Wet and Wild and Warriors

This week the weather had been mixed. On Tuesday the sky was all dark and gloomy when I got up, later in the day we had a very vocal thunderstorm, deluge rain, thunder and lightening. It rained so hard that there were rivers of water running down my drive that have left a deposit of grit and earth. The poor verbascum could not cope with the power of the rain and I watched from the window as the petals continuously cascaded to the ground. I managed to get a photo before all the petals had made a yellow carpet in the flowerbed.

Yellow Verbascum

In the hedgerows there is some beautiful meadowsweet, creamy white with a delicate perfume.

Meadowsweet

The bonny blue cornflowers are now coming into flower on the railway bank.

Blue cornflowers with white daisies

Poppies, although they are so fragile they look so lovely, especially red poppies.

A  post box red poppy

The feverfew has been in flower for a while now. It seems to have grown extra tall this year. I love these delicate little white and yellow sunny flowers.

White petals with yellow pincushions centres

Hysslop a deep blue herb has now come into flower.

Hysslop

I like nasturtiums and I use the nasturtium seeds in my pickles. They come in some lovely colours.

Mahogany Red

Yellow

Can you see the bumblebee?

The marguerite daisies are now all in flower. Their simplicity adds to their charm.

Marguerites

I have harvested my broad beans, some bean pods are blind ie. devoid of beans, I do not know what causes this to happen.

Broad Beans - yum

The damson trees do not have many fruit.

Unripe damsons

The raspberries are starting to form on the Autumn raspberry bushes. I am able to harvest these until we get our first heavy frost, usually in September.

Now we just need the sun to ripen the fruit

I have picked some of the blackcurrants and although it took ages to top and tail the fruit the result is 14 jars of delicious jam. 

Delicious

The sparrows and I are having a battle with the peas. They roost in the house eaves and like nothing better in the morning than to bob under my net. I have now added another net so we will see what happens tomorrow.

Pea pods

These are some of my pottery tiles that I have on my shed wall.

Inspired by flowers

I love this colour combination

I am very proud of my terracotta warriors. I made them several years ago. The 'old warrior' got left at the pottery (where I go for my classes) over the cold Xmas period.  We did not realise until too late that water in the clay froze and as it defrosted parts of the warrior slid off. I was able to salvage the figure and regard it as looking more authentic with parts missing.

Old Terracotta Warrior

 
I then decided to make the 'young warrior' so I could complete the design, hence the reason why I have two warriors. 

Young Terracotta Warrior

The Warriors