End of August

    Our last day on the IOW was wet so we had  a couple of short visits to  places that were free and inside - out of the weather.......  Quarr Abbey .............                                                                      

........and the Coach and Bus Museum

Youngest Granddaughter was sure she DIDN'T want to visit here but actually enjoyed it - there were 5 buses to get into and 'drive' and she loved a double decker that had once been lived in by a family with 8 children!

Another place we visited while on the IOW was Dinosaur Isle, which sounded amazing for the 4 year old Dinosaur expert and he loved it but goodness me...... it was very expensive for what is there.  The family went off one late afternoon when the tide was out and found the fossilised Dinosaur footprints at Compton Sands so the MGS was extra pleased. 

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And now I've been home a week and it's the end of August. No frugal notes for August - I didn't want to be frugal while on holiday with family! - although the rest of the month wasn't too bad.

I've now got 9 days to clear all my books from the shelves, all the crockery etc from the cabinet and everything else that I can shift by myself from the living room ready for the hardwood flooring. It's going to take me all of the 9 days with much walking back and forward to the spare bedroom and my bedroom.

Doubt there will be Frugal notes in September either as I have to pay the other half of the cost of the flooring when it's done and I'm getting paint to do the walls while the room is half empty. That will be hard work I think - it's several years since I did the whole living room at Clay Cottage.

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Sue

Isle of Wight Holiday Part 3

 Another trip out while we were on the Island was to Carisbrooke Castle also in the care of English Heritage.

We walked the walls but I didn't do the big climb up to the keep, all the ups and downs were not doing my knee any good - the downside of bungalow living! - they don't get enough practice.

The building in the centre is the Well House with it's wheel, in which the castle donkeys usually work for 4 minutes each day demonstrating how water is brought up from the very deep well.

Unfortunately the 12.20 demonstration had to be done by one of the English Heritage staff as Donkey 1 had done it's share of work for the day and Donkey 2 was feeling 'off colour'. The castle has about 8 donkeys but only two at a time are kept in the castle stables.

King Charles I was imprisoned in the castle - awaiting his execution. He tried to escape twice but got stuck in a window. He had his own bowling green built - so got plenty of fresh air and exercise! 

Lovely model of the castle

Beautiful ceiling in the castle chapel

A view out from the wall walk - over the carpark!

(Hooray for the Paralympics on TV everyday now for 10 days. I shall enjoy it all.)

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Sue

Isle of Wight Holiday Part 2

One of our outings was to Osborne House, which was the holiday home of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their children. Despite visiting the Isle of Wight about 8 times it was somewhere I'd never been before.

Now it is in the care of English Heritage.

 There are lots of things for children to do which is good and we spent almost the whole day there.

The tour of the house was the least interesting bit - I reckon once you have seen inside one posh house you have seen them all! And no opportunity for seeing the kitchens here.

The bed in which Queen Victoria died!

The gardens are beautiful and lots of wild parkland too.

More about this grand house and gardens HERE

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Sue

Isle Of Wight Holiday Part 1

Last week was spent on the Isle of Wight with Son, DiL and the two grandchildren (which is why I wasn't 'around' in blogland very much). It was lovely to have a proper holiday. 

Of course one of the special bits of an I.O.W holiday is the ferry trip over the Solent, it was sunny both ways and heading out of Portsmouth the Royal Navy boats are often around.

Our flat was ground floor and basement with a good enclosed garden and with the bedrooms downstairs which confused the children but made for cool bedrooms on the hot days. A perfect holiday home for three generations and very well equipped.

Safe enclosed garden

A couple of beach days were lovely and then some trips out. I've had many holidays on the Island but not been for more than 20 years. I'd happily move there as the weather seems to always be good, except that the Solent is an expensive piece of water to cross and the Island is incredibly busy during the summer and everything is twice the price of elsewhere!

I'll do some posts about the places we visited during the week.

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Sue

St Bartholomew's Day and Honey

If August 24th be fair and clear,

Then hope for a prosperous autumn that year.

Today, August 24th, is Saint Bartholomew's Day. Bar-Tolmai (son of Tolmai) lived and died in 1st century Palestine. It is thought he was flayed alive so becoming the patron saint of butchers and tanners. He was also the patron saint of bee keepers and it was traditional for the honey to be taken from the bees on this day.

St John's Gospel records a conversation between Jesus and Bartholomew who was one of the first disciples . Jesus said Bartholomew was a man without deceit. Bartholomew asked " How do you know me?" and Jesus answered, "Before Philip called you, when you were sitting under the fig tree, I saw you". Bartholomew's early doubt disappeared and he said" Teacher you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel". Bartholomew became an apostle and was granted a vision of the Risen Lord.

Later traditions record he preached in India and Armenia, where he met his death.

This small book all about honey is one I picked up for next to nothing from a car-boot sale two years ago it turned out to be a fascinating little book, packed full of everything you ever wanted to know about honey.

There's a whole A-Z of the flavours of honey when it's been made from various plants and several pages of quotes about honey.

If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive

Dale Carnegie

Tart words make no friends: a spoonful of honey

will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.

Benjamin Franklin

Humans have been harvesting honey for at least 8,000 years, for most of those it's been taken from wild bees then came straw skeps, from which the whole combs would have been taken. Then came wooden hives with purpose made removable frames that we see today with centrifugal honey extractors- invented in 1865, honey production and harvesting became a lot safer and easier.

Illustration from the book 'An English Cottage Year' by Sally Holmes and Tracey Williamson.

In London a St Bartholomew's Day fair was held to raise funds for St Bartholomew's hospital. The fair was first held in 1133 but was banned in 1855 because of offences against public dignity and morals!

The first "toffee apples" were traditional at this fair, they were windfall apples, skewered on sticks and dipped in honey.

St. Bartholomew's mantle wipes dry all the tears St. Swithin can cry


As St. Bart's Day, so the autumn .

 (Many Thanks for comments yesterday and apologies for not replying. Had a whole day travelling home from a holiday with family which I'll write about next week - awful traffic everywhere. I didn't factor in travelling home on the Friday before a Bank Holiday weekend when I made the booking in May of 2023!)

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Sue

Bigger Spend at a Charity Shop

When I got the set of Edwardian lady months of the year plates from a boot sale more than two years ago  I made room for them in the cupboard by getting rid of a couple of other plates (also boot sale finds) that I'd previously used in the seasonal display on the bookshelf, which was a daft thing to do as I'll never see them anywhere again. They were two from the Villeroy & Boch Four Seasons collection and very pretty.

Idiot!

Anyway, when I saw this in the glass display case of the Hospice charity shop I liked it even more than the two that had gone.

I bought it. It's by Royal Worcester and called 'The British Countryside in Summer'. Being in their glass display case means it cost more than I usually spend at a boot sale/charity shop but at least I can count it as a donation to charity!

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Sue

St Andrew's Church, Tostock

 This village is just off the main A14 between Stowmarket and Bury St Edmunds (or Felixstowe and the Midlands) but woodland in between and access along narrow roads that no longer connect to the main road make it  very quiet. The church is small and the outside looks much as it would have done in the C14. 

Inside it is very simple, no side aisles or side chapels and only a couple of stained glass windows remain. The rest were smashed, as so many were, to get rid of Catholic imagery in the mid 17th Century

A few fragments of glass were saved and put into the East window later 

The font has a Green Man on one side

All the pews have carved birds and animals at each end, some original but many are later replacements 

The bell ringing chamber is open to view from inside the church and when the bells were restored not so long ago

four old clappers were hung in the church as a display. These date back 300 and 400 years.

Apparently in the 1800's a visiting Bishop said the church didn't have enough seating and they were ordered to provide more. The only way this could be done was to put these narrow pews down the North and South walls of the nave.

An alcove has a lovely painting to make a WWI war memorial. Painted in 1921 by the sister of one of the parishioners 

Each archway has a painted text -  apologies for chopping off some of the words! and for forgetting to get better close up photos. ( This often happens when there is someone....this time it was a lady cleaning..... in the church who loves to show people round - always good to get lots of information but then I forget the photos!)

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Sue

The Fig Tree in 2024

 Looking at posts labelled 'Figs' and I've written something about them nearly every year because

a. I keep planting fig trees where ever we've lived and then moving ......and

b. they are such an exotic treat to eat fresh

 It's impossible to count how many figs there are on my fig tree this year, but considering it came here three years ago as a 'stick ' in a pot - second pot from the left in this photo from May 2021 -  it's doing very well.

 Three years ago I lifted a half slab from the patio, cut away the weed suppressant stuff, dug the soil under it and added some compost.

 

Here it is in July 2024.................  over 6 feet tall and wide and threatening to take over! Perhaps a bit too much leafy growth..... . I'd better look up pruning information.

And this what I wrote about figs in a post 4 years ago

 Figs originate from Mediterranean countries where they grew wild and were eaten fresh and dried as  part of a staple diet. It's thought the  Romans brought the first fruit here but the trees came quite a while later, perhaps in the early 16th century. They were first grown here as an architectural plant, growing up to 26 feet tall. The fruit rarely ripened and even now after breeding new varieties we only get one crop a year whereas in sunnier and warmer countries they have two crops in a year.

Had the first fig on the last day of July

then 3 days later there were suddenly a whole bowl full 

And they kept ripening, giving me one or two to eat every day since then - so delicious.

PS - Hooray for the return of Quizzy Mondays. Although that and mention of which celebs will be on Strictly does mean Autumn is approaching......but how does someone blind do Strictly.....the thought of it frightens me.

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Sue