It was hot.....

...................I am a chilly mortal and love warmth but our little heatwave last week knocked me out.  I did nothing  a little bit of gardening very early in the morning collapsing onto the sofa and reading for the rest of the day. Now thank goodness we are back to normal British summer and can move again.  Yesterday we went to the lovely town of Faversham for the Open Gardens.  We only managed about a third of them but the talking point was the variety and the fact that quite ordinary houses hide amazing spaces. The first one had a wonderful wildflower meadow

 Then there was this tiny little garden  (with a very cosy looking garden room ) crammed full of interest

Another slightly larger garden but still smaller than mine with a lovely summer house which also had a heater for the chillier days.

These three were my favourites, others we saw were too manicured for my tastes. One set of gardens were very interesting and very productive but I didn't get any snaps because they were a bit congested not only with plants but people.  The Gardens belonging to the quite modern houses were small but in addition they had small pieces of land belonging to the local school which they are allowed to use as they see fit as long as  it is tended. the land is on  the other side of a small stream, wish is crossed by a series of small bridges. There was an abundance of vegetable and fruit trees and one even had a chicken house. Hopefully I can go back next year and do better.
Our last visit was the Physic Garden behind an Elizabethan building which originally a grammar school. The garden is being restored and enhanced.  A wonderful tangle of everything.

On the production front very little has happened, I am blaming the weather for what is a massive production slump.


Not producing but I loved these intructions by Mary Corbet of how to open Mill Hill Beads. When we had cats I used to blame them for me getting beads everywhere but I am just as bad without them.

At times like these........

...... it is difficult to stay up beat and at the moment I am failing miserably.  The sad events of the last two weeks in Manchester and London and afew private issues are sending me into hiobernation mode and the weather isn't helping. 
Bank holiday weekend we had strong winds and heavy rain which brought down the tree at the end of the garden and the rose it supportd .  My fault to a cetain extent as I have been talking about thinning the rose for some time now.  Well we thinned it on Monday alright,   You may remember a couple of weeks ago it looked like this.

 

Then this happened

 and now it looks like this. 

All I can say is thank goodness for the artificial lawn because in the wet we would have trashed any real grass.
I now have to think of something to fill the gap, it faces north and I would like some winter interest so an ideas would be welcome.This is the gap I need to fill, as you can see we have left the stumps  of the tree and the rose to give them a chance of regenerating.

I am still playing with paper and have nearly finished another junk journal, in the meantime I made a small field notes sized notebook

 

. Some tuck spots but mainly pages for writing and drawing.

 I wish I could claim to have painted the thrush but alas it was just a scrap I found.

So

 can we just get the election over so that we can switch on tv, computer or ipad without being bombarded with this opinion and that harangue?

Can we all try just to get along, life is so short.

Off to cut, fold and paste.