Hunt the.........

.... no not Hunt the Thimble, but we`ve been doing something similiar to that old children`s party game this afternoon and evening....

....I`ve been playing "hunt the mobile phone"!

I went to take my phone out of my handbag when I got to work this morning, and it wasn`t there. It must be at home, I thought, not unduly worried. Going home at lunch time, I went to the obvious places where I sometimes put it, but it wasn`t there either.

I couldn`t remember when I last had it. I knew I`d definitely had it on Friday, and think I`d had it Saturday or Sunday evening, but wasn`t sure. So we started to look for it. We searched high and low in the house, even in the most unlikely of places too, including the paper recycling bin outside; the summerhouse and garden shed; the laundy basket.... and so on. Perhaps it fell out in the car, so the car was turned inside out too, but to no avail. I began to think I must have lost it out at one of the Flower Festivals which I went to at the weekend, so rang up people we knew connected with both the churches, and they said they`d have a look round and ask for me. I rang the shop I went to yesterday morning to get a loaf of bread, but no luck there.

I thought, ah!..I know, if I dial the number it will ring and I can locate it from that if its in the house - so I dialled the number..... but..... I`d, as usual, turned the phone off, so that idea didn`t work.

It`s not that I use it a lot, I seldom ring anyone from it but I do like to have one when I`m out and when in the car, so I began looking on the web at prices and ideas for getting a new one as I thought that was what I`d have to do.

Now, a few minutes ago I went into my bedroom, for the umpteenth time..... and.... moving a chair, which I`d moved before, there on the chair sat my mobile phone!

One of the activities I enjoy is visiting flower festivals, and this weekend I found two churches to visit.
So here are some pictures from one of them for you to enjoy too.

'Red sky at night, shepherds delight`..



`Birds of a feather flock together'

Favourite beauty

Having posted a photo of a beautiful flower in our garden last week, I just have to follow that up with a picture of my favourite flower. Also in the garden.

Of all the flowers there are, the Lily of the Valley is my favourite. It`s so dainty, its bells all so perfect and so pettily shaped. It looks so fragile, yet is so strong.


And, it has a wonderful perfume. So amazing for the size of the flowers is the strength of perfume which exudes from it. I put just 6 stems of it in a vase and it has perfumed the room, and it`s not a perfume that quickly fades, it lasts for several days.

Lily of the Valley is top of my favourite flower list. Wonder what tops others lists?

Brill

I`m going to tell you about the brill meal I had today.....

It started by taking some large red potatoes, peeling them, carefully cutting them with a knife into slices and then into strips before plunging them into hot fat, where they sizzled away nicely for several minutes until they came out like this.






Next, I took the lovely fresh whole fish, washed it, dried it and put it to drain. Flour was mixed with water and a little bicarbonate of soda to make a batter. The fish was then immersed in the batter to get thoroughly coated and dropped into the deep fat fryer, and cooked until the fish was succulent and the batter light and crispy.



Result - a plate of beautiful Brill and chips.
A Brill Meal !

Beauty

I just had to take a photo of these flowers in our garden today and share them with you. They looked so beautiful with the sun shining on it. What an intricate work of nature they are.

Red or White?

This jug and the colour of the curtain behind it, got me thinking about the first miracle of Jesus when he turned water into wine.

Whenever that miracle it portrayed in film, or in illustrations, the wine is always shown as red wine. But, I got to thinking - was it red wine, would it have been red wine or white wine? In the Bible story, afer Jesus told the disciples to fill the jars with water and take them to the master of the banquet to taste (John 2: 7-9) the water had been turned into wine.

It seems more logical to me to think that the when they poured the water out for the master of the banquet to taste, that it still looked clear like water, and that the water had actually became white wine. After all, wouldn`t there have been more written about the servants reaction if they`s poured the wine out for the master to taste and it had come out as red, and not as white?

I know that for film/illustrations it`s more dramatic to show red as the contrast - but which would it really have been?

Surprise find

Looking at this shrub in my garden the other day, which is one I use quite a bit for cutting when doing flower arranging, I was alarmed to see it had a lot of black on it. Had the wind caught it, or was it damage from the snow and frost we`d had at Easter, I wondered, or had it got some kind of disease?

Going closer for a better inspection of it. I found that it wasn`t the leaves that were black, as I had at first thought, it was infact tiny flowers! I hadn`t realised that this shrub had flowers. It was a delightful find. Another wonder of nature to me. Isn`t that beautiful.

Fort Knox?

I really felt in the mood to be outside and do some gardening the other day, so got to work on setting my vegetable seeds. Not a lot, but I do like to try and grow some carrots, beetroot, onions and runner beans.

Our gardener had made a raised bed for me, for this year, so having raked the soil and got it as level as I could (I`m not very good at that), I first set 3 rows of onion sets, then the carrot and beetroot seeds. I`ll do the runner beans a bit later on.

Now, we have a number of cats who like to visit our garden, and as much as we chase them off they still keep returning. It`s so annoying when you have just set seeds or done some work in the garden to find them come and use it for their loo, and dig amongst the seeds. So, I had to try and find a solution to it, to at least give the seeds a chance of growing. I hunted round in the shed to see what I could use....

Here`s the result of trying to protect my seeds...... will it work..... I wait to see.

Going quackers!

Meet the new additions to "the family"!


We couldn`t resist giving them a "home" when we saw them at the garden centre yesterday.

A Free Day

I really must catch up on my blog writing. My mother had another fall last Thursday evening coming out from a meeting at our church, again she was very lucky and didn`t badly injure herself, but just bruises and feeling very shaken. And, she wasn`t the only one feeling shaken by the experience, so too was I for several days.

Still, onto more cheerful things. I got a nice text from my boss on Saturday, to say that as today was a Bank Holiday, I didn`t need to go into work if I didn`t want to! So, I`ve had an unexpected day off. And what a beautiful day it`s been.

It`s been really like summer here today, warm and sunny from sunrise to sunset. It made me feel like wanting to get some plants for the garden to give it a splash of colour, so I got mother into the car (as she loves a ride) and off we went to a garden centre. Enjoying the sight of all the fresh green growth on the trees and shrubs as we passed, in a couple of woody areas we spotted carpets of blue.... yes the bluebells were out. Unfortunately there was no handy spot to stop and take a photo of them, so here instead is a pcture of the plants I got to put into pot in the garden.

Now, all I`ve got to do is get some bags of compost to set them in and pot them up. Why didn`t I get the compost at the garden centre you may ask..... well, how do you fit a wheel-chair, two people, trays of plants, bags of plants, bags of other shopping, coats (taken by not needed!) etc.... all into the car along with the size bags of compost would be!?