A stroll through the village

This weekend my Eldest Daughter was home, organising some preparations for her wedding in August. This included us making part of her wedding dress!! Thank goodness that we were joined by my clever sewing friend the Biker Chick who is the same age as me - you can see in her, wearing pink on the far right in the photo of my Piddle Valley friends in Wonderful Walks)

At some point, when I can publish photos of the wedding dress (ie after the wedding!) I shall show you all the process of creating something amazing without a pattern! As you can imagine, it was a fairly intense process, so in the early evening ED and I took a refreshing, tranquil stroll along the river and through the village.

The young ducklings are quite grown up now, and the banks are green and lush. It is wonderful to live this delightful place - I really appreciate it the more I live here. 32 years and no intention of moving!

The flowers and shrubs through the village are wonderful, they even grow out of walls! And some gardens are the epitome of cottage gardens.

ED had the last of the wedding invitations to post, and so posted it in front of the church where they will get married. The invitations are quite amazing and unique, as one may expect of two graphic designers - I will try and find a way to reproduce them.



Amazing cottage gardens, and the delightful lathyrus? the perenial sweet pea climbing over lovely flint wall. I must try to get some, its just so robust and strong, and the colour is gorgeous.



The lovely combination of hydrangeas and honeysuckle are in the front garden of Well Cottage just at the bottom of the path from the road to our Old School.

Finishing with some updates of what is flowering in my garden, there is no way I can compete with some of the beautiful examples in the village!

This lovely combination of rose and clematis is not technically in my garden as they are escapees over the fence from my neighbour's garden.

But all the rest are mine -

The acer that I planted when my mother died many years ago contrasts nicely against the spirea that has small pink blossoms at the moment, but in spring the variegated leaves are a delight too.

Armandii suprised me by throwing out a couple of out of season flowers.

The acanthus or Bear's Breeches are flowering for the first time ever in their ten years. Normally I just get the sculptural leaves you can see at the base, but hurrah the flower spikes have burst upward this year.

I have just taken time out to post this from the time consuming task of considering my job situation. I am coming around to the idea that I may do something entirely different, rather than be forced into a boring and meaningless job that is not related to anything I am trained for or enjoy just because it suits the Efficiency Review and the Library Service.

More news of that when I have something concrete to share.