Tea anyone and everyone?

Put down your gardening tools! There is no time for work. It is time for tea!


First find a nice secluded table in the shade and look at the menu...

Place an order for two chicken salads and two cups of Earl Grey tea...

But Saskia also bought a cherry walnut muffin for us to share. And look who we shared it with! Can't you see him?

And now?

He flew away after eating the crumbs but muffin paper blew to the ground by my feet and the chickens came running (pardon my leg) ...

You are not allowed to feed the animals but could I help it that a few crumbs fell???

We even had a regal visit from this peacock...

Saskia says they peeked in her garden as she has a ladder with old tea kettles on it too...

This handsome fella joined us for tea. Rover sat with Saskia (now pardon Saskia's leg) and munched on our toast and grapes from our salad...

We visited the shop at the tea gardens but I will share my pretty new buys in my next post...

In the meantime, these little ones waved goodbye...

It was time for "Home, sweet home". What a fun afternoon!

Nothing like a challenge.....

Last week I discovered Margot's blog through a challenge she is hosting for this year. As some of you who read my blogs regularly may have realized, my favorite books or writers influence some of what I do in my house and garden. Remember my showing you my own version of The Secret Garden which influenced how I created the garden we have? I had already planned to blog about Louisa May Alcott but being part of this challenge to do so over the course of 2010 will be great fun. And I hope to learn more about her along the way...

The All Things Alcott challenge:

If you accept this challenge, please follow these guidelines:

1. Between May 1^st and the end of the year (2010), choose one or more Alcott related things to do (see #2). In the spirit of Louisa May Alcott, each participant will set his/her own course in this challenge. You choose one or as many Alcott related items as you wish.
2. You will also determine the contents of your challenge. As long as it is Alcott related, you may choose books, audiobooks, DVDs, movies, TV shows, a play or live theater. Anything by or about Louisa May Alcott is the intention of the challenge.
3. It’s not necessary to compile a list at the beginning of the challenge. I’m hoping this will lead me to discover new items I haven’t even heard about.
4. It’s perfectly okay if this challenge overlaps with other challenges.

“I will do something by and by. I’ll be rich and famous and happy before I die, see if I won’t.”

~ The words of Louisa May Alcott

Recently, I had picked back up an old stitching project to finish. I like to try and link my reading to my stitching or quilting. I decided it was finally time to take my book "Flower Fables" off the shelf and read it as I stitch. If you want more glimpses of the stitching, you can go here to my other blog.

This was Louisa's first published book in 1854. She gave advance copies as Christmas gifts to friends one of whom she dedicated the book. The dedication reads...

To

ELLEN EMERSON,

For whom they were fancied, these

FLOWER FABLES

Are inclined, by her friend,

The Author

Boston, Dec. 9, 1854

And what a joy these fairy stories are to read! The excite the child in all of us. Sweet tales of goodness and the beauty it creates. There could be no better read as Midsummer Eve arrives in June which is a time full of fairy magic.

There are 34 beautiful illustrations to this little edition. When I purchased mine, a portion of the proceeds were to go to Orchard House which is the Alcott house. I understand the book is scheduled to be back in print again this year.

Excerpt from "Fairy Song":

"The moonlight fade from flower and tree,

And the stars dim one by one;

The tale is told, the song is sung,

And the Fairy feast is done.

The night-wind rocks the sleeping flowers,

And sings to them, soft and low.

The early birds erelong will wake:

'Tis time for the Elves to go."

This book is a must for children, young and old...

for those who love Louisa May Alcott...

or for those who love fairy stories in the summertime!

Click on the sidebar challenge button to find more blog posts about Louisa May Alcott...

Flea market anyone?

Now I not one to visit the local 'rommelmarkt' (flea market) that is held weekly at our cottage. I think most of what is there is just junk. But when I asked Jos on Saturday morning if he wanted to stop at the flea market before going to the grocery store, he did not have to think twice.

There was still a good deal of stuff there that I thought I would never find anything worth while. I have been searching for very small cut glass vases and have been very unsuccessful in finding them. And then...in the midst of the junk I did find a few treasures. This book is so decorative. A dealer might tear it apart for the beautiful prints it contains. I bought it for 2 euro.

These two regency miniatures are not real of course but that does not diminish their beauty. I am considering whether I should carefully paint the frames black. What do you think?

No little vases as the only one I really liked was very expensive and the woman would not bring the price down. Oh how Jos loves to haggle the prices down! He did however get the price down for these two pieces of glass to only 1,50 euro for both. A little cut glass jug and a very heavy depression glass dish with a gillyflower. They are both so beautiful. I am going to enjoy using them.

Maybe I will have to rethink my opinion of that market and stop in more often?

The forget me not garden...

Our garden at Cranberry Cottage has a number of flowers that are not for the faint hearted gardener. The are plants to seed themselves each year and surprise you are to where they decide to reside in that coming season. Some of these are foxgloves, aquilegia and forget me nots. The forget me nots are in full season now. What started as one small plant has become a field of dainty blue blossoms all over our garden.

They invade this winding path to the side of the garden this year but I have decided we will just have to step over them until the blossoms fade and reseed themselves. This photo was taken at the earliest time of the season and forget me nots had not yet started to bloom. Now the path is blue and makes me smile. In the Victorian 'language of flowers', the forget me not is the symbol of true love. Perhaps a must for any passionate garden?

Our blueberry bush is full of little green berries this year. We never see them turn to blue as the birds have long enjoyed them as a feest before we can even see them...

The old rhododendron bush put on a glorious show again this year. It really likes the soil of our garden on the edge of the woods. We planted 4 very tiny new bushes we purchased for only 1,75 euro each at Aldi. We thought since they were not expensive, we would chance it and see if they would grown. To our surprise this year, they are all four still extremely small but full of blossoms.

This hebe bush has a look of heather which is why I placed it in our garden when we started to plant it. I wish I had written down the variety and no longer know what it is called. Does anyone happen to know?

Our garden sign was so faded that you could no longer read it. The wire to hang it had rusted away. So I brought it home with me and we put new wire on it and searched for some paint. We only had black on hand but I still love how it came up. Now it is ready to greet friends for a few seasons to come once again...

Doors to another time...

Have you ever walked in a village and really looked at the doors. It is a favorite pastime of mine along with windows. They are the face of a home while the windows are like eyes watching out or in. A beautiful door can smile and say 'Welcome, knock and come inside'.

We have been on vacation this month in the charming mediaeval city of Quedlinburg in Germany's Harz region. Come take a walk with me and we can explore the doors and see what they say to us...

This door is quite elegant. There must be a graceful lady living behind it?

This door needs some major tender loving care. This home is for sale so will you be the one to love it back to life?

A door inside a castle dating back to the 900s made of iron. If only this door could talk! Yes, I did say 900s which means this door has seen many people and much history...

'A small key opens big doors'

~ Turkish proverb

A door of great importance!

Or a door for a family home...

' The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.'

~ Flora Whittemore

Never were wiser words spoken. So perhaps we should think more before we open or shut a door each day.

A door to a tower...and we are choosing a new front door among the shopping list for things for our new home. I will be sharing my wish list and some items we bought soon. I think it is going to be fun to decorate around my new front door and make it say 'Welcome!'.

Wonders of wisteria!

Each year, I am thrilled all over again at the sight of our wisteria blossoms. This year is poignant for us as it is the last time to enjoy them here in our secret garden. Today, the couple who bought our home (yes, we sold the house) stopped over to sign the contracts. They have until June 7th to arrange a mortgage and the sale is final. We opened to door to them this morning smiling and declaring how beautiful the garden looks. I am thrilled, needles to say, that they love it and will not be changing it. My heart is in our garden. You can read about it on my old blog here.

In the Language of Flowers, wisteria means welcome. What a fitting this to see then from our street coming up to the garden gate.

This view is what inspired my love for this beautiful purple blossom. This is the view from Dorothy Wordsworth's window at Rydal Mount in the Lake District. I just loved visiting modest Dove Cottage which was the first house she lived in with her brother, the poet William Wordsworth and later in the regal Rydal Mount. I decided at that moment that I wanted a garden with this amazing vine! I could just picture Dorothy looking out through the flowers.

I purchased her Lakeland Journals at a little bookshop in Grasmere and was not disappointed. It is fun to read about every day movements of people in another time. She was an amazing woman and support to her brother.

So I too sit at my window as I write this entry to you enjoying my wisteria even against a very cloudy sky. Each year, Mother Nature gives us this gift anew.

I ponder how I will make changes to our new garden when we have it and how I will be fitting in a couple of these vines into the scheme. Seeing these makes me sad to leave them but I also feel happy at the prospect of designing a new garden as we set up our new home.

Giddy over gillyflowers.....

I love old fashioned flowers! In the last few years, the carnation or gillyflower has become a very favorite among them. This was always my mother's favorite flower but as a child I never gave it much thought. But have you ever really looked at one of these blooms?

It is beauty itself! I prefer the British simple small bloom which they refer to as pinks. I remember watching the Chelsea Flower show one year and a grower talked about how Americans have turned them into big blousey flowers. It makes you smile to hear how he described what some carnations have become but I do love the delicateness of a small, old fashioned pink.

As I walk past my table, I get the fresh clover scent of these little gems. The color is vibrant and yet there is also something very modest about these little flowers. Perhaps it is because it is a flower that has fallen out of favor over time as the modern world wants more dramatic flowers such a the rose or lily. But no...give me this unsung little blossom in a simple bouquet that cannot help but cheer you as you enter a room.

Did you know that carnations we used by the Greeks in ceremonial wreaths and garlands? The name is derived from 'corno' which means floral garland.

Or that the latin name Dianthus caryophyllus is because the Athenians honored carnations by calling them Di-anthos meaning 'flowers of jove'?

Or that Mary shed tears at the plight of Jesus and carnations sprang up from where her tears fell?

Or they are referred to as gillyflowers due to their clover like scent along with wallflowers, sweet William, sweet rocket, valerian among others?

Or they were an essential part of the ornamental Tudor garden?

"the fairest flowers o' the season

Are our carnations, and streak'd gilly-flowers"

~ William Shakespeare