleece again tonight .

A lovely winter break in Charmouth again .

 The snows still melting beside the hedgerows , after the "Beast from the East " we set off to Charmouth  for a refreshing little break away Dinosaur hunting again .

The weather was absolutely beautiful for the whole week , raining only at night !
We drove down to the beach car-park and got stuck in fossil hunting straight away . We each found a few of these pyrites coated ammonites  dotted here and there on the shingle . That geological hammer might just as well have stayed at home . All our finds were found just lying on the shingle and sand , well away from the dangerous cliffs .

 Next off to Axminster where we always love to visit The Old Chapel Antique and Craft Centre ..I bought this pretty chamber pot with Violets on for £3.00 !!! It will look so lovely under the bed ...actually no.. lol !..I am planning to put a plant in it ....anyway ..very pleased with that . They have a vintage book shop within the centre too..but  didn't find anything this time .
 I was really looking forward to going and having breakfast at The River Cottage Cafe in Axminster ...only to find it was closed ..several people walked  up to the door as we did , to find it locked   :(   ....sigh .....so we went over the road to the TH Home in Store Department store , where we enjoyed beautifully done toasted tea cakes (not burnt as in so many places ! ) and a big pot of tea ... very enjoyable indeed !

 Naturally we had to pay a visit to Groves Nursery ! They specialise in Violets , which were so sweetly perfumed that I just could not resist !
 Gloxinia corms , Colocasia ,onion sets ,shallots , beans and a very small variegated Rubber Plant from their wonderful House Plant section .

 Back in Lyme Regis..to the wonderful Fine Food Ammonite Lyme Regis Shop  !

                            Look at it..how can anyone resist going in here !

 We stocked up again with our favourite Relishes and my husband bought a bottle of something .
 There are a few charity shops and I found this little fox for my grand daughter in the Children's Hospice S.W shop .
 I found a sweet pair of fire bellows with a Cornish Piskie on , in the Antique and vintage collectables centre ...I apologise for not being able to remember the name of this gem of a place....crammed to the gunnels with intriguing bric-a-brac and gems and fossils . There is a brilliant cafe in there too , but we didn't have time as the ticket on the car was about to run out !

I filled in odd moments stitching a vintage kit ....but there was more fossil hunting to be done too !

Fifteen or twenty years ago there used to be lots of these broken Belemnite pieces and then they all seemed to dry up , it seemed to me anyway . I noticed this time that they are back..lots of them ...not that I want to collect lots of them but I think it is a good sign of other and more exciting things to be found too .
 While I am talking about the beach , I noticed that there seem to be more people with dogs than ever before..but I also noticed that people ARE cleaning up after their dogs and the beach is nice and clean . Well done Charmouth !
 There is still a lot of plastic being washed up though..everyone..new rule.... if you go to the beach you must pick up three plastic things and put it in the bin at the top of the beach . If everyone does this  it really will make a difference !

A little more stitching time . I will let you into a secret ....I,m not enjoying this kit . The instructions call for one to use the Anchor Embroidery cotton all six strands as it comes off the skein ! The linen is in my opinion not the correct fabric for this kind of surface embroidery ...but I will persevere ...while I,m on holiday anyway .

 Then off to the church of St Peter and St Paul in Cattistock Dorchester , clutching a pot of sweetly scented Violets to give the lovely Rev.Linda Wilcock , who gave me permission to take photographs of the William Morris and Sir Edward Burne - Jones stained glass window , from which I have embroidered one of the Pre-Raphaelite Angels .

It was a surprise to see so much of the Arts and Crafts style here ! If you're in the area....you must pay a visit to this Church  .
 Please see my other blog for more on my embroidery .
                       pixiepinsandneedles.blogspot.com

 I took some better photos of the window than this to study and I may embroider another of the Angels some time in the future .
 Coming to St Peter and St Paul's church Cattistock was my main reason for coming on this trip and I was delighted ..by the way if you were in Cattistock last week you might have seen me waving the Cornish flag as we drove through ! :)

More fossil hunting and my husband found this lovely sea urchin fossil which he says has come out of the Greensand layer along the top of the cliffs .
No he didn't climb the cliffs to get it ! Once again it was found in the shingle further down the beach .

 We have never found any Echinoids here in Charmouth all the years we.ve been fossil hunting here ! Very envious ! ....but not for long .....

Next day , I was too tired to stomp the long walk up the beach towards the Golden Cap...so I said goodbye to the others , warning them to keep away from the slumping and crumbling cliffs and not to go onto the mud in case they should get stuck or sink into the sinking sand ..etc etc etc....they were glad to be shot of me !
 I,d only been on the beach for less than five minutes and where the shingle meets the flat sand ...I found this !

                               A roll of four baby Ichthyosaur vertebrae !
 That made the whole trip more than worthwhile ! Very happy Mummabear me !

 So then we came home and had another day of snow which really didn't last very long .....and the sun has come out again .
The snowdrops have finished and all the pretty Primroses and Violets are coming out in the hedgerows .
 
 Lots of people down at Poldhu , families and children sitting in the sand building sandcastles with their buckets and spades ...paddling in the stream that flows down through the valley and crosses the beach to the sea .
   The Poldhu Beach Cafe is very busy serving delicious food , seating inside or we sat outside at a picnic table over looking the beach with our coffee and chocolate ice creams .
 Lots of happy wagging tails too , as people take their dogs to the beach for their last week of fun . No Dogs from Easter Sunday .

  Please pick up after your dog and either take it home with you or put it in one of the dog poop bins in the car-park . (God Bless the person who has to empty it ! )
 Don't leave it in a bag on the path or beside the road  .
 Do not throw it into the hedgerows either..disgusting..clean up after your dog and keep our beautiful village clean and hygienic .
  You wanted that lovely dog, now clean up after it !
We are watching you !

 So now I,m busy, really busy sowing seeds and getting Mummabear's  Veg Garden 2018 up and running . My Celery and Leek seeds are already germinating ..I sowed them just before our trip .
  I,m not unwrapping the outside garden tap just yet ...but Spring ..she has definitely arrived !

St Piran

 So Saint Piran was a 5th century abbot in Ireland , who went about preaching Christianity , he became very popular , people flocked to see him , he healed the sick and performed miracles .
 The King is said to have become suspicious and had poor St Piran lashed to a millstone and thrown over the cliff into the stormy sea .
God calmed the waves and caused the mill stone to become light and float .
 A gentle breeze blew him over the sea to Cornwall ....and he landed on the sands at Perranporth .
 In thanks to Almighty God , he had built an Oratory  amongst the sand dunes and here he is said to have sung and preached Christianity . His first disciples are said to have been a Badger , a Fox and a Bear  . Nice to think that he was kind to animals isn't it ?
 St Piran's Oratory is still there , you can go and visit  !
 One day he gathered some rocks to make a little fire-pit , on which to cook some fish . He lit the kindling and got a good fire going ...he must have got it very hot indeed , as then he noticed that the metal in the rock was melting and the silver molten tin ran down and across the cracks in a black rock forming a Cross .
 This became our Cornish flag or the Flag of  St Piran .
If you come to Cornwall  , this is the flag that you will see proudly flying  !

Animation of the 3D Archaeological Survey of St Piran's Oratory, Cornwall

Gool Peran Lowen ! Happy St Piran's Day !

A little Cornish Piskie is coming your way to wish you a Happy St Piran's Day !

Storm Emma day 4 and 5 February Mullion Cornwall

Well , Storm Emma was quite scary , I lay in my bed listening to the howling blizzard and the roof tiles rattling . I thought we might get some roof damage , but it's o.k . ...just the woodshed roof this time ..not so bad !
 That's a Yucca elephantipes .......a lovely variegated one ,  under that old curtain.     This is the first year I didn't bother to drag it into the porch . It is very ,very heavy and since my big op , I just cant do that anymore . .  I doubt if it will survive this weather . I expect I am going lose a lot of things up in the greenhouse too :(   .

The snow lay knee deep in places ..oh my poor birdies ...I kept up with putting food out for the poor little things . How do they survive in this ? ! My Blackbird comes every time I opened the door , for her grapes .
    Paw-prints of God's creatures dotted about in the snow .... I put food and water out to cater for all !

I had wanted to make a snowman but every time I ventured out , my throat became sore and  it made me begin to cough ,so sadly I didn't make a Snowman .

 The blizzard was blowing too strongly to be comfortable to be outside for very long .

 My husband took these photos as he checked the roofs of the outbuildings..as he did so a panel flew off the woodshed roof and hit him on the head ..he says he's o.k  though  !  He did a temporary fix to put it back up , to keep whats left of our wood dry .

This is our Summer house where I love to sit and do my embroidery ...roll on Summer !                 Mummabear is going into hibernation !

                                We're not used to this here in Cornwall !

We took the dog for a very quick walkies up the lane and back ...I carried her most of the way actually as the snow was too deep for her little legs .
What this photo doesn't capture is how the wind and snow was blasting across the field into my back , I could hardly stand up in it ..I thought I was going to be blown away ! The next day it was almost knee deep here .

 Today it has almost all gone and the temperature has risen to 8 degrees and we have cloud and rain again ..back to normal for us .

                                       Cosy and warm beside the fire !