Ruth's blog: Flowers

Showing posts with label Flowers. Show all posts

Monday, 10 October 2016

Where have I been?

I know it's been a very long time since I posted anything...apologies but it's been a very busy summer!!

We had a wonderful road & camping trip to the Black Forest in Germany to see my brother, sister-in-law & 3 nieces. The youngest nieces are twins that were born earlier in the year so it was our first time to meet them & have lots of cuddles. Plus my brother & his family hadn't yet met our youngest neither. We also became Godparents to the twins & had a lovely day with all the family at the Christening at a little chapel high in the mountains.

Heidelberg

Black Forest

Only a few weeks after returning from our holiday my mum suddenly passed away, which was quite a shock for us all, but meant I was very pre-occupied with all the arrangements & grieving.

In memory of mum

August brought my return to work after nearly 7 months off, which has been a big adjustment for us all.

Hence, I'm sure you can now understand why the blog has been a little neglected. But I now have some wonderful new recipes to share with you, especially as we have now all become vegetarians I have even trying out lots of new foods & recipes.

Peas in a pod

Green tomatoes waiting to be made into chutney

On top of that I've been:

Enjoying the garden & more recently harvesting
Learning lots about essential oils & their benefit to health & wellbeing from my sister-in-law Maria in the Wood
Started doing some Christmas crafts in preparation for December coming around much quicker than I'd like to admit!
Looking after my 2 gorgeous little boys :)
And a last minute camping trip to Northumberland enjoying the last of the summer sun in September.

Bamburgh in September

Monday, 13 June 2016

Nappy Flower Bouquet

A great friend is having a baby girl soon. She already has two little boys and is quite excited to be having a little girl, so I had to make her something special...

...the flowers are all made from useful baby items, mainly nappies, but there are socks, baby mitts, muslin cloths...

...and the base is also filled with baby bits - cotton wool balls, more nappies & a little pouch I made to put nappies & baby wipes in for your nappy bag.

For a first attempt I'm pleased with the result.

Monday, 28 December 2015

Is Spring springing early?

I went to the park on one of the few dry days we had last week and was surprised to see Spring flowers springing up!

Sunday, 4 October 2015

Poppies at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Last year there was a magnificent display of ceramic poppies in the moat of the Tower of London. Each poppy represented a man from the Commonwealth who had fallen during World War 1. It was an amazing display and proved very popular. Sadly, I was unable to make the trip to London to see the piece of artwork, but saw many photos of it.

Now, some (not all) of the poppies are touring different places in the UK, one being the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP). As we did not get to London and YSP is on our doorstep we took a trip to see them.

Here are some of my photos from the exhibition...

Friday, 10 April 2015

My First Raised Bed in the Garden

The weather has been glorious and it has been the holidays which means more time to spend in the garden.

I have been wanting a bed to grow some vegetables in this summer and seen as I had planted the seeds already and many were beginning to germinate I needed to find somewhere to plant them out. There was an area at the bottom of our lawn which was south facing and gets lots of sunlight, but it gets rather waterlogged in heavy rain and is full of weeds. A raised bed seemed to be the perfect idea for this area, to avoid the it becoming waterlogged. I knew that I did not have the time to build a permanent raised bed and then I saw this at Tong Garden Centre . . .

. . . it was the perfect solution to my problems. This afternoon was spent digging up the weeds and their roots and turning the soil in preparation for my raised bed - it was hard going but my little companion helped out by getting muddy and enjoying the taste of soil EUGH!

Once it was assembled and secured in the correct place we filled it with 3 bags of compost and watered it, although we're now hoping for some rain to water it more overnight. Once it has been adequately watered we will be ready to get planting :)

The completed bed (excuse the corrugated plastic my husband thought it might help collect water off the shed roof and channel it to my bed for watering purposes!)

The completed raised bed

Wednesday, 8 April 2015

Spring has Sprung in the Garden

Daffodils

Violas

Spring has finally sprung, which is allowing me to get out in the garden. This is the first spring I have lived in a house with a garden, so I am very excited about what we might grow this year. We visited the local garden centre a few weeks ago and I spent lots of my Christmas money on garden equipment including a raised bed, seeds and plants, etc (my husband says I can't go back for a while as I spent too much money!).

Carrots

I have planted:

herb seeds - coriander, basil & parsley
daffodils along the edge of my lawn
blueberry bushes
raspberry canes
runner bean seeds
pea seeds
butternut squash seeds
spinach seeds
a tomato plant
carrots
violas

My windowsill

Many of the potted seeds are sat on my window sill in the conservatory whilst they germinate and I am really enjoying watching new shoots appear most days with the beautiful warm sunny weather we have been having. I cannot wait to get them planted outside especially if this beautiful weather continues.

Blueberry bush

Previously I have not been so successful at growing plants and keeping them alive so this year is my year to prove myself wrong and harvest bumper crops to feed the family!!!

Tomato

Daffodil

Monday, 20 October 2014

The Black Forest in Germany Summer 2014

This summer we visited the Black Forest region of Germany near to Titisee to see my younger brother and his family. Here are some long awaited snaps from our travels...