In a Vase on Monday - 15 December 2025

After clearing the table quickly this afternoon, I took a picture of this little posy even as the light was starting to lessen.  We are not far off the winter solstice and soon the days will be getting longer again. A few years ago, when we first moved to Somerset, one of the IAVOM ladies realised that I was not far away and introduced herself. Since then Alison and I meet up several times a year, and today Alison came to lunch.

Posy for Alison

Can you believe it that I felt it was more important to pick a little posy for our lunch table than it was to get changed!  Anyway I apologised as Alison stepped through the front door, and she graciously allowed me a couple of minutes to change.

In the posy are five early flowering snowdrops all from one clump, some pale pink and darker cerise cyclamen coum, for foliage I have used some Pittosporum Tom Thumb, and some of the lovely soft green leaves of Corydalis ochroleuca which self seeds gently around the garden.  I first saw this plant in Alison's garden and it was from her that I got my first plant. At present I can't locate the label for these snowdrops but what I can say I haven't had these ones flowering so early before. 

I like stones, and at a local Calligraphy exhibition picked up these three beautifully decorated stones,  even though they have been on the table for several months, because they are suitable coloured, they are my nod to Christmas decorations

I had made a soup new to me and also a Pecan Pie which I have never made before. .  I love the flavour of pecans, and also maple syrup, and after two elegant servings you can see what is left.

On flower themed books, I have enjoyed The Book of Garden Flowers with the artwork by Angie Lewin and the text by Christopher Stocks.

On a more serious note, but one I would also recommend is Stuck Monkey: The deadly planetary cost of the things we love by James Hamilton-Paterson.  This book was on display when I last went to my local library.  I thought this would be a book I would dip into, and skim or speed read sections, but how wrong was I.  It was a page turner and an eye opener!  I was half way to understanding many of the aspects James Hamilton-Paterson was covering, but I learnt so much more.

Stuck Monkey  by James Hamilton-Paterson

I am linking in with Cathy the creator of In a Vase on Monday. 

The addition of books is just my own idea: a way of my keeping a record but by no means to I show all the books I read!

 

Flowers from the garden at the start of December 2025 - IAVOM

During the hot and very dry summer it was impossible to imagine that well ahead of time late winter or early spring flowers might start making an early apperance.

Just after lunch today, I popped out in the wet windy weather to see what had survived the recent few days.

Lamium maculatum 'White Nancy' and feathery greenery from the Corydalis  ochroleuca are there to provide a green foil to the snowdrops, Cyclamen coum, and Jasminum nudiflorum. This vase could very easily be built up in January or February but by then the Aster Monch would be missing. I believe this snowdrop to be Galanthus Natalie Garton: it is flowering in the same place as the named one was planted.  The drops are quite large on this snowdrop but had not flowered this early in previous years.

My very first entry for IAVOM was probably in 2015 but it has only been in more recent years, with the advance of technology, that Cathy has organised annual zoom meetings. Cathy who started this weekly get together years ago called 'In a Vase on Monday' organised a zoom meeting yesterday, when some of us joined in from very different climatic regions.  We talked about the best doers in the garden, and in the second half another Cathy showed us lovely pictures of her garden focusing on grasses.

I am linking this post to Cathy's blog, and that is the place where several others link in.  New comers are welcome of course should you feel like joining in.

Six on Saturday - 29 November 2025

I didn't post last week, as I was otherwise occupied.  Since I am a glass half full sort of person, this week I am offering a full glass made up of a half full glass from last week, and a half full glass from this week, by this I mean three pictures were taken before the big frost, and three after.

1. This little alpine strawberry was still fruiting and looking lovely with its leaves, little white flowers and bright fruits.  This is one that does not make any runners and grows from seed.  It originally came from my volunteering days at Kenilworth Castle gardens, where I planted these, and the following years hand weeded the paths and found the seedlings.  The crowns get larger each year, but little seedlings appear around the garden and I have gathered sufficient to grow half a dozen crowns along the edge behind the shed.

2. A few days of cold wet weather arriving meant a few jobs were brought forward so that they could be completed.  Mr S used up some flooring, left over from another indoor project, which had been languishing in the loft for a number of years. It was time to replace the flooring in the shed, which had been made up of a patchwork of left over vinyl flooring.  The refurbishment of the shed is now complete.

3. Galanthus Natalie Garton is a little precocious this year. You can tell that this is from last week before the frosts, as the nasturtium leaves are still green.

4. I grew Lotus Berthelotii Orange through the summer on the circular table in the garden, moving it to stand on an old speaker stand under the canopy by the front door. As we were going to be away for the coldest of the nights last week I brought it into the conservatory.  However reading that it can tolerate temperatures down to 1 C, it is going back outside since most of the succulents are vying for space with a little warmth.  I hope to look after it giving it feeds in the spring so that it comes into flower next year.

Lotus Berthelotii Orange

5. These three pots of a fabulous little perennial Viola are  perched on soil where any number of spring beauties are likely to be lurking underground.

Viola cucullata alba

I've moved them to the top of my short side wall.  You will find a little more about this viola on an earlier post: Viola cucullata alba. 

6. Since I last posted the frosts have hit hard.  You don't need any pictures to conjure up the idea of general clearing of things from the garden. The cosmos have been chopped off a ground level.  These days I certainly leave the roots of annuals hence not disturbing the soil structure. Old rotten sticks and bamboo canes too old to safely use next year have been discarded, and the garden no longer has that late autumn look.  I decided to remove a big clump of Corydalis ochroleuca which had self seeded in the conservatory bed, and I found lurking under the foliage a little treasure another early flowering snowdrop, which I shall keep to show in my next post. Gold star if you can guess in advance the name. 

Stop Press this morning I learnt something worth sharing about Cyclamen Lysander. This link is to where I mention this Cyclamen hederifolium which I bought from Ashwoods. 

This is from the great plantsman John Lonsdale via Facebook: 

"Originally distributed by Ashwood Nurseries, it is a seed strain derived from material collected in the Peloponnese by Dutch nurseryman Antoine Hoog under the collector’s number AH8672A, and christened ‘Lysander’ after the famous Spartan general of that name."

John Lonsdale has grown some fabulous cyclamen and was showing the interesting 'Lysander Group' cyclamen.  Here is one from my sodden garden this morning.

Things in the garden to talk about are getting scarcer, so I am thinking that my next offering might be a 'flight of plants'* for SOS in three weeks time, two from each of the three weeks which will be the Saturday before Christmas.  That will mean two weeks off for me. 

Of course I shall be popping in to view the posts of other SOS contributors.  As usual I am linking into the centre of SOS over on Jim's blog.

* Continuing on my theme of glasses half full, recently we have found restaurants offering flights of drinks to go with a meal, sometime two glasses sometimes three glasses, which suits Mr S and I perfectly as we order just one flight with each having a little drink from each glass and the driver far less!

In a Vase on Monday

We had some hard frosts on Thursday and Friday nights and since we were to be away, I decided to pull most of the remaining Alstromeria Indian Summer and leave them in a vase to arrange on our return.  It is a good job I did that as the remaining blooms outside bear the scorch of the frost and even Persicaria Red Dragon which I was going to use for today's vase were damaged.  

The vase is a hand painted tankard which my sister brought as a present when she went to teach in France as part of her degree.  I think she lived in Rouen.

A few weeks ago I started to show the arrangements of seedheads from the garden. This week another vase on the other side of this table is full of dried seed heads: this time they are those of Phlomis fruticosa 'Bourgaei'.

Phlomis fruticosa 'Bourgaei' seed heads

Round this vase are a few of the shells that I collected years ago when I was a child and a lovely stone bird whistle which was a present years ago again from my sister.

I'm taking a sabbatical from my book group and  catching up with reading my own pile of books.  As you may have gathered from previous posts I do like rocks and pebbles, and I may have mentioned that I also admire the artist Annie Lewin's art. I've had The Book of Pebbles on my book shelf for some time, and enjoyed reading through that recently.  The book is beautifully illustrated with a generous amount of Angie Lewin's illustrations.  

I'm linking in this post with Cathy's whose inspiration and creativity is a pleasure to follow, and linked in will be other vases from gardens, so well worth linking it to view. 

Visit to the newly opened Shoemakers Museum in Street

For Friday date day last week, Mr S and I took ourselves off to the Newly opened Clarks Shoe Museum in nearby Street, having booked our tickets on line before we set off.  The tickets for the Shoemakers Museum last a year and we shall certainly be returning.

As my school shoes even in the tropics were Clarks, I was really hoping that they may have a pair of those.

I felt that the finish on this sandal was rather flat, and when I used to go to the shop to get fitted up with a new pair, I always used to favour what I have just come to understand as flat grain. The leather was quite variable but always matched.  This flat grain leather is visible in the pair of red Joydance sandals further down.

My father had what I now realise as high standards and loved his shoes and clothes.  Although when I was living in Mauritius we had staff, he very early on taught me to clean shoes and that was my job first thing each morning to clean the shoes, and always outside if it was not raining.  In the tropics with the humidity at certain times of the year you could get mould grow on the outside as a slight bloom.  I am still the 'chief shoe cleaner' and love cleaning our shoes.  However I do insist Mr S removes the mud from the bottom of his trainers or boots himself!

When I posted the picture of the brown pair of Joydance shoes on my Facebook page, several of my friends from my youth posted memories of our school shoes.  It was interesting to hear that at some stage 

The description of these explained that The Joydance sandal was first introduced in the UK in 1933 for women and children. Later in the 1960s it was also being manufactured in Ghana and went under the name of Achimota sandals, named for the Achimota College in Accra, that led the trend in adopting this sandal as part of their school uniform with many other education establishments following suit.

A couple of my English friends posted that they had red pairs, and then uploaded this pair which I also photographed.

Clarks Red Joydance Sandals

Another local friend posted: 'My father went to Ghana to help set up the Happy Shoe Company as part of the training team back in the 60s . We also had two of the Ghanaian workers stay with us. While they visited Clarks quarters. We have photos somewhere.'

These are just a few of the shoes on display. The displays are well lit and nicely set out, and there were some delightful shoes where the design and quality are really lovely, and if for sale now, I would certainly buy.

For those who are interesting in advertising there were fine examples and this shop interior will no doubt spark memories.

You get a free 4 hrs parking ticket which needs to be collected from the Museum reception entitling one car to be parked in the Shopping outlet car park.

There is a very pleasant cafe in refurbished Old Grange Building. 

The Museum is very well set out, and for our first visit, we went quickly through the introduction taking you through the Clark's original business to the present day, when sadly shoe production is no longer in the UK and the Company is now majority owned by a Chinese company.

We shall certainly be returning, and I hope to go on one their guided tours too.