Wish we had smelly vision

Been into the garden doing a bit of snapping this evening, these are the results.

Wish we had smelly vision so you could appreciate the smell of these Night Scented Stock they are beautiful on an evening. Not much to look at during the day the flowers seem to wither up but they come into their own on a night.

Carrie, your Nasturtiums are taking over the wall, growing like mad and we now have flowers.

I quite like this photo I think it shows the veins and the Stamens very well. 

and of course Bert was there watching me. He sat very still with his bum on the back of the seat as he usually does, he likes to be comfy! He sits and watches for people walking past the fence with their dogs and then suddenly shoots off to see them or he peers into the bedroom window to see what you are doing, more often that not he is watching to see if you are getting ready to take him for his walk.



Such a big softie.

Friendly Plastic Box

Picked up a couple of little wooden boxes from the Works in the Metro Centre the other day, I think they were £1.99 and thought 'I could do something with these'. Just what had not occurred to me at that time. I decided instead of using clay I would cover the whole thing in Friendly Plastic.

So I painted my box using the Precious Metal Blackberry paint, (my favourite), and preceded to cut and shape the plastic. I wasn't sure if it would stick to the box and in hindsight I did not need to paint the box in it's entirety as I ended up covering the whole thing.

I cut out a border of red and laid it around the edge of the box and melted it into place just to give a firm edging to place the smaller tiles against and used a metal skewer to put in the markings.

I laid the small tiles in the middle and blasted them with the heat gun and smoothed them over with my finger covered in Badgers Balm which is excellent as both a healing balm for dry hands and can act as a lubricant when used for clay etc. I always put a coating of this on my tools when working it helps minimise the drag when pulling the plastic or clay.

I then did the sides of the lid covering the edges with silver foil before melting them onto the box and continued the markings for the border onto the sides. Decision time now. Do I cover the whole box or leave it at that. My enjoyment of playing with the plastic won over and I went for the whole box.

I cut the sides to shape and again covered the edges with silver foil, melted them with the gun and then stamped into the soft plastic. The only difficulty with this is when moving onto another part you can melt the adjacent bits. I ended up covering other exposed bits with an old heat resistant mat cut into bits. It gave a little protection from the gun.

I added the little Tim Holtz lock to the front, just pushing it into the melted plastic and the key to the top.

Quite a colourful little box. I will line the inside with felt and I may put feet on, not decided as yet.

This is the start of my New York Skyline Box.

The pieces have just been cut out and placed on the top of the box then melted.

Then the indents to look like windows.

I will add more details of how it develops at a later date.





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Everything in the Garden is Blooming

Everything is blooming nicely in the garden it must be down to all the rain we have had lately, can't be down to my green fingers!

My first tomato's, think I have about 4 so far. We may get one salad out of them if they ripen.

Carrie's Nasturtiums are coming on, no flowers as yet but they are climbing upwards.

Can't wait for the Night Scented Stocks to flower the smell is lovely.

This basket has gone mad and branched out all over the place.

One of the baskets that hang by the front door.

One of my Pumpkin plants, I didn't have anywhere to put them in the back garden so they are residing in the front borders. I have about 5 of them all growing nicely. Anybody got any good ideas on how to stop the snails getting them once the fruit starts to grow.





A Week in Menorca

Just come back from a nice relaxing week in Menorca. We stayed in Cal'n Bosch quite near to the harbour in a little complex of bungalows.

It was very very quiet, just what you need. No noise at all. The pool area was quiet till about 5.30 pm and then it got a little busy, when I say busy there were 2-3 people at any one time.

Mainly Spanish families were staying there and I believe only one other English couple other than ourselves and our friends who we holidayed with.

A nice relaxing drink down at the harbour which was lined with restaurants from every part of the world.

The bungalows that were home to us for the week. They were basic but had everything you needed for a nice stay. It was very well kept with lawns all around looking very spruce.

My hair had a mind of it's own, nothing I did could keep it straight so curly I had to be for the whole week. This is me with my chicken kebab. I have never seen it served in this way, much better than how we present it. It sort of hung there and had a wine bottle cork to stop the chicken and veggies from falling off the skewer. I really enjoyed it.

We visited Ciutadella one day and viewed all the historic buildings. Ciutadella was originally named by the Carthagians, who called it Jamma, and was the original capital of Menorca until the British came along in 1772 and made Mahon the capital. But Ciutadella still remains the religious capital of Menorca. We drove past the new statue, on the roundabout on the new city bypass. It is a magnificent statue of a rearing stallion and symbolises the famous Ciutadella fiesta, Fiesta de San Juan. I didn't manage a photograph unfortunately as we zoomed past it on the local bus.

Roaming the streets of Ciutadella.

The long narrow inlet which forms the harbour of Ciutadella Menorca (Es Port) was once an important trading port. Today the harbour is filled with yachts easily outnumbering the few remaining fishing boats. The quays around the harbour are lined with restaurants. Ciutadella is still an active port and you can watch all the fishermen unload their catches further along the quays.

Garden Time

A few gardening quotes:

Gardening is a matter of your enthusiasm holding up until your back gets used to it. ~ Author Unknown

Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden.  ~ Orson Scott Card

Coffee.  Garden.  Coffee.  Does a good morning need anything else?  ~Betsy Cañas Garmon, www.wildthymecreative.com

I think the second quote is very apt!

I have been spending time in the garden lately, potting up a lot of flowers. It is something that I did every year at one time then somehow got out of the habit. Thankfully I have got back into the habit. There is nothing nicer than borders or containers full of blooms on a nice summers evening. With the addition of a nice comfy seat to sit and contemplate them.

Carrie very kindly swapped some nasturtiums for some pumkin plants. Give them a couple of weeks and they should be climbing hell for leather up the trellis. The pot beside it is full of lettuce seeds so they should grow and be ready to pick within a month.

I really packed this wall basket with Petunias, it should be stunning when all the flowers are out. Will take some photo's of it in bloom.

My three tomato plants are growing well, not sure how long before they will develop fruit. It's the first time I have grown them. I did have two cucumber plants but sadly they both died. Saves me shouting at Bert, I am sure he would have eaten them. I will have to watch the tomato's, he's partial to those too.

The baskets are growing well, it must be the chicken manure I put in the bottom.

The comfy seat to contemplate the garden and Bert to watch over them.

Only trouble with this is he drops all the grass and twigs etc as he comes running back into the house. The hoover is never away!

Of all the places to build.....................

We got up a couple of weeks ago and found a bird had been very active during the night building their nest. No problem I hear you say, unfortunately they chose to build it on top of the hose pipe outside the back door. Now with the best will in the world it was never going to get any peace and quiet raising a family there.

So I did the only thing I could and took it away. Cruel I hear you say..... but weight up the facts. Bert likes to sit and watch the world go by not two feet away from where it was and the hosepipe is constantly in use for watering the garden and washing the cars. Bert would have had a field day trying to catch it, he constantly has a battle with the Wood Pigeons in the back garden. They sit on a branch a geode him till he goes for the kill then they up and away leaving him flustered and confused.

You can just see the bird leaving another mouthful of twigs. It must have taken them a good while to get it to that stage.

The next morning the whole nest  was back again. Built to the same standard, so once again I had to take it away. To make sure it did not happen the next morning we fashioned a ski slope out of cardboard and fixed it to the back of the hose. They must have build another pretty near as they are often in the front garden. I caught the male of the species hopping under the back wheel of the car and thought ' oh no, not there, they can't have built there'. So we were on our hands and knees just in case. They hadn't thank goodness, he must have just hopped in out of the rain.







Wedding Fayre

Hi

I am going to try and get back into blogging using this blog. Please bear with me if I bore you to death.

Weddings of Clay is taking up a lot of my time, but hey, time is what I have in abundance at the moment so I am not complaining.

Lynn and I took a stand at Whitworth Hall Wedding Fayre in April. We made some good contacts and things are starting to happen.

We enjoyed the day but did have a little to say to the organiser at the finish concerning their advertising leading up to the event and their signage at the event! We have not decided as yet which Fayres to do in the Autumn a lot depends on price and location.

But nothing ventured nothing gained.