Post Comment Love 2 - 4 October

Hello there, welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a relaxed, friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they may be removed, and if you see older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

As we say a great big hello to October it felt right to share the image of this pumpkin which we saw on our recent visit to the Moco Museum in London. It’s by Yayoi Kusama who said she ‘loves pumpkins because of their humorous form, warm feeling, and a human like quality.’ And some of them are absolutely the weirdest shapes aren’t they? But they’re also good to eat, and that’s what I like about them most! Just saying.

Have a great start to October.

SHANGHAI PUMPKIN, YAYOI KUSAMA 2010

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My garden in September

I mentioned the tiny olives on the new olive tree last month, and this month they’ve grown to actual olive size, though I’m sure there’s not enough to do anything useful with so MOH’s hopes of olive oil production are entirely non-starters, even if he pools resources and crops with everyone else in the village!

But the new olive tree has shot up - and out - in the warmer months, and while it could do with a haircut and reshape, I know I need to leave it over the winter now. It’s really established itself on the corner of our patio and has been a good addition.

Our crab apple tree has a lot of leaves but fewer apples this year, which I’m sure is good for the tree. Every now and then I stick my head into the tree to see how they’re doing, and this was them with the sunlight streaming through early in the month. There’s a few more on the ground beneath the tree now, and I’m sure the squirrel which has just started to visit our garden isn’t helping that. I’m doing my best to scare the squirrel off as I’m really not keen on encouraging them - I can’t believe we haven’t seen a squirrel for three years though, but it was good while it lasted.

The cosmos continue to do well and are in various stages of flowering still, even at the end of the month. I still need to capture some seed so that I can grow them where I’d like, but I suspect that this area where the two pots have been will always be a cosmos hotspot.

It’s good to see the garden a bit healthier this month following a good four inches of rain. But it’s amazing to see how plants react differently; earlier in the summer I planted out two halves of a geranium, one has adapted and enjoyed its spot at least twice as much as the other. Both are in similar spots in the border, but the one below has over doubled in size - I’m thinking that the other may need a bit of help, or maybe a new spot but for the time being I’m leaving it where it is.

The Rowan tree brings some autumnal colour to the garden, and I’ve given the pyracantha in the outer border a seriously good trim, but even so that’s still laden with berries. The hebe that had issues earlier in the year continues to have issues and I’ve needed to cut some more dead branches from it. In London earlier this week I walked past some equally and probably more dead hebes near Marble Arch so I guess they’re really not fans of the weather we’ve had.

But in better news the struggling alstroemeria has perked up enough to provide more flowers, which I’m very grateful for. And the daisies which looked done in last month are now also green again - they’d still benefit from being out of the pot, but hopefully that may happen soon(ish). Later in October I’ve invited a garden designer over to see if my ideas for my garden are do-able, and to see if she can help with my problem areas, or rather the things I want in my garden but am struggling to make work - more on this at a later date, hopefully.

The fuchsias are continuing to dance into autumn, and they bring me much joy - even the one that makes my car beep as I reverse out, it needs a trim to get it away from the car’s sensors, but not when they’re as pretty as this. Or not just yet anyway.

Unsurprisingly the succulents have done well this summer, even though I lost the partner to the ever expanding one below over winter. It’s now bigger than the two of them were put together, and the usurpers I’ve added into the top half of the pot have also taken.

I’m especially pleased that the succulent rehoming I did when I faced my usual lack of pots crisis has also been successful - and I’m a big fan of the several varieties mixed together so I may even do this purposefully in future.

Last month I thought I’d picked the last of my red tomatoes, but I was wrong. And when I picked these I thought they’d be the last, but there are still a few stragglers on my plants and with the sunny end to the month I’m hopeful that they too will ripen a little more.

I think that if there’s one plant - other than our grass which has bounced back to greenness when all looked lost - that sums up the summer, then it’s the acer by the back door. As the heatwaves continued to come it too was struggling and the crispy leaves are testament to that, but as the weather cooled and the rain came the newer leaves were back to their resplendent red.

I’m in two minds as to whether or not to remove the crispy leaves or not, but as this plant usually drops it’s leaves over winter I’m waiting to see how it fares naturally. Fingers crossed - though I know there is new growth, so that is very good news.

And those olives that we started with at the top of this post, well they’re ripening and turning black, and continuing to look like olives - we’re still not in harvesting territory though!

Before I end isn’t grass amazing, the photo above is after some of the rain had come and as you can see it’s already turning back to being more green than it had for most of the summer. But what’s also interesting is that I also noticed that our grass was having its own ‘historic house reveal moment’ - and while it hasn’t revealed a grand parterre or anything too fancy, it’s clear that it is showing a former building - with the lighter ‘lines’ coming out from where the brick wall has been changed. We think this was probably one of the farm sheds, or outbuildings - but isn’t it fascinating what nature exposes in droughts?

This September...

September once again brought some surprises, and some answers for me too. While I’ve had my hearing aids since much earlier in the year it was good to close out the referral and discover why my hearing loss was lopsided. Thankfully it’s nothing major and I can relax again on that front.

Unrelated to that, but equally pleasing is some planned and worked hard for weight loss, dropping five kilograms since the middle of June, with a more concerted effort over the past month or so has been good. The downside though is the dress I made in August now fits me less well and I need to make some tweaks to it! But I can live with that.

As usual we’ve been out and about taking the bus to West Bridgford for brunch, this time amazingly I didn’t purchase anything at the nearby Gardener’s Market though I did fall in love with these. I feel there could be a purchase in the future, once I’ve worked out where it would best fit, and what size.

PLANTERS BY BOTANICAL INTERIOR DESIGN

There’s been clothes shopping, planned for MOH and an unintended consequence for me - ah well, never mind, though we managed to tie that up with a visit to one of our favourite and newly reopened pubs in Newark and discovered their quirky outside space, and then went for a Thai meal too - a perfect night out!

Our outside patio lights and garage lights have been replaced, and while that’s not great for summer evenings in the gardens it is much better for illuminating our way to the door. They’d all become temperamental, or had stopped working so it’s good to get these sorted. While we were at the house improvements we had a towel rail fitted in the downstairs loo, as when it’s really cold that’s our coldest room, which believe me is far from ideal.

We’ve been to London for a friend’s retirement do, eating in the fabulous Ivy Asia at St Paul’s - and boy what a view, plus the loos were pretty fancy too!

OUR VIEW AT IVY ASIA ST PAUL’S

We stayed overnight in a Travelodge I’ve got my eye on for a trip to the Barbican in November (it passed - I’ll book it again!) and so made the most of our trip to the big smoke. We dropped in unannounced to one of MOH’s darts team’s games, and it was nice to see some more old faces. Then the following morning we headed over to Marble Arch to the Moco Museum for a spot of modern art - it’s fab, a little pricey for entry, but we loved it. We finished our trip with an unexpectedly sunny lunch at Harry’s close to Kings Cross and arrived home much tired-er (and fuller) than when we’d left!

EXPERIENCING THE MOCO MUSUEM AT MARBLE ARCH

There’s also been plenty of making this month, and as I wished for last month I have spent more time at my sewing machine - as I once again fairly last minute decided to make myself something to wear for our trip. I finished my Moth Flint cropped trousers the night before we left, and I’m feeling fairly pleased with myself as I needed to tackle some buttonholes to finish them.

MY TWO TEST BUTTONHOLES

But that’s not all, I finished my charity quilts villages 2 & 3 and have completed the top for my next one - a pink village for number 4 - and if you missed it I posted another quilty update. I’ve also picked up another quilt project - oops! - but it is a beauty…

I went to a workshop and made some wire flowers, but I’ve yet to post more than a picture of those which I’m repeating here. And I went along to the first - and really rather good - Newark Wool Show, of course there were purchases, so look out for those, and details of my new quilt project next week.

This month seems to have finished almost as soon as it had started, and with October just around the corner I’ll have to start to think about packing up the garden for winter - though we have done some prep work for that in the garage, by making a bit more space and sealing the floor. Making the space involved moving our old, large and heavy, but sadly broken, pizza oven out of the garage but not without it giving me hopefully the last bruise it can. It was just a scrape, but one that’s turned my knee many shades of black and blue - and it surely must heal soon! Surely…