Sunday 21 August 2016

It's been a while....

....I know, since I last posted a "proper" post ~ please accept my apologies!

I've found myself in a weird kind of limbo for a few months now ~ since a little before my birthday, actually, back in June.  I've felt quite strange, to be honest, as if my journey through life has changed course all by itself with no conscious input from me!  It has sort of crept up on me and presented itself as a fait accompli...as I say, somewhat weird and strange.

I am feeling the need to change quite a few aspects of my life.  Not in huge ways, it's more a case of lots of little changes which I suppose will come together in time and show me the new path I am to travel.

One of those changes is my blog.  This will be the last post on Lavender and Pearls, although not a goodbye to the blogging world.  I have set up a new blog, Tabi's Butterfly Mind , which I hope you may like to visit from time-to-time.....hopefully I will see you over there :-) 

The Sunday Prayer



Dove of Peace by Pablo Picasso


Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.
For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.
For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou
(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Friday 19 August 2016

Feel-good Friday

Thursday 18 August 2016

The Thursday Poem

Potted Flowers with Books IV
Eric Barjot


From The Night

Through that pure Virgin-shrine,
The sacred veil o'er thy glorious noon
That men might look and live as Glow-worms shine,
And face the Moon:
Wise Nicodemus saw such light
As made him know his God by night.

Were all my loud, evil days
Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark Tent,
Whose peace but by some Angels wing or voice
Is seldom rent;
Then I in Heaven all the long year
Would keep, and never wander here.

But living where the sun
Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tyre
Themselves and others, I consent and run
To ev'ry myre,
And by this world's ill-guiding light,
Err more then I can do by night.

There is in God (some say)
A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear;
O for that night! where I in him
Might live invisible and dim.

Henry Vaughan
(17th April 1622 - 23rd April 1695) 

Wednesday 17 August 2016

Words on Wednesday



Grey hair is hereditary...you get it from your children ;-)

Sunday 14 August 2016

The Sunday Prayer



Dove of Peace by Pablo Picasso


Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.
For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.
For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou
(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Friday 12 August 2016

Feel-good Friday

Thursday 11 August 2016

The Thursday Poem

Potted Flowers with Books IV
Eric Barjot


I wandered lonely as a cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margins of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth
(7th April 1770 - 23rd April 1850)

Wednesday 10 August 2016

Words on Wednesday



A wise man turns chance into good fortune

Sunday 7 August 2016

The Sunday Prayer



Dove of Peace by Pablo Picasso


Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.
For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.
For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou
(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Friday 5 August 2016

Feel-good Friday

Thursday 4 August 2016

The Thursday Poem

Potted Flowers with Books IV
Eric Barjot


Dover Beach

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its meloncholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Matthew Arnold
(24th December 1822 - 15th April 1888)

Wednesday 3 August 2016

Words on Wednesday



Dieting is when the days seem longer and the meals shorter!

Sunday 31 July 2016

The Sunday Prayer



Dove of Peace by Pablo Picasso


Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.
For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.
For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou
(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Friday 29 July 2016

Feel-good Friday

Thursday 28 July 2016

The Thursday Poem

Potted Flowers with Books IV
Eric Barjot


From Memories of President Lincoln
(in Leaves of Grass)
O Captain!  My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vesses grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red!
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up - for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths - for you the shores
a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here, Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Walt Whitman
(31st May 1819 - 26th March 1892)

Wednesday 27 July 2016

Words on Wednesday



We learn from history that we do not learn anything from history!

Tuesday 19 July 2016

Sunday 26 June 2016

The Sunday Prayer




Dove of Peace by Pablo Picasso


Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.
For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.
For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou
(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Friday 24 June 2016

Feel-good Friday

Thursday 23 June 2016

The Thursday Poem

Potted Flowers with Books IV
Eric Barjot


From Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication
For Marie Heaney
Sunlight

There was a sunlit absence.
The helmeted pump in the yard
heated its iron,
water honeyed

in the slung bucket
and the sun stood
like a griddle cooling
against the wall

of each long afternoon.
So, her hands scuffled
over the bakeboard
the reddening stove

sent its plaque of heat
against her where she stood
in a floury apron
by the window.

Now she dusts the board
with a goose's wing,
now sits, broad-lapped,
with whitened nails

and measling shins:
here is a space
again, the scone rising
to the tick of two clocks.

And here is love
like a tinsmith's scoop
sunk past its gleam
in the meal-bin.

Seamus Heaney
(13th April 1939 - 30th August 2013)


Wednesday 22 June 2016

Words on Wednesday

Alphabet Overlay 1


Failure is more frequently from want of energy
than from want of capital

Tuesday 21 June 2016

A little wander around the garden


It was my birthday on 6th June and when my sister-in-law and her partner came to visit last week, they brought some pressies with them :-)  The first was this group of resin toadstools, which I think look very good peaking out from beneath the ice plant...

 

 ...and the second was this handsome ceramic frog, now sitting just a hop away from one of the nature pools :-)

 

There is still plenty of staining to be done.  I only got half of my work shed finished last year ~ what a difference between the two halves, eh!



I gave the bird box a sprucing-up.  The woodstain is called Pale Thistle, by Cuprinol.  It's a very pretty colour and I will be using it elsewhere in the garden.  Adrian had saved an offcut of roofing felt leftover from the chicken houses which I glued to the bird box roof, so it has a bit more protection from the weather now. 


 A man and his tools LOL

 

Creeping Jenny is a recurring theme in my garden.  I know it can be a wee bit invasive, given half a chance, but I find it very useful for filling in odd or difficult spaces, and keeping the weeds down.  It's easy enough to simply pull up plants when they start to stray into areas where I don't want them.


I really like Jenny's pretty yellow flowers :-)


Some of the houseleeks are starting to flower...


and all the offshoots are now settled and doing well.


I bought this purple sage at the Triangle Garden open day the weekend-before-last.  The leaves smell divine and the flowers have already had numerous visits from bees.


I don't know what variety this geranium is but I've had it ~ or rather, offshoots of the original plant ~ for a good number of years.  It's a very pretty shade of blue and grows well in the garden.


This is Osteospermum Weetwood.  The pretty white flowers close up, like other daisies, at night or when it is a very dull day, which I find very endearing :-)


The flowers on the campanula are starting to open now.


I finally got the fern, liriope muscari and pulmonaria planted in their new home.  I decided to add woodchips as a mulch and I'm very pleased with how it looks.

The pot on the right now has a very young garden mint in it, another plant I bought at the Triangle Garden open day.


Do you like my new outdoor rug?  I wanted something bigger than a standard doormat to put by the patio door, and found this online from Matalan.  It's been rained on in this photo so the colours look a tad duller than they really are.



Some of the coping stones on the brick raised bed have come adrift, but hopefully Steve will fix them before winter comes this year. 


View from the patio door.  As you can see, the garden is only small but it keeps me occupied and out of mischief!

Monday 20 June 2016

Hard work but so worth it!


The weekend before last, we still had a manky old concrete path and miscellaneous paving slabs in the back garden ~ really not a pretty sight!  On the Saturday, hubby girded his loins and started attacking said paving with my Dad's iron pry-bar (which we have had custody of for years now LOL)...


...and this was the end result ~ no more dodgy paving (well, not in the slate chippings area, at any rate!) and weed membrane in place ready for the next stage.


Just look at those chunks of concrete and all the rubble attached to the underside!  The path was most likely put down when the house was built, back in 1955.  It had lots of cracks across it and was generally in a bad state, so it was a relief to finally get rid of it.


We also had yet another pile of rubbish waiting to be taken away ~ where on earth does it all come from!


On Wednesday, Richard's guys came and collected all the rubble and other rubbish...


...looking better already :-)



Last Friday we had 50 bags of green slate chippings delivered, which Adrian and Sam then moved from the front garden to the back when they got in from work.  Neither of them needed a trip to the gym after moving all those bags!


On Saturday, Adrian and I spread out all 50 of those bags of slate.  We thought that perhaps we had ordered too much, but we used it all.  It looks quite pale and white here but now that it has rained (yet again *sigh*), the dust has been washed off and it looks lovely :-)  Oh, and Adrian (with a little bit of assistance from yours-truly) also re-roofed both the chicken houses on Saturday, too!

Sunday 19 June 2016

The Sunday Prayer




Dove of Peace by Pablo Picasso


Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.
For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.
For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou
(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)