Well, what a summer!  Wall-to-wall sport with the Euros, Wimbledon, the Olympics & Paralympics interspersed with a smattering of golf, cricket & rugby (not so keen on those last two).  After all those inspirational sportsmen & women at London 2012, I wasn't looking forward to the start of the football Premier League (like I usually am).  Bunch of overpaid egotists!  But here I am thinking about writing all the Champions League & FA Cup fixtures in my diary - as per usual!

So not been out & about much, a couple of trips down to the beach and a bellringing outing to North Essex & Cambridgeshire on the August Bank Holiday.

St. Margaret of Antioch, Toppesfield, Essex

Roses in Toppesfield churchyard



St. Lawrence, Ridgewell, Essex

 


Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire 





15th century wall painting at St. Mary & All Saints, Willingham, Cambridgeshire depicting the Virgin Mary and her cousin Elizabeth, both pregnant with Jesus and John the Baptist respectively. There's a little devil in the left hand corner but they're ignoring him and chatting together, what they are saying is written on the scrolls above their heads.

roof angel at St. Mary & All Saints,, Willingham, Cambridgeshire

stained glass window at St. Mary, Bluntisham, Cambridgeshire

 

St. Mary, Ely, Cambridgeshire

St. Mary, Bluntisham, Cambridgeshire

flower & bee in Bluntisham churchyard

Had another visit to South Shoebury Hall garden, open for charity. 

famous for their agapanthus

Lilies!  Look lovely, smell yuk!

Angel's fishing rod - Dierama Igneum

And another trip to Hyde Hall recently for their Flower Show.

dahlia

achillea

fuchsia

patriotic gladioli

Busy, busy, busy!  We've just had our kitchen redone, it took them 3 weeks, not bad really.  I also got them to repaint the ceilings & woodwork in the sitting room & downstairs loo - the rooms looked so shabby next to the new kitchen paintwork.


Bye, bye old kitchen

It's done 30 years sterling service

All emptied out!

New units,  new tiles, new paint, new floor

Smart, eh?



Hot, hot, hot!  After weeks & weeks of wet, miserable weather, we're having a heatwave.  Oh to live somewhere that has defined seasons, so you know what to expect and what to wear.  And, more importantly, get time to acclimatise.  Still, then we Brits would have nothing to moan about and we do love to moan about the weather!

So, what have I been up to for the last couple of months? 

Had another trip to RHS Hyde Hall back in May - all their rhodedendrons were in bloom..

Friends of mine bought themselves a puppy called Gracie...



We had the Queen's Jubilee in June, I watched the river procession on the telly with a glass of cava & some cake...

And during a brief respite from June's rain, we had a trip out to Two Tree Island and had lunch in the sun...



And, highlight of the month, a day out to RHS Hampton Court Flower Show.  I went with three girlfriends, we all wore our wellies and took our kagouls.  That seemed to do the trick, we didn't get rained on until the drive home.  And the kagouls were useful for keeping us warm in the cold wind!

Lots of show gardens...

Lots of floral displays...

And unusual plants...





                                                      Malta!

Valletta

Grand Harbour, Valletta

old Maltese bus

Marsaxlokk harbour

I've had a couple of holidays since my February post (lucky me!) - at the end of March it was annual Girls' Weekend Away and after Easter we had 2 weeks in Malta!

GWA was spent at Potters on the Norfolk coast - http://www.pottersholidays.com
It was an exercise & dance weekend special, so lots of classes to choose from including yoga & pilates (much more my type of exercise!). Also the opportunity to learn the Thriller routine, the Time Warp from Rocky Horror, a bit of burlesque, some tap or ballet or latin line dancing... great fun! And evening entertainment and all meals included (far too much food consumed!).  Eight of us ex-schoolgirls went and we had a great laugh.

Well, no posts for two months!  Guess I've been out experiencing life rather than just blogging about it!  What have I been up to?  Well, it was lovely weather during March so I managed to get out into the garden.  Had some help clearing an overgrown border - it's now been weedmatted, covered in gravel and has a log edging.  I put up my swing seat (ready for summer ! lol) and attached a trellis to a fence post at the edge of the patio to grow my honeysuckle up.  Had several trips to the tip with all the cuttings and rubbish as you can imagine.  The car smelt rather weedy & earthy for days!  Bought some wonderful pots in a local garden centre, and a couple of obelisks for two clematis seedlings I've been nurturing over the winter.  They've been out in my old plastic greenhouse for the past three weeks, I'm trying to harden them off.  But the weather's been awful lately, rain, rain and more rain.  So much for the drought and hosepipe ban!  One of the clematis looks worse now than when I took it outside, the other is still just a tiny sprout.  And the pots I intend to put them in are HUGE!  I may have to resort to buying fully grown ones from Thompson & Morgan - http://www.thompson-morgan.com/  The clematis I bought from that firm last year are doing splendidly, romping over the archway up the top of the garden.  I want to take a photo of them but, as I said earlier, it's been raining non-stop for weeks!

photo from Daily Telegraph - car stuck in a ford in Essex