24th September 2024 - Hare Krishna everyone

Quietly Content;  I am old but still with it - plus one;) Do I ache? well my knees tell me something as I swing them out of bed in the morning but that soon disappears. I have my family around me; - plus 2 but I would be fairly happy to live on my own, with the present state of my body unimpaired.

So yesterday was a day in which being alone excelled.  First I baked bread, then I made the German potato cakes I love, alongside apple puree which compliments them.  Cleared the kitchen table, and laid out my latest quilt, checking the three layers.  There are two ways to attach the three together, one is just laying them one on top of the other, stitching the sides together and then binding them round the edges.  Quilting afterwards, the second way is to put the three layers together, one inside out.  Sew up the three sides and then turn the bottom layer over to its right side.  And yes that last has seen a few failures, my spatial awareness as always 'up the creek'.

My mind is always busy as are my fingers, knitting a jumper whilst listening to an audio book. I also ordered some tops for spinning, there is a huge choice out there in the dyed world.  So many creative people, young and old.

Someone said on a forum when another young person wrote asking if there were any jobs around. She said something that startled me, why don't you start your own business, how many have thought that when looking around for a job.

George Harrison of course

My interest in gardening was also given a spark this morning.  Did you know George Harrison was a gardener, in his youth he bought a huge run down Victorian House with about 30 acres of land, some of which was a terribly over run garden.  This place was called Friar Park near the town of Henley.  This house had been brought by a Sir Frank Crisp in the late nineteenth century, a wealthy lawyer and the gardens had been developed with a huge rockery.  

Rockeries are a thing of the past, they were built to emulate the high mountains slopes of say Switzerland, and many an Alpine plant has died a sad death in an English garden.  But those thrusting Victorians as the botanists sailed round the world capturing new and exotic plants, never let much stand in their way.

Crisp built an enormous rockery, tumbling waterfalls no less and at the top a representation of the Matterhorn mountain.  Imagination is what we lack in today's world, the rich in this country fleeing our shores and taking their ill gotten gains abroad where there is less taxing 😎 bless them!

I'm off track as usual.  To return to gardens, George and his wife Olivia restored this slightly crumbling mansion and its garden over the following years.  George had introduced a couple of goats to eat the wilderness away but of course not only did the goats eat the bad stuff they also ate the good stuff as well.  So there is no record of what Crisp planted.  But it has been brought back to its own glory.

Patthana Gardens

I love gardens but the garden I have been following on F/B belongs to someone in Ireland called Maher, they are the Patthana gardens.  The use of colour and then the soft shadings of gray and that soft yellow of grasses so beloved of this time of year.  His partner is the photographer and obviously captures the gardens in their 'golden hour', morning or evening.

So listen to Hare Krishna and remember when the world was in a slightly more innocent phase or at least was not bedevilled by social media.

Two more photos of happy family on holiday this week!  The restaurant was called "Wrinkled Stocking" and was in Holmfirth I think