August again

The garden is looking pretty rough and ready just now but there is still some colour about.









This corner border is not that old but the shrubs are a good size now. I am still developing the back and you will see a picture of any progress in the Autumn/Winter.



Potentillas grow like weeds and self-seed in Northumberland. At this time of the year they seem to take over as they grow fast. I will be cutting them back in the autumn.























One of the many Hostas, with very few slug holes. Is this due to so many birds? Or the hedgehogs? Or both?

This particular rose has taken off this year and has been marvellous. It is past its best now, though. Isfahan was amazing in late June, with its lovely scent, but there are only very few flowers left now

The herbaceous borders are fairly colourful just now

The Astilbe is showing no sign of drought as I watered it earlier, and we have had plenty of rain lately

The wander round comes to an end, sitting in peace, listening to the birds and enjoying the part of the garden to be seen from here. I am waiting to see if the Clematis will flower again. It is certainly growing well

Flowers mostly - July

Today, I have done a tour of the garden, only altering the order of the pictures so that you could compare the view of the arbour with May's


The variegated cornus lights up a dark corner. It looks a little odd here - the sun has produced a very white colour.The reason I went out with my camera was the Kolkwitzia, which is more solidly covered than it has ever been. Unfortunately, the Seneccio has suffered somewhat in the middle - I think there must have been damage from the weight of the snow that is only now becoming obvious.

Did someone mention slugs? I think that the hedgehogs and the birds must be keeping them under control. No copper is used at all and only organic slug pellets in the kitchen garden. This is one of a large number of Hostas in the garden and they are all clear, so far.

Here is Isfahan, looking as good as it is likely to. It goes a bit scrappy later. I wish I could add scent to the blog.

The Primular is doing very well this year by the pond, though I seem to have lost the rest of them.

I planted the 'ball' hedgeling to mark the end of the shrub bed, above steps leading down to the door onto the Village Green. At last they are joining up and beginning to make a mark .

Penelope arrived early in my time here, and she still pleases me. After losing a large, taller piece last year, she is flowering well.

One of my many pleasures as I walk round the garden, or when I need a rest from working, is to sit in the arbour, listen to and watch the birds and enjoy this view.

The Pyracantha, that fell flat on its face a few years ago, has never had so much blossom. I look forward to the mass of orange berries that should come in the autumn.

There used to be a columnier conifer planted in front of the down-comer and the rose. I only managed to get it removed when there was a leak and it needed to dry out! The rose is very ancient, but it survived and this year, what there is of it is flowering bravely.


The roses the other side of the door are old too and nearly had their come-uppence a few years ago. I decided to try cutting them back almost to the ground and now look at them!

So here, at the end of the walk, I turn back to look at the arbour. You can see the same picture at the beginning of the pevious blog - things have grown a bit!

May Garden

My May garden is a little short of colour, but there have been developments that have not appeared on my blog. We have bought an Arbour and have placed it as an exclamation point at the end of the path through the herbaceous borders.

I have just planted a Clematis Josaphine on one side and a Rose Lavinia on the other. I am hoping that they will climb over and flower and generally cheer us up.

I am already sitting on the seat and enjoying the silence, or bird song and just 'chilling out'

Nearby is this Osmanthus delavayi. It is covered in flowers and has a lovely scent. There is another small one, which is flowering nicely, but I need it to grow.In the path is this Saxifrage. I have reduced the clums enormously, as it spreads and spreads. It had taken over the path, but now I want a bit of order!

This is a lovely patch of yellow by the pond. I found a frog, while cleaning the pond a few days ago. I do not know where the toad is that appeared in the middle of the dining room and which I put by the pond.

I like the brightness of this shrub in front of the Ribes.

Here is the Old English Rose border, that you meet as you enter the garden, with geraniums and aubretia growing below. I hope that I shall be able to post picture later, with roses out.

And to finish, this is Withy's joke. A Salix grafted onto presumably a Salix wand. The shoots have to be cut hard back after the catkins die. Is it a tree, with giant daffs or the other way round?

Early April in the Garden

I have a great shortage of colour in what should be a lovely spring garden. As in many places, we are about a month behind. I have taken pictures of what I have got. First, though, here is the new project.
The Pagoda Arbour was delivered this morning. It forms a long needed focal point at the end of the path between the herbaceaus borders. Before, along the wall was a Russian Vine. It was meant to hang over the wall, but first the East wind blew it in, then the snow came and flattened it to half its height. This was the trigger to my getting it out and doing a bit of re-designing. The second picture gives a good idea of the area it covered - from the left of the arbour to the conifer. It was kept in check by vigorous pruning. It did the task for which it was planted - it filtered the winds that hit the wall.

Now we come to the flowers in bloom at the moment.

This Helibore is one of several. There is a dark mauve one that is no good for photographing, as its heads hang down even more than this one.I thought I should include this picture of death! You have seen its wonderful sunny presence before, as it lit a darkish spot by the little gate from the stable yard to the main garden. I dare say it will come again from the bottom if I cut it back, but it would be more sensible to start again. I just hope the old tub that it is in stands up to the change-over

The little daffodils should have been out over a month ago. Today, two days after this picture they are almost making it.

A couple of clumps of crocus. I have very few left - I think the mice eat them. I must make a resolution to plant more, as I love them.

Last, but not least, we have these Hyacinths. They were grown for Christmases several years ago and this year they are better than ever. And really hardly late at all. Funny things plants!

Mid-March garden

At the beginning of the month the only thing in flower was the Hamamelis and a few snowdrops. Now the weather has changed and there is a sea of snowdrops, a few Helibores and Crocuses and my lovely little Irises.

The Hamamelis is beginning to go over but it has earned its keep and I have already given it a top-dessing of some left-over ericaceous compost.

A Walk to Moot Law

It is a gorgeous, cold, sunny day here in Northumberland - just the weather to go for a good walk, though the boundless views that are to be found here were somewhat spoilt by mistiness.

I set off going south from the village up a hill to the site of an old WW2 Observation Post. The post is marking the place where the underground room has been filled in. Just beside it is the sheet of corrugated cement that was part of the roof

I turned left towards the very top of one of the largest quarries in Northumberland, which was mothballed towards the end of last year. Since then this bit of it has filled with water, which makes it quite beautiful. When it finally closes, much of the area will be reinstated as grazing land, but there will be an area at the very tip as a large pond or small lake nature reserve. As the Quarry extended outwards, they had reinstated as they went, so much of it is grazing already.

Looking to the SW, the fault line marks the end of the limestone that they are quarrying. On the other side of the dip, the Whinstone starts. It runs from Holy Island and right across to the Pennines, with the Roman Wall following its Northern edge for quite a long way. Kirkheaton stands on it and as it is an extremely hard rock, it is very difficult digging graves in the Church Yard!! It does mean that they are never going to want to bring the quarry any nearer to the village, though.

Having taken pictures of the frozen quarry, I walked south again, on an ancient road which was once the route to Hexham. Mr Bowman, at the very end of the 1800's, took his horse and cart that way on market days and took stuff either way for a fee. That little business is now Proudlock's Transport, with great big lorries parked at the bottom of the village and carrying livestock all over the north of England and southern Scotland. From little acorns..... Three of his grandsons still work in the business. The road has not been a proper track for a very long time.

The road has been cut by the quarry and is not seen again until you reach the B road that passes the gate to the quarry at its southern extremity. The very last of it here is at Kirkheaton Gate, where it crossed the Parish boundary. There is still an old gatepost to be seen. I remember when the gate was still there and the track went on. It is sad when historical things like that go.

Here the right of way goes on the outside of the Parish Boundary towards the West. I followed it to the end of the quarry and then cut across up the hill to Moot Law. Here are both the holding tank for our water supply and a medieval platform for a beacon.

The water supply is fed by an aqueduct from 3 different reservoirs, one on the Scottish Border, near to Carter Bar. It goes down to the Whittle Dean Treatment works, between the A69 and the Military Road. I don't know who else it supplies, but part of it is pumped up to the tank on Mootlaw and it then finds its own way down to Kirkheaton, on to Ingoe and Ryal and Matfen. Ironically, the aqueduct passes through Matfen. Ours is the first house on the supply line since they renewed the pipes in about 2000. We were last on the line before that. We now have a really decent pressure and clean water!!!

I walked across to the Beacon site from the tank, just a hundred yards or so. There is a large square platform with a well marked edge. Just in from the edge is a trig point at 258 metres (838 ft), the highest point anywhere in the vicinity. (The village is at 220m/715ft) This is why there is a 365 degree view . It is only spoilt by a strip of wood immediately to the east. Starting from the sea (which I could not see because of poor visibility) and coming round to the north, you see the Simonside Hills and The Cheviot, both covered in snow. On round to the west are the Pennines and then down to the Lake District hills, across the Pennines again and to the Durham hills and round past Newcastle and its surroundings back to the coast which is here hidden by the trees. It was no good trying to photo the view, partly because of the visibility and also because the hills are so far away that they would not make a good picture without specialist equipment.

In the centre of the platform is an irregular mound which is presumably the structure that was used for the beacon.

After that, I turned for home, still a good walk away, down, along, up, along and down to the the gate that I had come through at the start.

Bereavement Visiting Training

I have just completed Bereavement Visiting Training and have a certificate to prove it.

We were a happy group of people. I suppose that the fact that we gelled so well was because we all had the desire to help people who were having trouble getting to grips with a loss. We had all had our own losses of various degrees of awfulness. The really surprising thing was how quickly we came to trust each other. On the first day we had a practical exercise, when we had to tell a story that had happened to us - another was a 'listener' and the third an observer. Even on that occasion, some very deep tales were told. The listening bit is the most important part of being a bereavement visitor. This pattern of excercise was often repeated. The speaker either told something of importance to themselves or played the part of someone who had a problem eg had got stuck and was not progressing through the mourning process. The listener was the one who was learning. It was a bit hair-raising sometimes. It gave you a hint as to what you might meet for real and could you cope? The observer and the speaker gave positive criticism after. I learnt that I could listen fine but there were weaknesses in the process after that. I know that I will be able to do better for real after those excercises.

We spent much time over the training period brainstorming various things such as 'what is a good/bad death', why are some people having trouble grieveing, various complictions in grief, what make good listening, handling silence. A knowledge of grief and the process of mourning and the many things that can get in the way are all helpful when trying to be helpful. The most important thing that we had to learn was that we were not there to advise or make it better. We are there to listen (always needed by someone in mourning) and to enable the mourner to make progress.

I now wait, with some trepidation, for my first call to visit.