welsh hills again

Back to the project.  Five days entirely focussed on small girls and dogs took me away from my 100 days but here we are again, home, shattered but happy.  We have had fun.  While we have been away the garden has been burgeoning all over the place. The tubs full of tulips have burst into colour in front of the house and the holiday cottage but the beds are also bursting into weeds. I have come back from Devon with all the signs of another cold.  How can that be?  I decided to do an hour or so anyway and try to ignore it. First of all I planted out three white foxgloves which I brought home the other day.  They were very cheap and I'm pretty sure it is because they are not going to flower this year but never mind, they will be with me next year. Next I weeded a small herb bed which we planted up last year for the use of visitors to the holiday cottage.  I have loads of herbs in the kitchen garden but the only visitors we have ever had in twelv...

Growing herbs is one of life's great unsung pleasures: it is easy, it fills your garden with bees and pollinating  insects, it transforms your cooking.  Once your herb garden is established it doesn't need a lot of your time either.  I have been giving my herb garden a bit of attention today, pulling out the odd weed, discouraging the mint from world domination, potting up new seedlings to give to friends and family.  The chives in flower are as lovely as any border plant. Here they are jostling with culinary mint.  I grow all sorts of mints: lime, lavender, apple and spearmint as well basil mint.  You would hardly believe that the leaves really smell of anything other than menthol but they do.  The basil mint in particular has taken off. Some are more vigorous than others.  In our garden it is the culinary mint and the basil mint which are romping all over the place while the others sit more decorously in their slate lined boxes. ...

We have just had a great weekend with some friends who live in France.  It is always a treat to see them, either here or in Provence.  Yesterday we went for lunch at Tyddyn Llan , a restaurant with rooms just outside Llandrillo further South and West into Wales.  It's a spectacular drive but there was no chance of seeing any of the marching range of the Clwydian hills or the beautiful hills at the head of the Vale of Clwyd up beyond Ruthin.  It was like driving into a wall of water.  The rain poured all day, drenched us as we sprinted from the car and threw itself at us in torrents as we drove home. The hills were spouting water in great gushes and falls of foaming brown.  Tyddyn Llan is a great place though with really exceptional food and gentle and discreet good service. You feel you could just settle down with good food and good company and while away a wet Sunday and that is what we did. On Saturday we went to Blackden.  If you have re...

OK, roll up, roll up.  Here is a change and a chance to win something! You know me.  I am a bit selfish with this blog.  I blog about what I like and what interests me.  I get a lot of emails asking me to review this and that and most of them come from people who don't seem to have read my blog or to have any  idea of what I write about so generally they cheerily get dumped!  But I had a really nice email the other day from someone who works for Wish UK .  She had clearly read my blog and thought about it and how it connected to her company and she wanted to know if I would like to run a competition.  It's not often I have the chance to give away anything nice to you lovely people so I thought I would give it a go.   Wish UK is a gift providing company. You know the sort of thing: driving a Ferrari, having a spa break, hot air ballooning, learning to fly a bird of prey.  Oddly they didnt't want to offer any of these things as a...