G is also for Garden

The least accurate model and the last of the Lego-like'ies, but first a look at the actual walled garden, one of the few restored bits with two dove coops of substantial size which must have kept the garrison in eggs and meat for a portion of the siege, had they also started using pigeons for messages by then, I think they must have?

The model for some reason just shortens the wall to exclude the area now used for picnics on nice days. Despite being a ruin, this is a decent day out and the village of Old Basing has some fine hostelries - while the car park for visiting the old house is also the pub car park for a Wadworth's Inn while coffee, ice cream and snacks are available from the Little Barn vistor's centre

I collaged the above three to make it easier to compare the real with the model. The big tower (a granary?) in the model is long-gone while the space occupied by the square tower at the near-end of the wall is now squatted by a glorified potting-shed which doubles as a small museum of artifacts from the site and some other models, including the Lego garden. A few of those artifacts (mostly tiles - another interest of mine) are shown below, but again; better visited, than vicariously peered at on the Blog!

The signs of burning are from the sacking of the two fortified houses after they fell, the remains of the whole complex are a grassy hill, apart from the garden - off to one side and relatively out of harms way, i dare say it was a bit of a state for a century or two before restoration!

L is for Little Fluffy Clouds

Taken a few weeks ago, this is a classic late summer, early autumn sky-scape which - sadly - the photograph fails to convey in the way I was viewing when I thought it was worth getting the camera out for!

Mookies

"So, er, what you doin' over there mate, cutting the hedge huh? Don't spo'se yer'd like to wander over 'ear a mo and pop some of that grass over the wire fe'rus wouldja? We're gern'na make cutlets yer know? Yeh, we're being trained up ter make cuttlets...sumin like fairy-cakes in'ey, sumin you eats any'ow!

Recent Snow

With reports of more snow tomorrow, I guess I'd better get these images up before they become dated, taken last week during the first cold snap...Global Warming...what global warming?

Lone tree lit by the setting sun.

The double Hornbeam likewise.

Ratty is still at it despite my best efforts to send him to a better place! I think the fresher the poison, the more he likes it!

Contrast!

B is for Bits and Bobs

The recent snow and stuff has slowed work in the garden, pruning has come to a complete standstill and we have to be careful were we walk so as not to tread on the snowdrops and other bulbs as they come up through it. So a few miscellaneous shots taken over the last few days.

This was the by-product of my 5-week bonfire, the orangey-pinkish stuff is the soil that went through the fire with huge forkfuls of wet leaves and the stuff I raked out from under the shrubs and boarders. It makes the ash 'heavy' so that it doesn't blow away and can be spread more easily on the land. So far, twenty barrow-loads have come out of this heap and have gone on all the roses, the veg garden and the tomato trench in the greenhouse. The raspberries have also had a bucket load or two, as have the currants.

The Tomato trench has also been half-filled with home made compost, after which it was topped-up with new soil, taken from a path-straitening project elsewhere on the grounds. Here you see last years compost on the left and this years ready to be covered on the right. I have put a lot of peaty leaf-mould on top to speed up the process and prevent a dry layer of half-composted stuff needing removing from the top when we uncover it next autumn. There is no Laylandii, Yew or similar fir/evergreen cuttings as they take forever to rot and tend to puddle an oily slime like Amoco-crude! Not many shrub cuttings get in either, but lots of grass mowing's, moss and weeds, shrub-bed raking and the scrapings from the kitchens. No meat or fish, no bread (only because it all goes on the bird-tables) and no fat (same reason), finally a couple of layers of old carpet are thrown on, fur side down, and the whole left to sweat through the year.

A couple of trees I photographed up on the Ridgeway path above Wantage the other day, it was bitterly cold, and we found a monument to the 'Barron Wantage' who seem to have got a VC in the Crimean war, but having been without a computer for a week I haven't managed to look him up on Google yet!

The first bunch of Snowdrops to poke up, taken a couple of weeks ago, we now have loads of them but they are all under snow at the moment.

F is for Frozen Landscape

These shots were taken round the garden during the recent cold snap, we woke up one morning to find that freezing fog in the night had turned the universe (or our particular corner of it) as white as if it had been sprayed.

The wonderful Cedar of Lebanon, the photograph doesn't do justice to the majesty of it all dressed in white, with the first tips of Crocus and Daffodil poking up under the canopy. We have a real problem with squirrels digging them up so I planted some new ones the other day round one end of the bench.

The Holly down the main drive, it had been given a halo of ice on every leaf. Pruning and cutting back in this sort of weather has to take a bit of a back-seat, as you can't damage or kill the most hardy of shrubs without meaning to, although we did take out 80% of the leaf and 50% of the wood from a Laurel the other day, and gave two others a bit of a kicking!

Winter blossom with a frosting of Ice, the Roses looked really lovely with each spine or thorn having its own icy overcoat.