In a Vase on Monday - 25 August 2025

Neither the garden nor this arrangement bears close scrutiny but it does give a colourful accent to the end of the mantlepiece. For more lovely vases of garden flowers the place to visit is 'Rambling in the Garden' by our leader Cathy.

Growing the nasturtium plants has been a bit of a challenge given the amount of watering they are needing.  The variety was unknown and have come out very varied, I guess that they were grown from home collected seed.  They have clubs up at the Bishop's Palace to teach children about growing and I surmise these were from such an activity.   The Dahlias were from plants bought recently whilst on a visit to East Lambrook Manor.  Some Aster Monch, a few twigs of a marjoram and Pseudodictamnus acetabulosus.

I've learnt a lot lessons from this year's gardening, and can now understand 'Fail to prepare, prepare to fail'! My orepartion this year also needs to be scrutinised, lessons learnt notes, and timely plans for sowing, growing, planting etc put into place. Visiting some splendid gardens last week whilst we were on holiday gave me several ideas to add to my plans as well.

Tagging on this post here are two books not yet completed...

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon,  I would recommend, though it is a little long. The suspense is good, and sometimes I have to put it down, then read on but not at bedtime!  I can't understand why the cover picture of a woman in red running along the river has someone in modern dress when the book is set in the late 18th Century! I read some of the reviews on Good Reads where I log my reading, when I remember, and came across a poor review.  I am not saying that the reasons the person did not like it are not valid for her,  but from what I gather the person has listened to the book rather than having a hard copy in her hand.  From the book, where there is a map of the various settlements at the front, and an authors explanations at the end, which I always read before starting the book, this would have helped understand the story and its origins.  There are a great many characters, and as usual I have some scraps of paper where I write down the name of the person, their relationships and the page they appear on, as I cannot hold all this in my head these days.  When I was working and had overview of more than one site as head of Personnel, I was forever designing and using organisation charts, so maybe that is a system that works for me.

The general discussion at our WI book club has often commented on the different ways of accessing a book, and the value and use of each type colours our understanding for example those listening to a book are often doing other tasks and miss things, just as those who skip or speed read. When we come together it is interesting to hear how some audio books cope with different accents which in their turn enhance understanding.  Some of our members have busy lives, and travel or drive for many hours, and wouldn't otherwise have time to sit down and read a hard copy. 

I am currently reading two books: one novel and a book about Creepy Crawlies, which is excellent though the turn of phrases a little dated, but given the age of the book not unreasonable. I picked this up in the NT second hand book shop at Barrington Court a couple of weeks ago.  Mr S picked up the book, only a couple of days ago, and read a little and praised the style, pictures etc.  

My books almost always have slips of paper at different pages, with notes for further reading, or re reading etc.