Fruit and veg . . . .

. . . from the greenhouse.  Elegant green bits!  Bit small though, they aren't doing as well as they might.

 Plus some peas, beans and courgettes though they make a bit of a show.  Mr. and . . .

. . . Mrs.

And these came from wild plum trees up the lane at the end of the road.  They are very tasty, small, just a little bigger than damsons.  There are yellow ones there as well, all now settled in our freezer for winter crumbles. 

Just a bit more creativity . . .

. . .from DGD 5, a cupcake cushion cover, all done by her except the free machining on the icing.  I'm not letting her loose on my machine to that extent yet I'm afraid.

 . . . from me - one of 6 paintings 7' x 3'6" of places on Jerusalem, for use in our church over the Easter period.  I'll put pix of the others in somewhen.  Done on calico using remnants of household paint.  This one is part of the view over the city from the Dominus flevit church, commemorating the place where Jesus Christ is thought to have wept over Jerusalem a few days before the crucifixion.

 . . .  and from God - lichen or fungus of some other sort forms on offcuts and remnants of wood DH collects around the neighbourhood, saving people dumping it in landfill.  These shapes and textures are so extraordinary!

The last of the black tomatoes!

Last ones  picked, plant cleared away.  There were 10 altogether, all big like beefsteak tomatoes.  They do look a bit offputting, being sort of dingy rather than bright rich red but they taste delicious.  So next year, two plants perhaps.  I hope they will have them at our local nursery again!

Cooking, painting, doodling . . .

. . . in the second half of July.  A visit to the local farmers' market yielded the colourful caulis (tasty, too) and the yellow courgettes.  The round one, the beans, the basil and the tomatoes are all DH's work, well, with me as advisor, as in, couldn't we try a different kind of courgette this year as well as the normal ones?  We had them all for Sunday lunch on my birthday weekend.

The tomtoes are beginning to ripen and deserve a shot or two to themselves.  DD2 takes very arty pix of veg, flowers etc and I am trying to emulate her.

Well, i keep trying.

Painting at church again, on the glass wall on one side of the main church bit, looking into the hallway.  We had a Dreamday i.e. family fun day, about Bugs, Bats and Dragonflies.  See the fat black spider on its web, in the hallway, not the painting!

I really enjoyed doing that.  Not sure how it will be cleaned up eventually!

But my own work lately has been taken over by a somewhat obsessional doodling.  Look here for the source of it all, zentangles.  I'm not into the 'zen' bit, and prefer to call thm 'doodles' than 'tangles', but the claim that 'It increases focus and creativity' I find to be true for me.  I don't think the zentangle people intend it to become obsessional though!  The first has a seaside theme, because the frame turned out rather like cliffs, but the second has no special theme, just patterns.  I enjoy creating the 3D effect in some patterns.

Harvest time . .

. . . for the gooseberries.  11 lbs of jam and another 4lbs of fruit waiting.  Anyone have a nice recipe for gooseberry chutney?

Last year was a great success for courgettes.  This year they are struggling because there's been practically no rain.  Trying another kind this year to keep the usual long green ones company and this is the first one, which DH says is just a bit bigger than a cricket ball.

He says I should have taken a photo of him bowling with it.

Actually I was expecting them to be dark green, not this interesting pale textury colour.

Homework . . .

. . . last Saturday for one of the DGDs, was to make a picture of a monster with a collage of food pictures. Grandad suggested she took photos of as many food plants as she could find growing in the garden and make her monster from them. So here are some of them.
Clockwise from top left - strawberry, rhubarb, spinach, oregano, tomatoes, grapes, lollo rosso lettuce, baby cabbage plants, oats (spilled from the bird feeders, not for us!)

And from top left again - shallots, curly lettuce, blueberries, strawberries, potatoes, peas.

Colour collections . . .

. . . always interest me, so here are a couple from the garden, the ever intriguing red and green first - clockwise from top left: a 4 or 5 year old oak tree; a ragged tulip; peony buds; red onions and celery in the frying pan (oops, sorry, from the co-op, not our garden, but the colours interested me); strawberries, ok, from last year, but I needed a 9th pic to make the collage grid; a pelargonium; roses (last year too0; chives; frilly lettuce (that IS this year's!)

And pretty pink - apple blossom 1 and 2; a perennial plant, the grandaughters call it bleeding hearts, but I'm not sure it's right; another pelargonium; clematis; an azalea; a peachy pelargonium; a rhododendron; an anonymous flower.

Flowers and butterflies . . .

. . . on the book some of whose pix got lost while uploading yesterday.  What a contrived link!  Sorry.  Here's the stitching on the spine, using a fine perlé thread.

And now the flowers, that have grown a bit since the last Spring pix.  I've arranged them in a sort of sequence of colour.  It is quite amazing how many gradations there are in colours.  I suppose really it just goes in a continuous shading, not in separatable steps!

I like the shadows on the wall

and the shape of these pointy tulips

contrasted with the blunt curves of these primroses

and the small round bell-shaped blobs of the grape hyacinths.

This horse chestnut has been growing for 4 years, I think.  It needs a proper home somewhere, out of its pot.

A very big thank you . . .

. . . . to everyone who has left a comment in recent weeks.  My apologies for not being able to cope with thanking each of you individually which I am sure I should really. Thanks especially to 'Cat', who has given me a sunshine award, but I've not been able to get to your blog, Cat, I get a page saying access is restricted.  People have said some very nice things.  I feel rather humble!  Unfortunately I've also had some very dubious links arrive, which have been rejected, and 2 in Chinese, which might have been interesting to put on, but Google translator didn't give me anything I could make sense of, so I am sorry, they do not appear.
I've been taking and uploading pictures lately, so will be doing a bit of catchup.
So some signs of spring to lift our spirits - things are alive out there, and trying to catch up the 2 weeks that they are behind apparently, compared to other years, because of all the cold weather the UK has been having.

This bush smells absolutely beautiful.  I don't know what it is called.  I've put some in the bathroom!

Next door's mimosa tree that hangs nicely over our garden and makes us believe it is ours.

And to feed the body as well as the soul - the rhubarb is looking promising!

After the paper making at the craft activities at our church I had a bit of pulp left over - only enough to make about 90 A5 sheets!!!!

It was well worth . . .

. . . digging up the front garden. It is a riot of green at the moment . . .

. . . outdoors. . .

. . . and indoors . . . yummy yummyBut where these (below) came from we have no idea! Funny, times when I think out carefully what to grow where, go and buy it, get it planted in just the right place etc etc, the stuff doesn't always grow. Other times things just appear, don't know where from, in places you would never choose, and flourish amazingly. Is there a life message there somewhere??? If you think you know what it is, please tell me! Meanwhile they brighten up the bed with the brussel sprout plants in.I'd like really to have these poppies in the back garden alongside these . . . a pink geranium that survived from last year, an unusual geranium-type plant from the local garden centre and fuchsias bought at a sales table at church.
If your local allotment waiting list is too long, an alternative is to find an elderly person who is willing for you tidy a bit of their garden by digging a veg patch in return for some of the produce. Derek has been able to do this and as well as strawberries, peas and broad beans we have had these . . .
. . . and these come from our own greenhouse, doing a bit better than last year. Red and green again, but perhaps a bit more attention to the background when taking pix might be a good idea!

Nice printed batik though, from Togo in West Africa, bought at a craft village when we visited friends doing linguistic, literacy and Bible translation work there, in 1994.