The Missing Cherries

Orange daylily - Hemerocallis fulva

Fabian: An Artisan-Sorcerer Story is now being edited. The novel will be published on 1st December 2015, all being well.

Today I had a wander round The Arno, a small park in Oxton which gets its name from fusing two Anglo-Saxon words: 'arne' (hill) and 'howe' (which means either the name of a person who was as strong as an eagle, or that this was a hill where eagles nested. Linguists weren't quite sure which it was, apparently). But a host of volunteer gardeners have been busy making The Arno into a lovely little hideaway usually known for its formal rose garden, but which also has a vibrant Long Border crammed with numerous and colourful cottage garden plants. If any Wirral artists are looking for masses of flowers to paint, this would be a good place to head to right now, as you can see from this post's photos which I took today. Click on the photos to see them larger.

The Long Border at The Arno, Oxton.

My own oil paints have finally seen the light of day. It's been too long since I did any painting, so much so that in a way it's like beginning from scratch all over again. I'm currently playing around with a landscape - mountains, big sky, cottage, stream. Now the art room smells of linseed oil and turps, which I find oddly satisfying. It makes me feel something artistic has been happening, even if the results so far aren't something I'd share with anyone but my dogs.

Friends Tim and Nigel dropped by the other evening. Nigel's been clearing out his mother's house prior to finalising its sale, and remembering that we'd accidentally left behind most of our gardening tools - so much for my blogging that our house-move had been performed with military precision! - he wondered if we might find use for his mother's old spades, forks, hoes, trowels, loppers, compost bin, watering cans and a weird Poky Thing With A U-Bend which is supposed to be great at scooping out weeds. All contributions were gratefully received! Older gardening tools were better made than most modern ones, I've found.

Cherries from our garden!

Peter called by recently, too. He's enjoying himself as the new Chair for Riverside Writers. The group has attracted a couple of new members, which is good news.

Having watched these cherries ripen, I harvested them from our tree today - otherwise the birds would have devoured even more of them than they already have! Pigeons and blackbirds have totally denuded the upper three-quarters of the tree of all its fruit. No prizes for guessing what kind of pie we'll be eating tonight....

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