The Holy Well of St Grada and The Holy Cross

                                           
   The Church of Saint Grada  and The Holy Cross   -  Grade  -  on the Lizard  Cornwall
                           Across the field footpath and a little way down the lane ....

over and down the stone steps , there is a rope to help you descend  !

We came to visit the Holy Well of Saint Grada and The Holy Cross .

To scoop out the fallen empty candle holders from the Sacred waters ...

and make sure all is tidy .

We came with candles ,flowers and prayers for Peace and Healing .

The Holly Wreath that my dear friend  put there is lovely.

Though I have often been into the Church , this was my first visit to the Well .

                   I stupidly brought a little bottle of water to fill the vase !  doh !  lol !

 But was glad to be able to tip that away and gather some of the Holy Water to take and  bless my home with .

Time to Plant Shallots

Plant shallots on the shortest day and harvest them on the longest ....or thereabouts .
  I did plant them out into the open veg bed a few days ago , I went to a lot of trouble digging in compost ,horticultural grit and covering them with grids and surrounding them with chicken wire ....and over night three went missing ....just totally vanished !

These are precious , given to me by a good gardening friend ! So I have taken them all up and replanted them into modules , just to get them started ,up in my unheated greenhouse .
 I will plant them out later on , around the end of February , beginning of March .
  These will be harvested around August .

It was good to get out and take a little walk about the garden , it,s mild , wet and very blustery today. The Rhubarb is coming up !

I,ve topped up the bird feeders , must get more peanuts . It has been so mild that the Gunneras have not died back yet , this little Robin is feeding on it's seeds . Arum Lilies also still in full leaf .
 We went to the Christmas Mass at St Michaels Mullion yesterday evening , a good turnout and lovely to sing the well loved Christmas Carols ..We need more practice singing ! We also need someone to play the organ ! Happy Christmas Father John  !
You did a great job !
 We also gathered wood for the fire , off the beach this morning , some beach combing treasures, rope , shells , a tiny glass bottle ( no message in it though ) pretty stones and let the dog have a romp about down at Poldhu Cove .
  Oh ! Well ! I'd better get back indoors to all the festivities . My lovely Christmas table has been transformed into Paddington Station !
                                    Hope you're all having fun ! x

Happy Christmas All !

                                                     Happy Christmas Day !

Well I still have no idea what this thing is , but I knew when I saw it that it would make

                                                    .......a great Daisy Fork  !

Happy Christmas Happy Solstice

I thought you might like to see Helston,s Christmas lights today . Some times we venture out of Mullion and go into Helston Town. It wont be long before we're all getting ready for Flora Day again..when 1200 children dance the Flora Dance all through the town , all dressed in white. Flora Day is always on the 8th May except if it falls on a Sunday , so 2016 Flora Day will be on a Saturday 7th May...and I am SO excited about it as my little grandson will be dancing in it for his first time age 4 and a half ,with the children of Parc Eglos School . ( Grandma Daisy Debs did SO enjoy the Christmas School Play ,,,with all those sweet little Red Riding Hoods and Big Bad Wolves , pixies and angels , so much cuteness ... I cried all the way through it ! : )

Trying to be clever with the photos  , got into a right muddle ! Now have this big space to fill !


Helston , your  Christmas lights are beautiful and I ,m so glad you have kept Christ in Christmas !

The shop windows are all looking lovely too .

 Happy Christmas to you all !

As a Woman of the Earth I also rejoice at the returning of the Sun and the beginning of another season of productivity in my garden , especially my vegetable garden and greenhouse . Happy Solstice !

Sheep Update

                       Great news , the sheep have been reunited with their owner !

                                             Look at that sweetest adorable face !

   My dearest friend Jessica came to say hallo ...and I have been giggling about the sheep all day !

Fortunately they didnt have too far to go and were quite happy to follow the bucket of food ........ er .....husband is following too !  : )    lol !

Sheep in my garden- update

 So now that the sun is up and on closer inspection .....I'm fairly sure that they are boys !

               .......and I,m glad to say that someone is on their way to collect them  .

                    They seem quite happy up in our field and are very friendly too .

Sheep in the Garden !

Making Holly Wreaths and Piskie Shoes

 Here I am ...hiding behind a bunch of holly branches that I have just pruned carefully out of my beautiful Holly tree . I always like to make my own simple Holly Wreath.

I should be able to make two or three from this bundle...one for a good friend , one for my sweet daughter and one for me .

No sooner have I laid the holly on my kitchen table ...than my little helpers arrive !

The deal is this .....they help me to make the Holly Wreath with a little bit of Cornish Piskie fairy magic ..........

                                     .........and I will make their dancing shoes !

The long stringy branches are fairly flexible to twine around themselves into a circle . I tie them around firmly with garden twine at several points ..if the branches are not so flexible I would use some wire...and tie a lovely red ribbon on ....at the top ...or at the bottom .   You can add other things onto it too ...but I like to keep it simple  to hang on my front door .

My Charmouth Fossils

                                                          Charmouth Beach

Cold ,wet,wild and windy here in Mullion today , so I thought I.d have a sort through the bag of bits and pieces that I, d picked up on Charmouth Beach a couple of weeks ago.

Not much this time as you can see and some of it was so covered in thick shale mud , that I thought I,d just tip it all out and let the rain wash it off . Tiny ammonites pieces of belemnites, the bits of old terracotta pots ,which I gather and smash to go around my pots of cacti. ..a couple of ammonites in the harder shale , which I,ll give to my grandson .

Good to get him interested  .

.....and then I remembered seeing this sticking out of the mud flows about a third of the way up the beach in the top photo . I remember thinking " that looks like bone ". I tried to wash off the shale mud in the sea , but Shale mud is the thickest stickiest grey clay like mud....you dont want to step into it or you will be stuck fast ...which is why fossils are so well preserved here ....in another few thousand years  , people will come and find fossilized wellies and feet !
  So back home ,after two weeks of heavy rain the shale still has not washed off !
I had to scrape it off and then brush off the rest with an old nail brush ........
.....and ...do you know what ? !.......I think that it might just be bone !
 I have found lots of vertebrae here ichthyosaur and one huge plesiosaur vertebrae,  but this I will need some help in identifying .
   Very excited ! I will take it to the museum in Lyme Regis next time we are there....or maybe someone can identify it for me on here  ?

Passiflora caerulea

We had a bit of frost this morning , but it didn't last long ...and the sun is shining in that big old blue sky . I,m walking around my garden and watching the bees on the last flowers of the year .
  I am always surprised at how this Passion Flower Vine , Passiflora caerulea  keeps going well into Winter !     Such a beautiful flower .

Mending Teddy

Today Grandma Daisy Debs had to put on her nurses apron and see what she could do for poor Teddy !  One sad little boy , showed me a hole in Teddy's foot pad , from where tiny white plastic pellets were escaping !
  My daughter had thought that I,d forgotten , but I had n't and I know she will be pleased when I give her ,the baby's own book that I kept for her all these years .She can compare notes with her new baby ....Inside it , I had put in one of her first little ballet shoes....and in that brown envelope is a lock of her long , long blonde hair. I used to put in in two plaits pinned up on top of her head and tied with a pink ribbon . .... aah .....memories ...

A long time ago  , Grandma Daisy worked as a little shop girl in the most beautiful shop in London .....Libertys .   So I have always loved pretty Liberty Tana Lawn and have used it to make pretty dresses both for myself and my two girlies ...always saving any scraps  for appliqué and patchwork.
    I cut a tiny scrap to cover the repair  , thus making a pretty " visible mend " ..I think Tom of Holland should be proud of me ...his wonderful journal is all about making " visible mends " to wear as a badge of honour ,so to speak . I love his website..do look him up !

     ..and then I stitched him a tiny love heart . Grandma Daisy loves her little Harry !

                                         Oh ! Teddy !    Now you're famous !

Labyrinth Update

So today I gave the labyrinth a tidy up. My husband has been doing it all this year while I,ve been poorly..he'd bought a new but rubbish lawnmower . I cant even see how to adjust the height on this . I do the pathway on the lowest setting and the walls on the highest setting usually , but I,m exhausted after cutting the pathway . I,m exhausted from all the walking up and down the beach at Charmouth ,carrying rocks !  Also , I forgot to tell you about the amazing Yvette Cowles  Joyful Dance - African Dance Workshop that I attended last Sunday Jamaican Reggae and Samba Reggae..beautiful African music and Afro Brazilian and fun fun fun Azonto from Ghana .Cant wait till Yvette comes again !
...So you see ....I am aching just a little bit ...in a good way though ...and I have a dance class tonight too . I have really pushed myself this week .... everyone needs to dance..its so good for you !

 The weather ......Barney...wasn't so bad ...We had a hot chocolate ,coffee and delicious shortbread biscuits up in the Polurrian Hotel Conservertory, the wind was howling away up there , but here we are a little bit sheltered and looking around the garden , everything seems fine .

 Look !  There are flowers on my Purple Raspberry bush Glen Coe  . ....and it still has petals after Storm Barney passed through !

                    If I have any stamina left .......this is my job for tomorrow .

Wild ' n' Windy Weather

The weather is certainly changing here in Cornwall. This is the wild sea at beautiful Poldhu Cove.

I haven't been away for a holiday for a year and a half due to being so poorly...yes..I know its lovely here and I,m very lucky to live here.....but I do love a bit of Dinosaur Hunting and one of my favourite places for this is Charmouth . Contrary to what people say, you can find fossils here in Cornwall.....I found a nice piece of fossil wood , a foot long piece of a pine tree branch, nicely preserved on our own Poldhu Beach and a big " devil's toe-nail  " on a beach down at Lands End .....poorly preserved Trilobites at a beach on the North side of the Lizard....but for prehistoric sea creatures..the place to take the children is Charmouth .

.........and at this time of the year..dogs are welcome too !

Here we are arriving in Charmouth,... little dawg recognises where we are and is practically jumping onto the dashboard of the car in excitement !

.......turn left and there is a car park right by the beach ....and loos ...Charmouth Heritage Centre and fossil shop with amazing Icthyosaur  in a glass tank at the back of the shop...and lots of gemstones and big fossils  and little fossils for you to buy ...,in case you
dont find any ......

                                          .......but you almost certainly will !

 We stayed in the lovely  ,near by village of Wootton Fitzpaine ....it seems that every where you look there are Bronze Age settlements. The sun rising through the drifting mist is just so beautiful !
My only complaint was that I would have liked to have had one fish'n'chip meal during our holiday but the Charmouth Fish'n'chip shop was shut every time we went ! : (
 I brought my crewel embroidery with me ..oh ..I take this everywhere with me and have been doing this for pretty much most of this year...but I will speak more of this over on my new journal  Cornish Piskie Stitches .

So in my large handbag I am carrying this crewel project and three bags of crewel wool and in my DMC Embroidery Travel bag I have packed another project that my clever little grandson designed .....and that I am stitching up as a little surprise Christmas gift for my daughter . I,m having so much sweet fun stitching this in perle cotton  embroidery threads , in the colours of his original picture .

             I love the way children pretty much all do these radial , big headed ,  happy  stick people !

We found a few fossils , tiny pyrites ammonites , broken belemnites , a broken piece of Ichthyosaur tooth and a bag of rocks for further investigation when we get home .

Did some more , then added lots of yellow French knots to give it a bit more sparkle .

On the way home , we drove out of our way to go and see Stonehenge....I,m glad that I took this photo as we approached it on the motorway , as when we got there they were closing and you cant see it from the new entrance . Fed up !
Then briefly rejoiced as we approached my favourite ring of trees on the hill , my heart sinking to see another bloody windmill ruining the view . How come the people here allowed this  , in such a beauty spot ? !!!

.......and then this ...so much of Bodmin Moor is now being ruined ...this is the Temple Fishery and Dozemary Pool area ...and as you are driving out of Cornwall the view of Rough Tor and all the surrounding  ancient moors will never be the same again .

 So then I took pictures of the trees.....thinking maybe to embroider a tree ....

......or thirty trees on a hill....without a windmill  : )

Aah ! ...good to get home and find my Schlumbergeras beginning to bloom . Yes , I have a thing for Gasterias too !
  Then to finish off that embroidery ....

 Yes I used a vintage arm chair cover  , flipped it over to iron on the wrong side down over a towel . Cut off the excess with the useless scissors that I bought cheap on ebay and wont make the same mistake again .

                  Press down edges over the cardboard  backing of the frame ....

                      lace up the back and neaten by stitching a scrap of fabric over.

                   
                                          another quick press with the iron......

                                                               Ta daah !
               Thats  another Christmas present done ! Very happy me !
Well tonight Storm Barney is on the way . I,ve closed up the cold frame and moved plants into their shelter zones....I hope my old greenhouse will still be there in the morning ,or else I,ll have to bring the entire cactus collection indoors !
  Hope you are cosy and warm where you are !   love Daisy Debs  : ) x