O' Flouer o' Scotland...

Whin will we see yir likes agen?

oops - weeds

I'm just back from spending 3 weeks at home in Scotland, and instead of sitting on my behoochie creating digital farms on the internet (don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about!), I've been staging war against brambles, wild strawberries and other evil garden interlopers IN REAL LIFE! Yes indeed!

I swear to the Lord of the Undergrowth that it was an unfair fight, though. The garden itself has been left to its own devices for a few years while my Dad was unable to tend it, and some of it looks like it has never seen cultivation in its life, even though it was growing some very tidy bedding plants/shrubs/rows of veggies not 4 years ago. But thanks the the by-pass last year and a marvellous hip replacement, he's been back, hoe in hand, beating the living crap out of it.

fine scottish melons... as it were...

The vegetable plots are full of potatoes, peas, carrots, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, onions, beetroot, butternut squash, and spinach... The rose garden is flourishing and already on 3rd/4th flowering. The greenhouse is fit to bursting with already-ripening tomatoes, peppers, melons and other hot-house goodies! The raspberries, redcurrants and strawberries have already been and gone (nom) and the rhubarb is still happily churning out stalks of goodness in every direction it can.

I gave myself the task of ruining the lives of the wild brambles and strawberries that had seeded and laid runners around the place. I mean. Sheesh. You'd think the brambles, being thorny and catchy and owners of long, LONG roots and generally mean-minded buggers would be the worse of the two, but the wild strawberries had infiltrated the whole garden with their subversive underground runners (no doubt stroking their pet white cats at the same time) and were impossible to remove completely.

< insert evil laugh here >

They look so innocent with their teeny tiny fruit and angelic white blossoms, but that pretty face conceals a malevolence of unfathomable (almost) proportions: They were down the sides of the pathways, choking the aubretia (the aubretia fought back, though); surrounding and UNDER the foundations of the greenhouse; strangling the lilac tree; suffocating the miniature roses; congesting the borders with throttling runners. Generally staging an all-out garden coup, and winning.

So I armed myself with a garden fork, a hand fork, a trowel, a small spade and some totally unprepared muscles, and went to work.

I have to say I had a lovely time digging and annihilating! Very cathartic (after the initial muscle shock had died down) and it was a real pleasure to see turf (I didn't mention the overgrown grasses, did I?) and tangles of wildness turn into beds of dark, brown, earthy lusciousness, ready for planting!

pretty wildness

Yet somehow, there's something very beautiful about wild flowers in the garden...  a splash of colour when the hardy perennials are still gearing up for their own shows...  Just don't tell Dad I said so!

Home Sweet Home II

So, where was I before I rudely interrupted my musings with news of the impending destruction of the village pillagers? (HUZZAH!)  Oh yes...

 home - behind the delphiniums

Well, the garden was still looking in fine fettle when I was home.  My Dad was particularly pleased with the dahlia show and rightly so, they were beautiful:

I'd missed the sweet-peas, of course, which are always spectacular, and also the livingstone daisies and all the lovely Summer border flowers, but witnessed the addition of the Winter pansies just before I left, which are ever so pretty.   The tomatoes in the greenhouse are mostly past now, and the cucumbers and peppers are long gone, but there were 5 rather massive marrows there awaiting a time when my Mother will turn them into marrow and ginger jam.  NOM.

Well, in addition to pretending to be a tourist and taking all sorts of arty-farty shots of the ancient buildings, I also indulged in a spot of nostalgic piccie-taking of my old school...  Although I use that word advisedly...  I know the word nostalgia means a longing for the past, and invokes feelings of warmth, of golden, happy times and I shouldn't really use that word in any sentence pertaining to my school years (as I have very mixed memories of secondary school... well, to be honest, I have mostly bad memories of secondary school) but I could never complain about the aesthetic beauty of the senior building and its wonderful, if very draughty, quadrangle... Sadly I couldn't take pictures of the quad, as the school was closed for the October holidays, but, although the building is only 180 years old or so, I remember the quad appearing very old indeed.  I guess that's what happens when you combine the local sand-stone used for building most of the old structures in the town, and the sharp, salty sea air...

madras college - senior building

I do, however, remember enjoying lunch-times when I would stay in the music house and practise the piano, which is where the real nostalgia comes in...  I learnt my first Chopin nocturne on the piano of the room above the bowed windows, on the first floor...

the music house in all its autumnal glory

The buildings of St Mary's College, part of the university, was also a must on the 'got to photo' list.  St Mary's College is the home of the teaching of Divinity and was founded in 1539 and is still housed in its fine sixteenth-century buildings, and I have to say, they are beautiful!

Do you see the thorn tree to the left of the bottom picture?  Legend has it that it was planted by Mary Queen of Scots during one of her visits to the town...  Okay, okay - a 500+ year-old tree?  Well, the chances are that if it's not the original tree, it's certainly a descendant, so it's still rather on the WOW side!

Another ancient structure to be found is the West Port which was originally built in 1589 and is, I think, the last remaining civic gate still in existence in Scotland.

west port

I must have walked through the port a thousand times, but I have to admit that I've never really looked closely at it before (you know - that thing about familiarity breeding... blindness), but have camera, as they say, take close-ups...

king david and his lance... don't ask - i have no idea!

To finish with, I'll show you the LYS - it's situated in one of the wee closes (pronounced with a sibilant s and not a z, meaning a narrow alley to a courtyard) opposite the school. The building is itself a great example of the typical mediaeval house that was found in the area, with the dwelling spaces on the upper floors and the ground floor used for housing livestock. Inside it's all wooden beams, creaky floorboards, rough walls and yummy yarn!  I can think of worse places to drool over wool!

Oh, and yes, I did take photos on different days... although anyone visiting Scotland will avow, it is possible to have sun, rain, fog and snow within a few hours of each other.  And that's just in Summer!  Heh!

Springtime in Tours...

... starts with the cherry blossoms...

I'm lucky enough to live in the medieval quarter of this ancient city so all the buildings around are roughly 15th and 16th century, and there are many nooks, crannies, courtyards and gated gardens that conceal some real visual treasures from the casual passer-by. I'm a nosey old cow though, so I've found loads of lovely things to snap!

This rather pretty specimen was transplanted to the small Placis de la Lamproie around the corner from me last year and it's lovely to see in flowering in its first year here! I presume it's cherry anyway... will have to wait and see!

Next comes what looks to me like a baby horse chestnut, but the flowers aren't tall enough - I'll be interested to see what the leaves turn in to... There's another tree behind it, just to confuse you!

Looking across rue de la Paix onto le Jardin St-Pierre-le-Puellier.

The purple magnolia - I *just* caught it before all the petals dropped...

This marvellous old tree can be found on the rue du Mûrier and is doing the feux d'artifice de printemps display admirably! The little garden itself is open to the public, but at this time of year there's not many folk around. It's also rather nice to see the façade of building behind... The limbs stretch forever and I've a shot facing the other way, overlooking the other side of the road...

Whizz, "ooh", bang, "aah"...
(I may be taking the fireworks analogies a *little* far...)

And lastly there's this lovely pot of what looks like a white laburnum I found when I was sneaking about... although it may be wisteria...?

Whatever it is, it looks very happy!

Now I'm inspired to start my little window boxes up again... rosemary, lavender, mint and some other smelly favourites! I'll take myself off to the flower market on Saturday to see what I can find...