Hollyhocks out of Nowhere + First week July

 Seven foot tall and appearing where no Hollyhocks have appeared before. These are out in the front border.

 I've frequently tried to invite them into various gardens without much luck, although maybe one might have appeared in the back garden in my first year here? - never to be seen again.

BiL has lots growing every year right by his path to the back door. I never remember to collect seed pods to bring home - I'll try to remember this year.

It's been a mostly chilly week because Summer went away around midday on Tuesday. It came back briefly for a few hours on Thursday so people didn't get wet while going out to vote but Tuesday and Friday were horribly cold and grey and the wind on several days has had a real bite to it.

I raced around Monday morning getting loads of jobs done so I could watch the tennis and have been watching as much as possible all week. Thursday was the best day with so many Brits playing - all at once sometimes. Did you know there are 46 courts at Wimbledon if you include the practice courts and the 8 clay courts, I didn't, until it was a question on the Radio 2 Zoe Ball show mini quiz. Play on 18 main courts are often all on TV - difficult to choose.

I'd planned a swim again Friday but woke up feeling rough so cancelled that until next week, my own fault for getting cold when shopping.

It's odd sometimes to find the things people don't know. - On the local Next Door website page- which is usually lost cats - several people moaned about Green Party representatives sitting outside Polling Stations on Thursday - some folk were very irate that it should be 'allowed'. But it's something that used to happen a lot and there is no need to speak to them after all and the street is still a free country - thank God! 

Good to know that there was no fuss or cries of 'cheating' or 'fix' after the election results. Hand over is always polite and quick............unlike some countries! and they are able to get removal vans for Number 10 at very short notice - very different when the rest of us are moving house!

This week I've been grateful for

• Gift of Broad Beans from BiL who had been gifted more than he needed from a neighbour
• Huge bowlful of raspberries from the garden everyday
• Tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes all ready now
• Another handful of green beans
• Plenty of good reading. (The final Maisie Dobbs from Jacqueline Winspear was excellent)
• Rain - just in time to fill the water butts

Not sure what I'm doing this weekend. 

Back Soon

Sue

So Which Prediction Was Correct? + Summer of Sport

 So which of the bits of paper through the door earlier in the week was right? A new constituency  so nothing to compare with last time.

The Labour prediction  for here was Way out! and the Greens did much better than they predicted for themselves - getting over 20,000 votes compared to Conservatives 14,000+. Labour came in 4th behind the Reform Party. So we have a Green MP, one of 4 who will be sitting opposite the Labour Party. 

My prediction is, that he needs to  speak up for the area really well, or it will be a one-off vote.

Enough of all that! 

Yesterday I went shopping good and early to make the most of so many British men and women playing at Wimbledon. The first match was a girl I'd not heard of before this year -  Yuriko Miyazaki - Japanese /English. She lost rather quickly. Then I thought I ought to catch yesterdays Tour highlights as everyone was raving about Mark Cavendish and his new record number of stage wins.

The handy thing about watching Wimbledon on iplayer is you can press a button to 'watch from the start' so after the Tour highlights I went back to the beginning of the Katy Boulter/Harriet Dart match. Surprise that Harriet won but it was a good game. 

The Cam Norrie v Jack Draper match was a bit one sided which was a bit sad to see, but Cam played much better than he has done for a while.

Then there was the emotional Andy and Jamie Murray doubles. They lost in straight sets but it was the farewell to Andy afterwards that had everyone in tears!

Today is a new day! 

Looking very dull outside - rain forecast for later, I need to get the raspberries picked before that happens.........much more important that the shenanigans that will be going on in Westminster.

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Sue

Election Day + Summer of Sport 2024

 I shall stroll up the road today to cast my vote in the General Election for a political party that have promised much but probably won't be able to achieve anything! 

And as all of them have done that it's no help to you guessing who I'll vote for!

I finally got information through the letter box from all the other Parties standing, but the Green Party have certainly outdone the rest for pieces of paper - how very ironic.

So, will our new  Waveney Valley constituency really put a Green Party MP into the Houses of Parliament or will tradition win out and the area remain blue Conservative? Or will we be one of the 'Huge swings to Labour' seats?

The two bits of 'propaganda' through the letter box yesterday completely contradict each other so we will have to wait and see.........

I hope everyone will go and vote, everyone should vote - it's your right and we don't have many rights left, and if you don't, you can't moan about the result.

Summer of Sport yesterday was cold and chilly and wet but Emma won through - well done that girl.  Lots more Brits playing at Wimbledon today including several pairs in the Men's Doubles - much more interesting than election results!  (can't believe that once, when I was very much  younger, I stayed awake half the night listening to results coming in - mad)

Back Tomorrow........... when we'll know who we are to be governed by for the next 5 years.

Sue

Creeping In for the Summer Reading Challenge plus Summer of Sport Update.

 Allowed  into my 'not really a challenge' due to it's subtitle was this.....

Murder By The Seaside - Ten Classic Crime Stories for Summer. Edited by Cecily Gayford.

10 short stories by several well known crime writers from the past, including Conan Doyle, G.K. Chesterton, Michael Innes and Gladys Mitchell.

They are all set in summer, from an impossible murder on the Cornish coast to an odd honeymoon story.

A quick read for my 4th Reading The Seasons Summer Book.

The opening day of Wimbledon on Monday and it was fine all day so lots of matches finished. Emma Raducano won in straight sets as did defending Champion Carlos Alcaraz. British Men with wild cards got knocked out as did Heather Watson but 2 British women who I can't remember hearing about before got through the first round.

Tuesday and not at all summery - cold and cloudy - but lots more British wild card entry men playing although Andy M was originally scheduled to play he pulled out during the morning. More of the British men wild cards were knocked out but Cam Norrie won in 3 sets and later into the evening Jack Draper had a 5 set tough game but managed to beat the Swedish Number one and that meant that Jack and Cam play each other on Thursday.......... guaranteeing a Brit in the third round....good news. 

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Sue

The Beans That Nearly Got Away + S.O.S. 2024

 The climbing French Beans didn't do much climbing for weeks. I'd surrounded the tripod with fences to keep out next door neighbours cat and didn't notice that right at the bottom, only just a little way up the canes some beans had formed. 

Luckily I moved the fences away to do some weeding and discovered all these...........

Very good they were too.

I'm watering regularly now after no rain for a week and the plants are climbing well at last. Hopeful for more to come soon.

S.O.S. 2024 isn't a cry for help! But Summer of Sport. The last one was 2021, when all the things cancelled the year before because of Covid, were held. That year, like this year I loved all the tennis and Olympics and wrote about them on the blog starting with the French Open. I looked back at those old posts and saw that Jack Draper - a young unknown Brit had a wild card entry into Queens Club and had a win against Jannik Sinner. 3 Years on and Jack did really well at Queens Club is now seeded 28 at Wimbledon and Jannik is seeded number 1 this year, above moany Djocovic and last years winner Alcaraz. 

This year so far  the French Open was followed by the first grass court tournament of the season from Nottingham then Queens Club tournament , Wimbledon Qualifiers and now Wimbledon. And at the weekend the British Athletic Championships were on TV to watch, with many up and coming athletes trying to qualify for the Olympics.

 I've just labelled some of my posts mentioning tennis with 'Summer of Sport 2024',  so that in 2028 - the next Olympic Year  - if I'm still about! - I'll be able to look back and see what was going on.

A memory.............

At 2pm on a Monday afternoon in late June or early July 1980 I settled the 2 month old baby down and settled myself down, excited for my first ever time at home to watch the start of Wimbledon live.......it Rained! - there was no play - nothing to watch!

Now it no longer matters, with two courts having roofs there is always something to see and a huge choice of what to watch via BBC Red Button.

Just proves that not everything has got worse in the intervening 44 years! 

Back Soon

Sue

PS for Euros Football and Tour De France commentary see Rachel in Norfolk's Blog! 

And another PS Thanks to Aril for reminding me about the Paul Heaton set from Glastonbury - so good.

JULY COUNTRY DAYS

Illustration by Eugene Grasset from the Illuminated Book Of Days edited by K and M Lee

Julius Caesar the Roman Dictator who reformed the calendar in 46 BC named the month after himself, he was killed in the Ides Of March so that he couldn't proclaim himself Emperor.  July often contains some good hot days sometimes referred to as Dog Days. At this time of year Sirius, the dog star, rises at the same time as the sun and was thought by the  Romans to give the sun extra heat. The Dog Days are from July 3rd until August 11th .

JULY 

My emblem is the Lion, and I breathe

  The breath of Libyan deserts o'er the land;

My sickle as a sabre I unsheathe,

  And bent before me the pale harvests stand.

The lakes and rivers shrink at my command,

  And there is thirst and fever in the air;

The sky is changed to brass, the earth to sand;

  I am the Emperor whose name I bear.  

Longfellow -  The Poets Calendar

Anglo-Saxon names for the month are Heymonath for haymaking or Meadmonath meaning flowering of the meadows. The full moon in July is called the Wyrt moon or Mead moon . Wyrt is an old English name for herbs and July was the traditional time for taking the first honey from the hive and making mead. 

The main date in July that people associate with weather rhymes is St Swithin's day on the 15th, although there is no record  of this day ever being followed by 40 days of rain even if it pours on the 15th, the average is 17 days with rain.

If St Swithin weep, that year, the proverb say

The weather will be foul for forty days

This old saying covers all eventualities...

If about St Swithin Day a change of weather takes place,

                                         we are likely to have a spell of fine or wet weather

There was also a belief about the ripening of apples. It was thought that if it rained on the 15th the Saint was christening the apples and there would be a good harvest. In many areas no one would eat an apple before this day but after the 15th windfall apples could be used for jam making.

'Til St Swithin's Day be past

Apples be not fit to taste 

Here in Suffolk our one week of Summer was last week and now we are back to cloudy and several degrees cooler.

(I caught up with the Cold Play set from Glastonbury on TV last night - how brilliant it was. Somehow listening to good music has disappeared from my life in the last six years. I've still got some favourite CDs - Divine Comedy, Chris Difford, Robbie Williams, Josh Groban and some Brass band stuff - just need to watch less TV!)

Back Soon

Sue