Summer into Autumn.

Not much to be said about the weather, particularly today which is stormy to say the least. Ah well, some pictures of things we have been up to here may suggest a sunnier time than the reality and cheer us all a little I hope. First up? Figs from our tree growing alongside the main pathway to our house. They are not very sweet due to lack of sun (!), but we have dried them to concentrate the flavour and are planning to use them in this year's Figgy Pudding (shh, I haven't quite said the 'C' word have I?). Quite excited about growing our own for such an exalted use!



The breadmaking continues apace. We always make a lot of our won bread here, but the craze just now is to do it all by hand rather than using the bread machine. Not sure how long this will last, but it's a very enjoyable way of passing wet days for now. I must say that we have to be quite organised as a family this size gets through an enormous quantity of breads, though this should even out once everyone is back at school/work next week (shh, I didn't say that either!).



The harvesting continues. Like so many bloggers I read, I so love the autumnal season with its chilling of evenings and lengthening, beautiful dusks where the light gently fades leaving deep silhouettes in its wake and only the soundf of birdsong to break the calm. So peaceful. I also love the hedgerows full of blackfairies (Isabella's variation on a theme), hips, haws and so on. Every outing provides so many possibilities such as this pretty bowlful...cordials or liquers?



And the blackfairies have been amazing, though so much rain means we have to pick like fury when it finally dries up for a while.



Our allotment has been stripped of some of its bounty. We did well for some things such as onions



garlic...



and cabbages though holey are incredibly tasty.



Our early apples trees have all done well and have provided many windfalls to be eaten as they are or turned into jams, jellies and wines. I love all this!



The windfalls gone too far to use are thrown in for the hens to peck at.



and overall, rain hasn't stopped play...



at all!



Bye for now x

Elderflowers, Allotments and a Strange Thing to Say.

It's that time of year again, a time when we are almost inundated with fermentation buckets and demi-johns full off all manner of elderflowery concoctions. As I said in a previous post, the hedgerows are just laden this year and cannot be resisted, so Isabella and I set off to gather some ready for a gallon or three of elderflower champagne as a change from the cordials we have already got underway. In fact, we are only just finishing the very last of the previous year's batch of cordial and will need to make a similarly large amount this time to see us through once more. I have put the recipe for elderflower cordial back onto my website so click if you would like to have a go.



I have such a gatherer's instinct and cannot bear empty cupboards. I positively thrive on stacking the wood away in autumn, scouring hedgerows for anything that can be made into chutneys, jams and beverages or cooked up into delicious meals. I have never been any different and have made things like this almost my entire life, yet the pleasure of it never leaves me. I am lucky in that Dave is the same and also has made wines, etc since he was young and so we share in this love of the countryside and all it offers, creating our own version of it in our garden. The mixed hedgerow in the front is overgrown and desperately in need of a sort through, yet it offers food for goldfinches and blue tits, hedgehogs and slowworms, frogs and toads - why change anything then? Tom and I sat for a brief tea break today and watched young dragonflies and shimmering damselflies of azure blue hover for a moment before darting away.



Before collecting elderflowers Isabella and I had a brief stint at the allotment, digging some new potatoes and a few other bits and bobs after sowing a bed of peas together. Man can that girl throw a long way! This is what we found today: onions



sprouts



Blackcurrants are ripening ready to be turned into ice-creams and cordials and wines, and to nestle on soft pillows of cream for a summer day's pavlova




Broad beans are almost ready and we picked a few tiny ones to add to the red and green salad leaves from the cut-and-come-again patch. I love to add chive and nasturtium flowers, mint, marjoram and rocket from our home garden too.



At home the figs are looking good again. Last year we ate some for the first time and they were just heavenly with that seductive velvetiness of the ripened fruit mingling with the syrupy juices...mmm.



You know, when I was pregnant with Isabella some poor deluded fool once said to me that I wouldn't be able to have any holidays for years now....this keeps coming back into my mind of late as it was such a bizarre thing to say to someone like me. Firstly, I couldn't see why a child would stop anyone having a holiday if they wanted one. Secondly, are holidays that important (and if so I question the homelife) and lastly, but most importantly to me - child or holidays? Abslolutely no contest as I get to do all these wonderful things every day, every year with Davey all our lovely children (even the older ones who head off all over the place and still love to come back for more, though the pic below is a few years old now as we haven't done strawberry picking for a while, but I am currently eating masses so it seemed relevant!).



Yep, no contest.


And anyway, look where we live!



Have a lovely weekend xx

The Half Term Holiday.

The children are back at school today after the best half term week. The sun shone a fair bit and even when it didn't the air was so much milder than previously and we spent much time outside to make the most of it. The allotment now has sixteen beds of approximately 10ft by 4ft each, dug and manured where needed thanks to Mr Davey's incredibly hard work. Already broad beans and salad leaves are growing, onions and garlic planted and shooting away rapidly, and potatoes planted out. I have dug out and split rhubarb from our own garden to be taken up there and the fruit beds will have redcurrants, raspberry canes and a grape added to them hopefully next weekend. The picture shows it at the part way stage and unfortunately doesn't do it any justice as the grass paths so desperately need cutting. Ah well, take it on trust that it looks amazing and has galvanised us into action at home as well.



While Dave has spent an couple of hours each day working on the beds, the girls and I have worked away on our garden here which was sorely in need of a massive overhaul. I dug out the compost heap and used the wonderfully crumbly compost to dress the beds. The hen pen needed a bit of re-fencing so out I ventured, staple gun close to hand and Lucy raking up leaves all around. The beds I recently dug out to surround a new lawn area - dug out, raked and seeded now - are looking most Spring-like as the daffodils are breaking into bud ready to follow the pretty drifts of crocuses which are almost over. I found these very early and miniscule potatoes hiding amongst the compost



The geenhouse has also had a sort out and I cleared the side area too in order to use it as a place for pot stacking, a job which took all day and had me muttering darkly at the waste of a perfectly good day until I reached the fun part of building a little wall and step which is something I love to do. I planted primroses into the cracks and already their creamy flowers are can be spotted from the kitchen window. But the holiday did not only consist of gardening; knitting was also on the agenda! Dave completed this lovely garter stitch scarf, all warm and snuggly for a day like today where the sun has left us once more...



I finished the first of the socks I started a little while ago and now need to make sure the next one does not have the slight laddering effect near the heel which I forgot to check on as I knitted...sighs deeply in annoyance. Other than that I am pleased with the sock and the tones of the wool please me muchly. Dave tells me it feels amazing to wear with the heel cupping the foot in a way I cannot understand as it is far to big for me. Knew I should have knitted myself a pair first (and there would have been far less to knit too!). I do wish I could photograph long things such as these in a way which made them look far lovelier than this.



A pair of mittens have almost come off the needles ready to be sent off to a friend who chose this gorgeous wool of slate blue flecked with chips of green, red and a paler blue. Such a lovely wool to knit with, but as the label is somewhere in another room I can't let you know what it is just now.



So, all in all a lovely holiday full of plenty of activity, plenty of knitting, plenty of outings to beautiful places such as this ruin by the river, the woodland trees on the opposite banks still sleeping their winter sleep and the heron basking in the shallows of an ebbing tide



and of course, plenty of eating too. In fact, I'm off for a one of these chocolate and orange brownies right now as Isabella and I are going to play picnics and these seem just the thing.



Hope you all have a good week xx

Oh, for sun.

Oh how I crave the sun. So often in January we have days of clear blue sky and bright, bright sunshine, the air crisp and sharp and smelling clean. Lately Cornwall has been mostly wet, as is its wont. I wade to the ducks through paths of sludge, head down against the wind-driven sheets of rain, trying to dodge one f the cats who seems to think I am going to feed the corn to her; heavens only knows why she has not yet worked out this twice daily ritual does not involve any food for her, but I never said our cats were particularly sharp of mind! I am tired of trying to be positive about the endless deluge especially as I know it is not as bad as I feel it to be. There are breaks in the cloudbursts most days, though yesterday was truly awful. I kid myself that this is a proper Winter and therefore a proper Spring may follow with a true Summer close on its heels. We shall see. In the meantime, I have put a giant picture of marigolds grown here last year, bright, gorgeous, wonderful, dark-day-defying marigolds. I could almost breathe them in.



Not much in the way of sewing going on lately thanks to the paperwork needing sorting. Some orders and a little help from Isabella to stuff gingham hearts. I believe in starting them at an early age! very sweet in her determination to do this fiddly task unaided and very little in spilled lavender to what I expected. Our sewing bee was halted by the strange appearance of Discovery who on seeing the door open to let in the cat decided to pop her head round to say hello. Hens in the kitchen is not something we encourage!



Despite the endless rain we have managed to get to our allotment once or twice. Onions are in, blackcurrants moved from the garden to our plot, potatoes are planted and it's all underway. And so today once the cleaning is done - amazing what a little paperwork can do for the house; a sudden and most urgent need to clean has meant the cupboards are amazingly tidy! - I will mostly be sitting by this...



and dreaming of this...



Bye for now xx

A weekend mix.

What a mix this weekend turned out to be - rain, grey and cold for most of Saturday followed by beautiful sunshine and brilliant nlue skies for Sunday. Typically, we arranged Isabella's birthday party for the wrong day and instead of playing in the garden with the paddling pool and bubble machine to hand, the children were racing around the house bravely clutching their chocolate cake to help them on their way!



Ah well, it was still a lovely day consisting of my bestest friend popping over in the morning for a cup of tea and a chat as Dave and I cooked pizza toppings, pasta salad, brownies and of course the gorgeous chocolate birthday cake traditionally made by dave. Actually, Mr Dave was a bit of a star as he donned his apron (a blue and brown deckchair striped pipany version obviously!)and had cooked a batch of scones, loaf of bread and sausage rolls, aided and abetted by Isabella, by 9.30 am!



The picure above is of the posy I picked for my friend as it was also her birthday. Funny how all the flowers in the garden just now seem to be shades of purple, from soft lilacs through to the deeper mauves of the aquilegia. The contrast with the rich orange of Black Prince marigolds was quite startling and not something I would usually use without a few toning shades to soothe it a little, yet the whole made a very pleasing nosegay (love that word) for a very special person.



Sunday consisted of yet more cooking - a roast for lunch and a marmalade cake made with our own marmalade - then up to the allotment in the afternoon to find rabbits ahd got in despite the fence and eaten our lettuces! Arghh!! Obviously we need to sink it a bit deeper, but at least we found this out before everything else got too far forward - determined to start looking on the bright side as we have had weeks of things going awry: tumble dryer broke, lightbulb went on the sewing machine as I sewed late one night, still having car problems, etc......



Still, the runner bean canes are in and sown, more of the field is skimmed and dug, spinach is planted out and I can almost taste the iron goodness to come. Just hope the rabbits aren't of the Popeye variety! As Dave and I worked the children picnicked on egg and mayo sandwiches (made form our own duck eggs - yum) and basically just watched apart from Elias who is a fantastic little worker and is never happier than when he is chopping, digging or lugging weighty things around! Next weekend we are hoping to build our own pizza oven, so watch this space!



And in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the tour I took of the garden this morning accompanied by Fatty Arbuckle (one of the cats) and chook (the cuckoo maran) who can both be spotted in some of the pictures - aren't foxgloves just gorgeous with the velvety softness of the stems and those gorgeous spotted petals? The peony is in bud as are the papavers and chives are all around. More pictures soon.

Pipany xx

All things merged together.

Isn't Bramley apple blossom pretty?




After thinking about it for a little while and seeking the advice of those good enough to read them, I have decided to merge both my blogs together; the business and family life are so very closely entwined that it seems increasingly hard to know what to write where. Obviously the family - all seven children, ducks, hens, cats, etc - existed long before the business officially began and the very skills I use for it are the skills I have used for most of my life. I have always sewn, whether for clothes for the children or soft furnishings for the house; I have knitted for longer than I can remember and I have gardened since I was old enough to trail around after my Grandfather, bucket in hand to catch the haphazardly thrown marigold flowers as I helped to deadhead them. I learned these crafts by osmosis, by following and watching, by trying with a determination that drives me insane sometimes (wish I could allow myself to fail just once in a while!), and now they are second nature to me and my life would feel odd without them.






How does all this relate to the blogs? Well, we have acquired a 90ft x 30ft allotment run not by the council, but by a lovely chap who happens to own a field which got a bit much for him. He thought he would rent out plots and get a bit of a community thing going and we were there in a jiffy. Already we have begun turning it over and as well as feeding our family from it, I shall be growing the herbs I need for the business - the lavenders and marigolds, chamomiles and marjorams; the list is endless and much of it we already grow in our own garden, just not in the quantity I need for a supply of sachets and pillows, etc. So with this allotment business and family life blend together once more, hence it is time for the blogs to do the same... here's a few pictures:


view from the top to the car




bit of extra land the lovely owner let us have to encourage wildlife and pop a shed on




view from the car up!




Ok, so now you are bored! Well, having dug like a mad thing for much of the weekend (slow but sure) I transplanted some young globe artichokes into the allotment, looking forward to when they get like this one in our garden




and on a different note, don't you love looking up through cherry blossom at a gorgeous blue sky which we had plenty of for the entire weekend?




So, there you have it - Pipany and the Poltisko Memoirs all in one blog from now on, and hopefully the change won't be too noticeable. Off to tackle an order for three feet of bunting now which should make for a bright and cheery day!




Byeeee xx