1^st – 13^th July

Well here I am again two weeks without updating the diary and 4 weeks from any photos! It’s 0640hrs on Sunday morning and for once it’s a calm sunny morning so I’m staying up. On the last day of June we went down to Port Isaac to visit Jill and Chris, Andy and Ali and Jill’s brother Paul and his wife Jane who were staying at a lovely house overlooking the village and sea at Port Isaac. The weather having been awful for a few days gave us a lovely evening and we ended up eating a fantastic fresh fish meal outside on the decking, it was lovely to catch up again and ended in much hilarity and screeching from the girls over the silliest jokes as we all became 12 again for the evening and it was Julian’s turn to drive so I had a few glasses of wine. I’m pleased to say that I was so busy yattering that I didn’t over indulge and didn’t have a trace of a hangover the next day.

The weather for the first 2 weeks of July has remained wet and unsettled. Ifor has had to have his bottom eyelids stitched down as they are in turned and making him rub his eyes. He unfortunately managed to pull all the stitches out and has now had to have proper surgery on them with a small piece of skin being removed and the eyelids stitched down so he’s got a face full of stitches and one of those lamp shade things on and he’s a bloomin’ menace with it. He managed to break it on the first day and has had to have it mended with electrical tape. He keeps approaching you from behind and trying to sniff but the plastic lampshade thingy makes contact first so you get herded across the driveway being prodded periodically from behind with the sharp edge of it! Lucy is not impressed by having her bum sniffed by a bit of sharp plastic! He’s able to eat and run round the field like a loony though. We have had a disaster with the chickens again. Having seen the fox several times and chased him off he finally got to the girls and decimated them. We now only have four left, the rest having been chased from the pen and picked off one by one from their hiding places round the field. The sad evidence of feathers every where. Of the four remaining ones only Lulu the white one is laying and she keeps getting out of the pen where we have locked them so that she can lay in the barn and she has roosted there a few times too terrified to go back to the pen. The other three are the scruffiest thinnest of the ex battery hens and are not laying so we have no eggs. Drastic measures are required for their security so until we have decided what to do only these four will remain. The garden has been very productive but with the wind and rain everything is bashed and bruised. We travelled down to Minack yesterday (12^th) and picked up my Uncle Edward who is staying at Mum’s until Wednesday. We’re off out for Sunday lunch today at the Bay View and as the sun is shining it should be pleasant. The lock gates at Bude are fixed and having spent the last 2 months dredging the canal it has now been re filled and is looking good so we’ll have a wander down there afterwards and it’s also it’s the Lifeboat open day and I’m a sucker for a D Class inshore so I’ve got to go and have a look! Perhaps the nice men will let me sit in the boat. I have started to go to Watercolour painting classes on Wednesday afternoons with Harry McConville who is a famous local artist who paints seascapes and has a shop in Bude. So far I’ve produced a crap picture of a wonky gate and a pathway surrounded by lavender which looks like it’s been constructed by a drunken member of a McAlpine motorway road gang! But having not put paint to paper for nearly 8 months I’m a bit out of practice.

14^th-19^th July

Bit of a mixed few days, the weather was fine on Sunday and we all went out to the Bay View and had a lovely lunch followed by a walk by the lock gates in Bude and a huge ice-cream each. On Monday afternoon Edward and I went to Boscastle, we were meant to be going to Padstow on Tuesday but the weather was wet misty and cold as per so we just went into Bude and had a mooch. Unsurprisingly the weather on Wednesday improved in time for Edwards flight home! Thursday and Friday were wet cold and miserable despite the rest of the country seeming to have sunshine and warmth! Jules saw the fox at 2pm by the back gate and gave chase but he’s had another of the hens so we only have three now and until we have the time and cash to upgrade the pen that will be all we have.  We have ordered the second lot of turf for the front garden and it is being delivered on Tuesday morning so we’ll be busy for a while sorting that out. Nick and Kath are coming on Tuesday until Saturday and it’s St Genny’s show on Friday so what little we have in the garden will have to try and survive the constant cold winds until then. I managed a reasonable seascape at my class on Wednesday (in a Jackson Pollock meets Banksy sort of style!)

20^th-27^th July

A pretty busy week when we were busy and lots of good things happened. I spent Monday cleaning and pottering in the garden and getting ready for our visit from Nick and Kath. The weather has still been pretty wet but now the sunshine has arrived with a vengeance and I managed to finish off mowing the two remaining lawns. On Tuesday morning the turf arrived for the second half of the front lawn and the pallet broke as it was being unloaded so the driver had to unload it manually and leave it by the gate. When Nick and Kath arrived at lunch time the sun was scorching and they very kindly rolled up their sleeves and we set about working on the lawn. Nick loaded and barrowed all the 48 rolls from by the gate to the front path and Kath and I cleared weeded and began laying the turf. Jules was a t work until 5 and by the time he got home we were knackered hot and dirty! Work was abandoned for the day and we showered and watched the Twenty 20 cricket quarter final in which Glamorgan were soundly beaten by Durham.

 The weather is so hot and sunny it’s been great sitting out on the decking which is now known as the ‘Ponderosa’ in true Morris style! It has doubled the size of the house and is a great space for relaxing and chatting, we’ve all been sitting out there a lot and Nick, who normally has a quiet area to have his cigarette has had company all the time! If not human then cat or dog. On Wednesday Nick, Kath and I went to Lanhydrock House near Bodmin which is a great Victorian time capsule inside and has pretty areas of garden as well as the usual National Trust shops and compulsory garden centre outside! We have got bad backs after all the work yesterday (I said they shouldn’t have!) so we treated ourselves to a £1.50 each way ride in an old vintage car to and from the house which is a far walk, it was great fun and my first time in an old car apart from my old Hillman Imp of course and Dad’s A35 when we were kids! When we got back Jules had finished work and was just embarking on the third and final phase of the lawn laying so I helped him do that as Nick’s back was not good (surprisingly!!) and in the evening we went out to the Bay View where we were able to have a drink on the decking overlooking the sea before having a fab dinner of Duck, and various fish dishes which Nick and Kath generously treated us to. On Thursday morning Mum went with Nick and Kath to Boscastle for a mooch and I pottered making sure everything was ready to pick or lift for tomorrow’s St Gennys Horticultural Society Show. When they got back we had a wander into Bude and on to the canal path and over the beach to the breakwater, the town has suddenly got very busy! We had lovely ice creams from the kiosk the returned home where Nick helped Mum with her floral arrangements for the show and we had a fantastic evening meal of roast venison which had been brought by Nick and Kath from Beaulieu, accompanied by veg from the garden it truly was a splendid meal with fresh fruit salad home made meringue and local cheese to finish we were all stuffed! On Friday morning it had rained torrentially during the early hours flattening and soaking everything for the show so I wished I’d picked it all on the previous evening! I got up at 0730hrs and spend a soggy wet two hours picking preparing and packing all the show produce and off we went all loaded up to stage our entries before the 1030hrs deadline. I had gone mad and decided to enter 13 classes varying from veg to photography and Mum had entered several floral classes. For the rest of the day Nick and Kath went to Launceston for a mooch and Julian and I popped into Bude and had a walk to Crooklets with Ifor after we had taken him to the vets and got a new buster collar for him as he’s totally trashed the other one! When we got back Mum had opened a small package which had come in the post and inside was her Land Army badge and certificate signed by Gordon Brown! We all went off down to the show at 4pm to see if we’d won anything. I wasn’t quite prepared for the results as out of the 17 classes I’d entered I’d been placed in 10 and Mum had achieved 5 placings in her classes!

Results as follows (if you’re interested)!

Mum had 1^st and 3^rd with her dahlias. 3^rd for her basket arrangement of flowers, 2^nd for her begonia in a pot and 2^nd for her spray carnations (grown form a 29p packet of Lidl seeds!.

I got 1^st for handicraft non kit work with a watercolour seascape,

2^nd for a horticultural themed photo.

1^st for courgettes

2^nd for  lettuces

2^nd for Geranium in a pot

3^rd for cherry tomatoes

3^rd for shallots

3^rd for sweet peas

4^th for rhubarb (which is Mum’s!)

4^th for potatoes

So all in all good days work!! It cost 5p per entry and I won £2.70 so I made a profit of £1.65p!!

It was a bit of a hectic morning so next year I’m going to concentrate on just sweet peas to see if I can win the Bert Gliddon Trophy!

After another lovely evening meal Nick and I went to collect our exhibits at 8pm then settled down to watch Tatton park flower show which turned magically into Rick Stein!

On Saturday morning Nick and Kath headed off home and we spent the day lazing in the sunshine but I did manage to do some clearing of overgrown salad veg in the garden. Ifor is so hot with his cone on that I have had to take it off him so he can lie under the trailer in the shade. It was a lovely and warm day and it’s the finals day of the twenty 20 cricket which I continued to watch after Jules had gone to work .It was very warm and still in the night and also very clear with a stunning sunrise. A good old lazy Sunday, papers washing Sunday lunch hammock and it was the hottest day for us so far reaching 27.6 C I forgot to mention that on Monday we lost two of the three remaining chickens so we only have one now called Gloria Henniford and she doesn’t go in the field she roams in the orchard and garage bit, so far Ifor has ignored her! We are going to make a proper roofed fox proof pen next week and get some more. We have acquired a rifle to try and shoot the fox but of course he’s not been seen since! Probably due to the supply of chickens being depleted.

How could I forget to add that on Thursday Julian’s brother in law Jeremy won the Welsh farm Hand of the Year and was presented with a trophy and £500 at the Royal Welsh Show in Builth Wells. I have posted a picture from the BBC Wales site and below is the press release from the Welsh NFU .