Lavender blue...Lavender green...

Yesterday we managed to dodge the rain for the first part of the afternoon to visit Yorkshire Lavender, a beautiful Lavender Farm and Gardens set in Terrington, a few miles from "my beloved" Castle Howard. The entrance is free but very few visitors will manage to leave the farm without acquiring a “memento” of the place, from the simple tasting of great snacks, lavender ice creams and cakes in their coffee shop to the fragrant lavender essential oils, conserves, soaps, candles, etc etc.

The farm consists of nearly 60 acres of land set in the Howardian Hills with spectacular panoramic views over the Vale of York and beyond and has been featured on UK national TVs and radios more than once. The owner bought the land and set up the lavender farm 15 years ago prompted by his wife’s premature death and soon became a family project for him and his children and it’s dedicated to her memory.

A walk in the fantastic lavender garden can restore body and spirit in just a few minutes. It’s a stunning array of different colours - white, pinks, blues, lilacs to magnificent deep purples with a range of distinct and heady scents. A truly wonderful experience.

It also features "The Spirit of Yorkshire", a cricket match played by blue metal sculptures on the top of a hill overlooking a beautiful panorama. In the photo above I am attempting a poor imitation of a cricket player…useless!

Of course I couldn't resist a delicious cream tea consisting of the famous lavender scones with blueberry and lavender conserve! Divine!!!

And last but not least, a simple but useful advice…

Pond Dipping

When I volunteered to accompany my daughter’s school class to their day trip to Castle Howard (see above photo) I did it with enthusiasm, as I really love Castle Howard. For all of you who are not familiar with it, CH is a fantastic stately home in North Yorkshire, famous for being the main location of the ITV’s adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited and the two-hour 2008 remake for the cinema (see my entry on 14/11/08) and even features in Garfield, Tale of Two Kittens. Sorry, I’m digressing. Anyway, I was expecting a free to the castle and ground, which are usually rather pricey and a lovely day-out with my daughter and her school mates. You can imagine my surprise when last Wednesday night I got a letter from school saying that I should wear wellies: wellies to get into Castle Howard? The weather was gorgeous, 26 degrees C, so why wellies? Because the trip wasn’t exactly to the castle but to the Arboretum Trust - Kew at Castle Howard, where the kids were supposed to be guide in the exploration of the arboretum ecosystem! Too late to find a suitable excuse!

Anyway, when we got there after a 50 minutes’ coach journey (it usually takes no longer than 20 minutes to get there, but I suppose overcrowded coaches move slowly), our first activity was ‘pond dipping’, ie. fishing out with nets from the Arboretum Pond wetland minibeasts to identify them later.

(At least I had the chance to show off my new wellies!!! Belette, can you see what's on them???)

Anyway, our first activity was ‘pond dipping’, ie. fishing with nets in the Arboretum Pond to find wetland minibeasts and identify them later. The idea was to fish out the "beings" like this:

But we ended up with two boys falling into the pond, getting totally soaked and having to change them into girls' clothes (fortunately jeans are unisex!) as they didn't have their own spare clothes with them.

Please see our findings below. We caught water shrimps, water snails, lesser and greater water boatmen, etc. etc.

By the way, did you know that the greater water boatman swims on it's back, looking like a little rowboat. The saliva of the GWB is toxic, and that is how it kills prey. It also may hurt quite a bit if one bites you! They do eat tadpoles (from my daughter's notes).

After a quick lunch sitting on logs in the middle of the wood, we moved to next activity, “meet and hug a tree”. I found this especially interesting as we were on a beautiful hill surrounded by mighty trees (no telephone coverage, yuppy!) and the kids learnt to appreciate the trees as living beings.

We ended our educational visit exploring the woodland habitat trying to find more minibeasts on the ground and identifying their living conditions. My task was to lift logs from the ground and the kids had to find some minibeasts and then create their habitat (where are my gloves when I need them???). Our group found some beetles, a light-blue caterpillar, a horrid slug and a couple of worms. Yuk, I can still feel the itching all over my body!!!

In conclusion, in spite of all those minibeasts and small water incidents we went home all happy, it was a lovely day in the countryside, away from phone calls and computers, a much needed boost of oxygen!

The Eagle Has Landed!

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first astronauts to land on the Moon. After a day spent exploring the Moon's surface, the two members of the Apollo 11 mission returned to Earth. It has been estimated that 500 million people across the world watched the video broadcast of the Moon landing. I was only very little at the time and we didn’t even own a TV set but I remember clearly those first black & white images on our neighbors’ TV and those foreign words (to me at least at the time) that Armstrong pronounced when he first set foot on the Moon. Since then the Moon has become a great passion of mine and will always be.

Where were you that day (if you are at least as old as I am) and what can you still remember?

I've got the power ....

…steering! After 11 years of huffing and puffing, I’ve finally got power…steering! My new car has arrived. It is not a Mercedes or another flash car, but after all those years of driving around the cobbles of Yorkshire with a (now) battered Fiat Punto, this seems like a Limo to me! For most of you, probably power-steering, air-conditioning, air-bags and even Bluetooth might be taken for granted but for me it’s sheer luxury! A couple of tears shed at the thought of my old car being scrapped have been quickly replaced by the euphoria of talking on the phone hands-free just at the click of a pushbutton and parking without wrenching my right shoulder! My daughter – enthusiastic as usual – has even given her – the car, female of course! – her name: Celeste, like our favourite colour, sky-blue!

(PS: The Man In Purple behind the car is my lovely "Baby" Boy!)

A Tiramisu Post

I feel better today and I’d like to thank you all, ladies and a gentleman, for the kind words of support and solidarity. Knowing that I’m not alone facing the “black beast” makes me feel that I am not mad or a freak! That’s why I’ve decided to celebrate today with a “Tiramisu post”.
Maybe not all of you know that the name of the delicious Italian dessert, Tiramisu means literally “pick me up”, I suppose thanks to its very rich ingredients that can give you an instant physical (and mental!) boost. Let’s forget the calories for today, ok?
Anyway, when I feel down, a good way to lift me up is make a Tiramisu, which is one of the very few desserts I can make well (I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm not a good cook!). And this way I make the rest of my family happy as well! So, my dear friends, today I offer you a virtual slice of this lovely cake hoping I can offer you a real one some time in the future. Who knows?

When I felt really down the other day, I went out to town to have my eyes tested and whilst I was reading my book in the waiting room I found this little note that my daughter wrote for me and hid between the pages. Not bad as a pick-me-up gesture, is it?

And when I got home and switched the computer back on, I read all your beautiful entries and I felt really moved. Among all the work emails, the lovely Kia of Italian Cozy Corner had sent me this sweet drawing. So cute!

So we've beaten the "beast" this time again! Life is not that bad, after all!

I wish you all a lovely weekend.

The Black Beast

It does not happen very often, but when it happens I’m overwhelmed. Perhaps it seems to me more acute because I’m generally a positive person and I love life. But when it happens everything seems dark around me and inside me. My neighbours are horrible and spy on me (well, actually a couple of them really are!), my kids hate me and don’t appreciate what I do for them, we will all soon die of swine flu as the NHS is hopeless. I won’t have enough work next month and my house will be repossessed, they will close the Italian borders because of the pandemic and I will never see my parents again. And I cannot breath. I call it the “black beast” but my GP think it’s PMT. Fortunately it does not come back every month, though. But when it comes, like now, I’d like to dig a deep hole in the ground and hide. Forever. But that’s wrong. And that’s why I’m shutting down the computer now and I go out in the cool air (yes, summer is finished, by the way – another “positive” thought!) trying to shake this off. As my favourite literature hero said “I shall conquer this!”

Recycling can also be fun!

Last week was rather hard for me so unfortunately I didn’t have any time to post about my progress during recycling week. But although I didn’t’ post about it, I’m very pleased to say that I kept to my pledge if using my shopping bags instead of the supermarket ones and I’ve even started to use my own bags for items of clothing, books etc.

(Documenting my pledge: Before my shopping...)

(...and after my shopping. I know, I know, Karen, still too much packaging, but I'll work on it!)

(My mini strawberry bush)

I have to admit that the reaction in supermarkets was ok when I took refused their bags but I encountered a total lack of knowledge about recycling week and sometimes even a bit of disbelief! The most incredulous reaction came from clothing shops: the shop assistants at Gap in York couldn’t believe that I was rejecting their precious blue bags!!! And a young lady at a Primark counter in Manchester had trouble to understand that reusing bags is part of the recycling process as well! A good result for me and my family anyway. My biggest ally was and still is my daughter who now goes around with her own textile shopping bag and is very proud of not using plastic bags. Even my big teenager boy has started to reuse his water bottles, a good contribution for recycling week as he doesn’t use any bags anyway!

(My mint and bay laurel bushes)

Unfortunately my worst “enemy” is my husband who insists on having plastic bags instead of paper bags to carry books although our very lovely local bookshop tries to discourage buyers use plastic bags! I will “work” on him.
Anyway, I’d like to thank Karen of The Rubbish Diet again for her wonderful inspiration and hard work for the environment. If you haven’t visited Karen’s blog yet, please do so. Apart from being educational and interesting it’s really fun too!!!!


(My daughter's vegetable patch - she's very proud of it!)