This And That

 A week of mixed blessings regarding the weather, but finally a beautiful day today with the sun shining brightly.  It really does make a difference to my mood and has already lifted my spirits.  It is wonderful to be able to get out into the garden and not feel cold.  I was able to hang the washing out on the line, a real bonus.  Nothing beats the smell of line dried washing, particularly when it is bedding and towels. Let me give you a quick tour of the pots at the front of the house.  Be prepared once again for a photo heavy post.

Each side of the side entrance door.  Painted rocks from the beach and plants in a pair of old wellies.

Now that we have an improvement in the weather it is my intention to sort the pots out and add a few more from the collection of plants we have been growing from seed to give the front of the cottage a lift and some colour.  I love some of the cheery plant pots, they make me smile.

In other news,  Gerard is a big football fan so is enjoying the football on the TV.  He is having a wonderful time with the banter from the grandsons, it is a joy to listen to them.  Two of my nieces children have Covid with very mild symptoms but still a worry.  The whole family are in quarantine together so it will be interesting to see how many of them get it and indeed how long it takes.

We have been spending time looking at holidays but as yet are unwilling to take the risk with travel.  We have decided to take advantage of the Summer and catch up with family and then relook at going away at a later date.  There are so many mixed messages from government, it makes it difficult to know what the best thing to do is.  Have you made any plans for the Summer?

I will love you and leave you for now, wishing you a beautiful Summer/Winter where ever you are in the world.

See you soon.

Garden Room Tour

 The weather of late has been quite grim, with endless rain and low temperatures.  However, we have had a slight improvement of late and whilst the temperatures are still low for this time of year the rain has slowed and the sun has showed her face.  The grass is in need of a good cut, we are having to use the strimmer as it is so long.  The mower will have its work cut out.

The garden room is in need of a good sort out too, with some plants in need of planting on.  Sadly some seeds not even started as yet. What a difference the weather makes to mood as we make our plans this morning with so much more enthusiasm.  Let me take you on a little tour of the garden room, I will warn you in advance it is a photo heavy post.

Not as much as usual going but we have decided to focus on the positive not the negative.  The tyres we use for beds are doing well.  Let me take you on another tour.

The mint is prolific and needs to be curtailed, it has spread beyond the tyre and needs to be stopped before it takes over.  I have several bunches hanging in the kitchen to dry, as you can imagine it smells beautiful.  The tyres need a good weeding but we are going to focus on the grass for now, slow but steady.

In other news, it should have been freedom day in England today but due to rise in numbers and a new variant of Covid this has now been delayed.  The vaccine programme is doing so well both in Scotland and in England, it is hoped that this will help and have a positive effect.

I will close for now and thank each and everyone of you for your visit and as always for your uplifting comments.  I need to rush and get ready for my aerobics class which has now started up again.  It is so nice to chat and see other people.  A touch of normality beginning to return to our lives, which has been a long time coming.  Take care.

See you soon.

The Beauty Of A Rainbow

 Time has flown by once again.  Our little cottage is now back to normal, clean and tidy after the departure of our visitors.  It is so quiet, so the radio has been on quite loud for a couple of days to compensate.  All the linen for the beds and towels have been washed, dried and ironed, all ready for our next lot of visitors.  I have all kept myself busy in the kitchen batch cooking for the freezer.  I have also made a start on drying out some of the herbs ready for Winter stews and casseroles.  We have had an amazing crop of rhubarb this year, so I have cooked several batches ready for crumbles later in the year.  The garden is a little slower than usual in producing salad crops, I think that may have been the awful weather we had in May.  We have had several days of sun and it is starting to look a lot better, so I am hopeful for a good crop.

We did have a wander around the garden centre when we did our trip to town last week.  We came back with a beautiful lavender plant, which is smelling divine already.  I do miss the lavender we had in our old garden so it is nice to have it back in our herb garden.

I am blessed with a wonderful son in law who is good with technology so both the computer and my phone is now back up and running.  I am now having problems with my camera and downloading photos, I am sure I will work it out eventually.  There have been so many updates of late it is hard to keep up with it all.

  The doorstep blessings project has come to an end as we start to emerge out of this lockdown and try to get our lives back on track into a semblance of normality.  I feel honoured to have been part of the project and know that it gave such a lot of pleasure to so many.  It gave me something to do and kept me busy so I am thankful.  I am now moving on to making a start for Christmas.  I have made a list which changes as I gather my thoughts or find a new pattern but it is almost firm now so I intend to start gathering the materials together for each project and making a start. 

I will leave you with a beautiful photo of a rainbow from last week.  We are blessed with living in a beautiful part of the world but sometimes we don't always take the time to appreciate the beauty.

As always I thank you for your visit to my humble blog and thank you for your comments on my last post.  I found it really interesting to learn about the restrictions in your areas.  Vaccination seems to be the answer and thankfully it does seem to still work against the different variants at least for now.  We were finally allowed to sing at Church last Sunday, but I must admit it did seem strange singing with a mask on.  Hope all is well with you and that life is good.

See you soon.

Adventures With Family

 What a wonderful week we have had, even the weather was amazing.  Weather conditions were perfect for our adventures around our little Island.  It was a joy to see our daughter and her little family.  We were quite taken aback how much those boys had grown.  Every moment they were here, we filled with fun and laughter, creating so many memories for us all to treasure until we see each other again.

The excitement started long before they arrived with me in the kitchen preparing for there arrival with food.  

Broth.

Mixed seed bread, steak and vegetable pie, cheese and tomato quiche.

Crumble top mince pies, scones, sausage rolls.

Jelly and trifles were also made in cups and saucers they looked so nice when we had afternoon tea together.

Carrot cake and lemon drizzle cake.  The beds were made up and all our favourite games were laid ready for us to play.

Our first adventure was to the cove behind our cottage.

I am not sure what the cove is officially called, but we found a dead bird amongst the rocks so it very quickly became dead bird cove.  It is a beautiful cove and a great place for the boys to run around and enjoy the great space, as we were the only ones there.  It is a mixture of rocks and sand making it a haven for a mixture of birds, we were careful to keep our distance and not disturb them.

You cannot visit the Island and not visit the Callanish Stones.  It is one of the boys favourite places to visit.  It was a lovely drive over to the Westside, taking in all the beauty and some great sights, a shieling and the famous whale bone arch.  The blackhouse at Arnol was shut, I am not sure if this was due to Covid or not as we were at level 1 and going into 0 this weekend.  Visitors to the Island are asked to take a test prior to visiting but I am not sure this is policed or even how it could be.  It is such a good feeling to have a semblance of normality back and the greatest joy of all to see family that are so important to us.

We didn't park in the visitors car park as Gerard was not up to walking up the hill so we drove through the village and entered from the other end.  This does mean that the visitors centre cannot be visited or indeed the restaurant but it was not open anyway.

The surrounding views and loch is also a joy to see so well worth a visit.  We made a stop at the fudge stall in the village, which was delicious and then followed our tracks back to the beach.

I will close for now but rest assured I will be back with some more of our adventures soon.  Hope all is well with you, I would be most interested to know about the Covid restrictions in your area.  Take care.

See you soon.