Rose Vintage

Treasures

Don't know about you but I am a real sucker for fabrics especially vintage ones! The fabrics above are a purchase from Donna and displayed on a quilt I recently bought from Niki.  They all arrived beautifully packaged which of course I cannot show you as I was so impatient to open them! I am in love with the rosebud fabric!

Some lovely buckles from Sue. The idea is to make bags from the fabric and buckles but the garden and house are taking a priority just now. Still it's nice to have things to look forward to.....

And last but not at all least, these little lovelies from Beachy. I bought these to cheer myself up!

Beth Chatto's Garden

 

I don't know if you fellow bloggers feel the same as I do but why am I so surprised when I realise that it's nearly June!!? Where has the time gone? I am feeling a lot better since my last post especially as I have had so many comments from other women telling me how they are all going through the same thing! It made me feel better just realising that you are experiencing the same problems with the menopause as myself. I have now been taking Meno Herbs 2 for about a week and half now and the improvement has been amazing. From having 3/4 flushes an hour, I am now experiencing about the same amount but per DAY! I feel so much better! Last week though I might have been happier to have a flush or two as I visited Beth Chatto's garden on a freezing cold Tuesday that was more like November than May! That said I had a lovely time wandering around the garden with my mother and sister and bought home some unusual plants to plant in my garden. The picture above is from the gravel garden. It used to be a car park until Beth Chatto decided to experiment with drought conditions and the plants that could be grown within that environment. She wanted to be able to grow plants under conditions that the everyday gardeners experience like hose pipe bans and low rainfall such as is experienced in Essex, where the garden is located. I love the colours in the grouping above.

A series of ponds, fed by a spring within a ditch, link the lower garden together. An abundance of greenery along the edge of the ponds, dotted here and there with splashes of colour from candelabra primulas draw the eye along the length of the garden....

The Hosta leaves look as if they are quilted,don't they ? The planting scheme of the garden always looks so effortless as every great garden does I suppose. One thing I took heart from was the fact that every time I go there is always an area undergoing re-planting. I sometimes struggle on with planting schemes in my own garden that don't please me anymore. Often the plants have grown too big for the border so now I think I will take cuttings from them and then replant. At least then I will still have the plant but a somewhat smaller one which is more in keeping with my garden.

The gravel garden again.....

The alpine garden was the most sheltered area in the garden and far more welcoming when the sun came out!  The tree to the left of the picture is a Judas Tree a very pretty pink...

And finally, beautiful blues......

Is it hot in here....

or is it me.....?

This phrase which has been uttered I am sure by many women over the generations, and now by me over the last couple of months, has become my mantra! Yes, it would seem at the tender age ( to me) of 47 I am going through the menopause! I was really not sure about posting about this issue but as it has become a such a part of my life at the moment I felt I should. Not one for taking tablets at anytime unless absolutely vital, I now have the dilemma of finding an alternative to HRT.  This has not been an easy decision. What women would not be influenced by the recent research about the long term effects of taking HRT?  A series of worrying studies – linking HRT to breast cancer, heart disease and strokes – have led to a significant drop both in the duration of time that women are staying on HRT and the number of women taking HRT. So what options are there out there? I started at my favourite site for all things alternative Victoria Health and checked out one of their best sellers, MenoHerbs 2. They suggest  that roughly from the age of thirty four, the ovaries begin to gradually shut down and this phase is termed the perimenopause. Now that explains a lot!  No wonder I've felt like c**p on and off for years! And as Mother Nature ups the anti in the form of hot flushes I find myself seeking out 100% cotton clothing like a women possessed! The merest suggestion of Lycra brings me out in a cold hot sweat! So its goodbye Magic Knickers (but not without some sense of relief ) they always feel a bit like an instrument of torture. Getting the darn things off after an evening out and a glass of wine did involve quite a few acrobatic movements especially when in the bathroom, not wanting my darling husband to see me in them! Finally it would also seem that menopausal symptoms are not all physical. There is a huge change mentally, mostly revolving around how you view yourself as a women. Ugh!   

Venice

Well Venice seems a distant memory now even though we only got back last Thursday! It was good to come back to a Bank Holiday weekend to ease us back into normality even if the weather was pretty awful. Secretly I am always pleased to be back, back to home and garden and all things that make me,me! I am not just talking about material things but my routine and normal life. Ever the creature of habit!

Venice is a like a world apart and in many senses it is. An island on which the only mode of transport has to be a boat of some sort or on foot!  We were recommended by a friend to visit in May to avoid the heat and the smell.   A good move as the temperature was just right and only the occasional whiff of something unpleasant. High summer would not have been a good time to visit! We did all the tourist stuff, visiting St Mark's square, the Doge's palace and the Basilica! The above picture is a stairway in the palace, absolutely beautiful but by the time we had been around the whole thing it seemed quite commonplace! What is it about the senses that once they are saturated by something it then appears to be very ordinary?

There was also an exhibition of John Singer Sargeant's paintings at the museum in St Marks Square, where we spent a cool afternoon admiring his work. That's where I found the wonderful painting by Luigi Nono as per my previous post....

And yes of course we took a gondola ride! Roberto serenaded us through the back waters pointing out important buildings and gave us a potted history of Venice, well worth doing!  He recommended a brilliant trattoria for lunch and we eventually found it after much searching ( and nearly giving up!) and on a rainy Wednesday afternoon enjoyed a fantastic lunch and wine with the locals! We did so many more wonderful things and it is a place I would love to go back to......This is what greeted me when we got home......

The wisteria was just out....not very many blooms this year but good considering we replaced the bridge this year and we had to reduce the whole plant considerably! You can just see the new porch taking shape in the background.....

and my neighbour's black swans came to visit and brought their new arrivals.....

A lovely welcome home !

A Memory of Venice

Just got home, having spent a breathtaking four days in Venice! So what was the most wonderful thing of the whole trip? Well the experience was fabulous, architecture, culture, food etc. all of which I will post loads about in the next few days but this painting, tucked away in a museum in St Marks Square by an artist of whom I had never heard of before, brought tears to my eyes and moved me in way that a painting never has - Abandonment by Luigi Nono......