My confession -- a summer romance

Cartier polo, originally uploaded by Peter Meade.

There are certain things that evoke an English summer like no other -- Wimbeldon tennis, strawberries & cream, vegetable gardens bursting their borders with fresh veg, Pimm's on ice, the Proms at Royal Albert Hall -- and figures like this man, his suit really, spotted at a recent polo match. No caption necessary.

I wish I could take credit for this photo but I can't. It's by photographer, Peter Meade. Follow the links and browse his images of a version of English life that only exists outside London. He specializes in equestrian (including polo) and cricket photography. I admit to being a little more interested in the horses than the entire ethnography of the "horsey set", but it's all very very good.
Excellent, in fact.
He's one of my favorite photographers found in my wanderings through flickr.

Which brings me to my confession. . .

Some people consider it an addiction, but I prefer to think of it as a picture-perfect romance. The things I find on flickr and jpgmag sometimes make me swoon. I read books and such during the day, but at night I browse flickr and jpgmag. I'm learning so much about photography, film and digital, from reading the discussions and viewing the work of various photographers from around the world. One of my favorites on jpgmag lives and photographs Iceland. In the meantime, I carry my little digital around with me everywhere and sometimes a small film camera too.

So, maybe it's a summer romance -- photography and me, but I think we'll be together for a long time to come.

blackberry bliss

In the softening light of early evening, blackberries eaten off the bush taste of a perfect harmony of sweet and tart and earth.


the remains of the harvest

Worth a smile

I like this. It made me giggle and smile.


I Wanna Be Yours
by John Cooper Clarke

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina
I will never rust
If you like your coffee hot
let me be your coffee pot
You call the shots
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your raincoat
for those frequent rainy days
I wanna be your dreamboat
when you want to sail away
Let me be your teddy bear
take me with you anywhere
I don’t care
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your electric meter
I will not run out
I wanna be the electric heater
you’ll get cold without
I wanna be your setting lotion
hold your hair in deep devotion
Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean
that’s how deep is my devotion

Some things in life you can always count on

You know that law of real life about waiting around for something, it never comes, then when you start to do something else -- Bing! -- what you'd been waiting hours for magically appears! Of course, if you are expecting a call it never comes.

I love that law of real life because it's true. It never fails.

Like this morning. I was expecting delivery of the last of the plants & grasses to go into the back garden. I thought they were going to call before they arrived. I was expecting a call before they arrived. The morning passed -- no call, no delivery. So, I decided to try dyeing my hair. I'd recently tried this with less than desirable results so I was determined to try again and get it right. Besides, I was sure that as soon as I got the dye in my hair and the alarm went off signaling time to rinse it out to prevent my hair from turning a crazy color of teen-goth black/purple and then all falling out, the plant delivery would arrive!

Like I said, I love that law of real life. It never fails. Almost. The hair-saving alarm didn't go off. BUT that other law of real life that says when you rush to the grocery store to grab a last minute must-have ingredient still sweaty and dirty from working in the garden all afternoon OR have just put the dye in your hair, mask on your face, etc. you'll come face-to-face with the cute guy.

So, with dye covering my hair, latex gloves on my hands, wearing nothing impressive, and about 7 minutes to go my door bell rang. The plants had arrived and on my door step was the cute garden center Polish/Russian/Hungarian/manly-accent man. The one who looks at me, says hello and smiles every time I'm there. Yeah, so I've got all my plants now.

It's Garden List Time!

Here's what I hope to get into the ground by the end of this weekend:
4 chocolate Cosmos (a velvety deep red-brown blossom and smells like dark chocolate)
3 white Cosmos
1 apricot foxglove
1 deep purple delphinium
1 pale pink delphinium
1 light blue delphinium
2 Bishop of Lancaster dahlias (deep red blossoms, dark leaves)
2 blue fescue grasses (Elijah blue)
2 Ucinia grasses (burgundy leaves and slender spikes of tiny white flowers)

Of course to accomplish all this I have to:
hack out another clump of that ugly grassy stuff, only a bit smaller than the huge one that took me hours to remove before planting the lavender; AND

prune back one of the roses which scares me (the pruning, not the roses) but I'm sure it's not flowering anymore so I can't do that much harm, right?



Of course, now it's just started raining.

EEEeeeeEEEEeeeEeEeEeEeEeEeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

Something grew and I didn't even notice them!
I have beans. Not sure which ones, have to wait for them to fully ripen.


And this was the view in the front of the building as I headed in tonight.

Before & After

I'm quite pleased with myself. I've finished the clearing and replanting of the front streetside space.
Now, it's just routine maintenance.

BEFORE (10 May 2008)


NOW (2 July 2008)


Just in time too -- tomorrow, the last of the plants for the back garden plot are to be delivered. There are quite a few of them too.