today this ancient forest is covered in a fine blanket of damp cloud, which in the early hours was a rainfall that woke me up, but my routine continues as it usually does.
let flynt, who is flourishing like a little weed, into the garden...
let flynt, who is flourishing like a little weed, into the garden...
*he has had an extra week to flourish since this was taken and he is growing so quickly*
...and take out all our seedlings~both flowers and vegetables, putting them on the table in the garden well out of reach of exploring puppy teeth, make cups of tea and sit with my laptop at the kitchen table (46 years old and one of my parents wedding gifts~still going strong) alternately typing and gazing out of the window and looking at my pea shoots flourishing at my 'farm'~our kitchen windowsill faces south-west and for a good part of the day has sunshine so is perfect for my herbs, living salad and now pea shoots.
i have grown peas for a good few years now and love picking the ripe peas and eating them right there in the garden.
last year i discovered the joys of pea shoots in a salad, something, for some reason i have never considered. the trouble was they came in small amounts in bags from one of our more expensive and less invasive supermarkets here in england, but one i like to visit when in lymington because they do nice cakes, have an interesting vegetarian section and sell all the different environmentally friendly/non-animal tested/natural products (for those days when a slightly longer walk cannot take me to 'sweet joe pye')
last year i discovered this book...
...but never went back and bought it...shame on me.
then a few weeks ago while feeling unwell and channel hopping on tv i discovered this little gem...
for those of you who have not heard or seen alys fowler on tv there is a nice little article here from the telegraph
***~later~***
sitting with a mug of organic peppermint tea after 'blogging interuppted' by a walk with flynt to the old clay pits, about a five minute walk from home, although i have to say the old clay pits is a name that does not do the area justice...
the dampness has cleared over the last hour and patches of blue are now showing through the grey clouds. i hope it brightens up as today we have the Anzac service up at the old church, that sits on a hill behind us~where as i type the bells are ringing.
the Anzac graves are half way down the hill from the church to one side of a winding little path, behind some older stones~it has the large memorial seen here behind the individual graves and it looks out across the forest towards the salisbury direction and the setting sun
there are 93 New Zealanders, some with wonderful Maori names attatched to specific Maori regiments, 1 Australian and 3 Indians there, a few of the thousands of casualties of the first World War brought from France for care at the wartime Hospital that was here in the village and the service each year is important to the village.
the area is special, it feels special for next to the church grows a yew, dated to over 1,000 years old and this yew sits within what once must have been an earthwork, a great part of it still remaining.
as churches were built upon these sacred sites of the ancestors in an effort to turn the people away from the old ways there certainly is a special aura to the place if you spend time there and distance yourself from what it has become.