Sunday morning

-

I woke this morning to a quiet house, Ian away, the only sound the steady murmur of rain on the roof. I love this. I miss Ian as well and I am already looking forward to seeing him again tonight but sometimes the deep peace of the place to myself calms me to the soles of my feet.


I have plenty of friends who don't get it, who say "I wouldn't want to be here by myself at night, so isolated (Stephen King type visions presumably in their heads), so many creaks and noises. Uurgh no."


And it is true that the old house, particularly in wind, creaks and sighs and moans like a ship at sea. But I know its noises now and to ride the night with it, waking, turning in the warm bed, safe in its arms, dropping back down into sleep, is one of the best things. When I wake at night I often go the window, the curtains are never drawn, to look out at the utter dark of a cloudy night or the high stars or the moon washing the valley silver. Last night was cloudy, true dark like burrowing under the blankets as a child.


This morning is grey and soft with gentle rain. We have had no rain for nearly three weeks and I have been watering the vegetable garden so though I feel sorry for the visitors in the cottage it is welcome to me. Already the green of the grass and the new leaves is more intense. The carrots and the mangetout and the new sowing of broad beans all need more rain to germinate and the new magnolia and the osmanthus and rhododendron I brought back from Bodnant Garden will drinking it in.


Today I am going to do some of the many things I ignored yesterday in trying to set up my new blog, indeed I have already shaved my legs. Let's get our priorities right. I have a work dinner to go tomorrow night, a skirt to wear and teddy bear winter legs just will not cut it.


I hope I am able to attach a photo of the kitchen garden from June last year. It doesn't quite look like this yet as the apple trees have yet to flower and to come into full leaf but you get the idea. The rain is clearing now. Time to have a look in the greenhouse.


Hoping there will be more blogs to read later in the day.

Comments

  1. countrymousie22 April 2007 at 14:04

    I have found you at last - I have never seen so many people.
    Like you I adore being alone at times - I have the same reaction - the house here creaks and groans being timber frame- some of it goes back to 1500. We stand high on a hill - well high for Suffolk!
    What a garden - looks wonderful - straight out of a garden mag.
    I have to say I also did my legs this morning and had a bit of a sort out - eyebrows etc. I am out for dinner on Tuesday evening with a lovely couple, but the lady in question is very high maintenance -twice weekly hair blow dries etc! so I thought I better spruce myself up. Have a good day. Scorching here - perhaps rain on Tuesday.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Woozle196722 April 2007 at 17:38

    Well hello there! You made me giggle - shaved mine too this morning in the shower! The kitchen garden looks wonderful and you are SO right about the rain. None here yet and we do need it.xx

    ReplyDelete
  3. Suffolkmum22 April 2007 at 18:37

    Wish we'd had some rain -the garden is looking dusty in April, for goodness sake. Your kitchen garden looks wonderful and I have greenhouse envy. I used to be a complete baby about being alone in a house, very nervous of noises etc - I'm now totally cured of all that, love listening to the house talking to itself.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Inthemud22 April 2007 at 20:03

    What a lovely photo, get better space for photos here that is great.
    Enjoyed your blog enormously, know what you mean about enjoying the peace and calm of old house at night, people said same about us and our old house (350yrs old) I get left alone at night as hubby , Stan is away in his lorry alot , but I'm never worried , though we do have strange happenings, according to daughter sophie and friends there are several ghosts!! Great to all be together again

    ReplyDelete
  5. Pondside23 April 2007 at 06:41

    Yes, it's nice to have the house to yourself, I agree. Aside from the bedrooms there aren't curtains at the windows, and when I'm alone I really mind that. One of these days I'll have to get busy with the sewing machine so that I can turn out all the high powered outdoor lights (Is that a prowler?, no... the dog would bark, what was that noise? Is someone looking in? I'd better turn on the lights.)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Pipany23 April 2007 at 10:45

    Ah Elizabeth - so lovely to read your blogs again. I feel calmed after a bit of an odd start to the day.
    I love being alone and know exactly what you mean about the peace it brings. As much as I love my big family nad friends popping round, there is something about the regenerative power of quiet. You wrote it so much better than that but you know what I mean!
    The kitchen garden looks beautiful. I so love this time of year - everything forging ahead and brightly shining after the recent rain. Wonderful. Look forward to reading more x

    ReplyDelete
  7. Posie23 April 2007 at 11:35

    I am one of those that is not good at being alone, I hear every creak! Loved the photo from last year, really impressive.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous23 April 2007 at 20:23

    I hadnt seen you about today - Monday - so I am doing a final sweep of my favs to see if you are OK and are coming out to play today.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Kitty24 April 2007 at 14:11

    what a lovely blog - did enjoy it. Sorry, trying to type with dog's nose on thekeyboard, not easy. Yes, it's leg shaving time again. How dull. But don't try an epilator, you have to be drunk to try it, it hurts so much!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Milla24 April 2007 at 17:33

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Milla24 April 2007 at 17:33

    what gorgeous pictures and isn't it lovely that we can all make our blogs look different. Am rather stuck with a worthy beige at the moment which I must see about changing, and the concept of photos is still too ambitious, but lovely to see yours

    ReplyDelete
  12. Milla24 April 2007 at 17:35

    ah, it looks like I deleted something at 2.15ish - I didn't, because I wasn't signed in (though thought I was) I ended up sending the same rambling nonsense twice. Deleted one, so as not to look mad (although the evidence remains in the form of "Milla has deleted a comment") then saw the time difference and thought I'd better explain myself!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Milla24 April 2007 at 17:36

    and, finally, last time I looked, it named and shamed me as inept comment remover, now that I have explained it, I am nicely anonymous anyway and needn't have bothered. Glass of wine time soon, thank goodness!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Milla24 April 2007 at 17:37

    what gorgeous pictures and isn't it lovely that we can all make our blogs look different. Am rather stuck with a worthy beige at the moment which I must see about changing, and the concept of photos is still too ambitious, but lovely to see yours

    ReplyDelete
  15. DevonLife24 April 2007 at 18:00

    i have serious kitchen garden envy. you make me feel a child after my raised bed pic I posted!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments are the best thing and the conversations they produce are the whole purpose of blogging for me. Do tell me what you think!

Popular posts from this blog

Making lined curtains

-
Image
While Ian was away I decided it was time to make the new curtains for the cottage.   I have been putting this off for at least four months, maybe six.  First of all I couldn't find any material I liked at a price I could afford so that was a fine excuse.  Then I read a recommendation for Textile Express  on Annie's blog.  Textile Express has a fab website but when I realised it was only forty minutes away in Oswestry I had to visit.  Wonderful choice, great prices; material purchased.  Then I carried on putting the job off because I was a bit daunted by the fact that two of the curtains are full length ones for doors but there is nothing like knowing you have a few days to yourself to make you feel you can get your teeth into a project. And amazingly, now it is done.  As I have been thinking of nothing else for about a week I thought I would share with you my own advice on how to make lined curtains.  I am not a supremely talented sewer but I have made loads of these over the
Read more

I love November

-
Image
I always used to hate November: greyness, wetness, short days and dank, dark nights.  It felt to me as if the world turned inward and the light left the sky and as the days darkened my energy dropped and so did my mood.  When did my feelings change?  I am not sure.  My mother died in November and my father two years later in December.  I think that these losses combined with my own growing sense of how fast time runs away with you have shifted me towards wanting to make the very most of each day.  I can't afford to discount three or four months of the year.  How many more years are there?  I have no idea but I should make my days count. And lo and behold! It is possible to change the patterns of a lifetime!  It is possible to find things to love in November and to be energised and excited, just as much as in Spring.  Over the last few years I have found lots of ways to feel good in November and for me that seems to require some particular things to shape my day: Going Outside Far a
Read more

This year's tulips

-
Image
I love tulips.  For a while in my gardening life I struggled to create the effects that I wanted until I had the blinding realisation that the problem was that I was not using enough of them.  Isn't it wonderful when the right answer is the exciting answer?  Now I buy in bulk.  I plant new ones in pots, some new ones in the ground and, when I can get my act together, some of the ones which were in last year's pots into the ground too.  This is the  counsel of perfection as usual and doesn't always happen.  In the autumn of 2010 I remembered in time to get quite a lot into the cutting garden.  Last year I lifted all my bulbs, failed to label them, left them to die down and failed to remember that they were hiding in a big pot in the kitchen garden. When I came across them in November when I was planting out my new ones I found that most of them had rotted or been eaten.  Some did go into the cutting garden and into beds in the kitchen garden if they looked to have any signs
Read more