Meanwhile in the greenhouse ...

Back in early June , actually about four weeks ago to the day , we took ourselves off on a one night away trip , to one of our favourite places , Charmouth .
We did a little bit of beach combing and fossil hunting , didn't find anything this time ....but we were tired after the drive  .

So we paid a visit to Groves Nursery in Bridport for some refreshment in their new cafe . Sad to see the old friendly cafe has gone and amazed to see the huge new one towering over the lovely nursery gardens . We enjoyed our bowl of soup and crusty roll .Then had a little wander round . Groves Nursery is famous for it's wonderful selection of Violets especially in the Spring  .They have beautiful healthy ,clearly labelled plants , shrubs and trees .Garden equiptment, everything you could ever need . The Rose garden is lovely, I have several beautiful Roses from Groves , I love their beautiful selection of beans , seeds , onion sets and potatoes ..to help yourself to however many  you want ,scoop them into brown paper bags and weigh on the scales ..love this ! I love the selection of wild-bird / animal food and the pet department ....and so much more !
 Above all , I love the glasshouse with so many beautiful plants suitable for the conservatory or indoor house plants .....too many to name...but anyway...I always make a beeline for the Cacti  , something which always impresses me at Groves , is how everything is always clearly labelled ,with  the plant's botanically correct name .
 In the past I have come across some very rare and more unusual plants in here ..... but nothing was tempting me on this occasion  ......I pottered about for ages...as you do  ........                                                                                                                         

             ........and then I spied this poor little thing ...
 ........ no label ....not much compost ....one shrivelled flower ...
Leaning over in it's tiny pot .....it was coming home with me !

 We had a lovely evening meal  and one night at the Exeter Airport Hotel .

My husband named it "Billy no mates" which I thought was a bit unkind !

I held it all the way home , on my lap in the car . I found a nice pot and some fresh cactus compost and re-potted him .
  It seemed to me that it was happier lying on its side , so I positioned it that way in the pot and gave it a nice top dressing with horticultural grit .

Well , look at it now ! Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would respond like this in just four weeks !

         Look at that gorgeous bud ! Click on it ! Go on ! Zoom in !

 And this morning , as I walked up to the greenhouse , I could see that it had opened in the early morning sunshine .

                                                       It is lovely !

 
                     I would like to label it , if anyone knows it's name ?

                 It is growing very fast , look at those new side shoots !

                            I,m so glad I brought him home with me !

Did you enjoy St Valentine's Day ?

 I hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day , this is how our day went .

                              Wednesday the day before Valentine's Day .
 We had been working hard out in the vegetable garden. Trying to prepare this one last bed for the next season . The bean frame had to come down....this always makes me  feel a little sad ....and as I took it apart my under gardener  took great delight in cutting it all up for kindling and actually it wouldn't have been able to bear the weight of another crop of Runner-beans .
    I had planted a small cutting of Rosa Dorothy Perkins here a couple of years ago , and while I had been out of action due to quite a major health issue , it had really got away and become a large clump . I did think that it would look lovely growing on the Bean frame together with the Runner-beans and thought it would be no trouble to pull out at the end of the season  ....  very silly me !
 What you can see here is after we'd lopped down all the very long climbing and trailing stems . Dorothy Perkins fortunately doesn't have a lot of thorns , but the ones it  did have , managed to tangle in my hair, scratch my face , snag my jumper and pierce my thumb .....got most of it out....but it's still very sore .
   We still hadn't got the blooming rose clump out and we were both tired and fed up and the wheelbarrow was full of rose branches..so we decided to leave it for now , have a cup of tea and come back to it later .



 I pulled up the very last of my leeks to have with our dinner later .
As  I wheeled the barrow of rose branches over to the bonfire/compost heap , I wondered to myself how long it  would take for my newly sown Leek seeds to germinate...I sowed them just the other day all mollycoddled on the windowsill of the Solar Shed .
 As I tipped the wheelbarrow up to empty it , to my great surprise I noticed this huge clump of Leeks growing there !

They must have grown from a seed head that I had cut off and discarded onto the heap back at the end of Summer and being thrown on to  the South side as you can see they have done really well .
 It seems we can grow them all year round here on the Lizard !

They look like the variety of Leeks called Jaune de Poitou which I had grown last year .
 So that was a nice surprise ....and more work though as I then had to dig them up and replant them into the African Keyhole bed where I,m growing all the oniony things this year .

I grew all my Squashes and pumpkins in here for two years in a row..it needed a rest .

The onions are doing really well but the garlic-bulbs that I was sent were very small and I don't think they'll come to much .
So then very tired I dug a big hole and dropped the clump of lovely newly discovered Leeks into it , heeled them in and that was that , as I had no energy left in me to separate them or even think about what to do with them today .
  Went in for my dinner and long soak in the bath .

.........and then it was Valentine's Day and the sun was shining and the sky was blue and the under gardener swept me away to Charmouth for the day !
                It's o.k.... lol !....he's also my loving husband !

....and what a beautiful day we had hunting for fossils along the beach towards the Golden Cap .

                                      ... and explored Iron Age forts ...

           .......and he took me to Groves Nursery , where we enjoyed Sweet-potato Soup and the most delicious bread and butter ... and he bought me an Epiphyllum to add to my  collection ...you don't often see Epies for sale at Garden centres or Nurseries but they have some really interesting plants for sale in their conservatory , Orchids, Tillandsias, Cacti, Succulents , Ferns ......I got a grip and just came away with the one plant ! One very happy girl !

          We drove past Colmer's Hill ....we'll climb it next time we visit .

                                     Dorset countryside is beautiful .

                    Drove through Chideock past pretty thatch cottages .

On to have a quick look at Lyme Regis .

Then we drove home to beautiful Cornwall , taking photographs of the majestic trees all the way along !

                 The shadows getting longer across the fields and meadows  .

                                            .....as the sun went down ...

                  ...over the trees and pylons , glistening streams and rivers.....

                                  Shining through the branches .....

                Appearing to set then rise again as we past each hill ....

 I love this circle of trees that we always pass and I look out out for every time we go this way .

....and the Sun set was just such a fabulous ending to our lovely day .

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 !