Goodbye 2011

The last day of 2011 has slid away from us, rather like an over tired child, grizzly and petulant in a gloomy cloud of drizzle but tomorrow is another day and another year. A new day, a new year refreshed as we travel forward towards the spring each night drawing out a little longer the fresh buds already pushing up in the garden and oh how the birds are starting to sing to us.

I've included some photos of our fountain that I took earlier in the week of the dark lusciously green reflections in our fountain. One lady kindly asked if they could be made bigger (good tip thank you) but alas the seem to be a already set to maximum for this blog BUT if you click them the should open up to a larger size then just use the back button on the browser to continue reading as before.

And now it only remains for me to wish you a Great New Years Eve and a very Happy New year!!

A magical Christmas sunset

My final impression of our day has to be this dramatic moment that the sun became  a fiery ball caught in the changing cloud above Perranuthnoe as the date palms tossed in our garden.

Candles

I think I mentioned the broad "church Candles" that I like to put on the window sills?

A Christmas rose

I was thrilled as i scurried about, trying to tidy the gravel and the car park for our first Christmas Guests to spot this rose on the climber given to me by my late Father. Believe me it took quite an effort to take this photo as it was on top of the garden rom roof but by balancing on a chair i got the little tinker as it tossed in the lively wind yesterday.

Yesterday was a day of weather passions veering from wind to hail to brilliant sunshine and back in an instant. Our guests set out to walk to marazion along the coastal path and I got as far as my fantasy gravel border in the garden that always reminds me of warm days. The sharp sunshine cast dramatic shadows to an Agave American growing in a pot outside of the garden room and returning to the courtyard the sun was just touching the Parterre, for a while it was so warm - Ednovean Farm at Christmas.

Christmas cont!!

Christmas continues so I'm told and I'm still enjoying the decorations - probably will until the awful truth begins to dawn that i have to repack the glitz the ribbons and the baubles and shoehorn them back into the loft. At least this year my collection of church candles re-appeared from a distant corner in the loft. I like to line the broad barn window sills with these and tuck dark green foliage around them - they looked beautiful this Christmas morning casting gentle candle light across the room. I leave our decorations up until the twelfth night, superstitiously counting the day to try to ensure that "bad Christmas luck" does not set in for the following year - I think they come down about the 4th but i shall be watching Mousehole Christmas lights across the bay like a hawk to make sure I get the right day!

Happy Christmas

A very Happy Christmas everyone

Thank you for reading the blog and keeping us company throughout the year. Thank you for your comments and thank you to the the guests that came to share our home this year a very merry Christmas.
My last Image of Christmas is the Nativity scene from Charles's childhood, he has just set the little figures up on a window sill that looks across the bay to Mousehole as he does every year and I found them there with the lights of Mousehole glowing behind them just seen through the dark storm lashed window squares.

Thinking of you all

Christine and Charles
with Ollie and Spud tucked up in their baskets
and Danni and his family contentedly eating their hay in the stables

Goodnight and Happy Christmas

Cherubs

The weather has taunted us today as we have laboured in the stables but at least i was able to make good use of the branch brought down by the gale the other day to display my cherub collection  - it is embarrassingly large but i think i must have laboured under the impression that "More is More" at Christmas time! Still when the sun came out briefly today they glinted in the sun from the window beside them and when we ate our supper last night they glowed darkly. They are a memory of our first Christmases together, liberated from the attic where they had been lovingly packed in kitchen roll to preserve them over the years and now ready to see Christmas again. The cherubs!

Mid Winter

A Palm tree in our garden sillouetted against the sunset

The days are so short now that the event of Mid winter comes as some relief and we turn our faces towards the spring at last. I stopped just long enough from ferrying the young horses in for the night to take a snap of "the" sunset before continuing in our own "beat the clock" or beat the dusk which ever way you would like to see it! There is always competition between the three yearlings namely Magic and the two two year olds to be first in for the night. Last night was no exception and an exasperated Amie delivered a firm nip to her brother Magics bottom who launched himself forwards to the gap as if jet propelled and thus neatly jumped the cue. But it did give me time to take the photo of the sunset driven by that primitive instinct to celebrate the turning of the year. First I tried from our car park and then raced down to just outside of the courtyard gate for a better view of the sinking sun. Content it we continued to the Ednovean farm equivalent of the school run to collect the Brood mares waiting patiently in the dusk.

Yesterday i dragged a beautiful tree branch up stairs that I found on the lane brought down by the recent gale - a rugged piece of hawthorn bright with two types of lichen - I wedged it in a pot with pebbles and have decorated it with my extensive gold cherub collection they haven't had an outing for a few years but this year seems right for them. Id have preferred to position them against a plain wall so that the stark beauty f the branch could sing but had to settle for a corner of the Dining room where at least it will be seen as people climb the stairs a curious echo to the plump green tree in the hall.



Perranuthnoe village church with the backdrop of the sea

AT last the night fell and I took one last look around the stables momentarily mistaking Bodkin, this years foal, for his mother April in the dusk, he has grown so tall, their two heads framed in the doorway and in the next stable Dolly contentedly licking her manger, a sleek black thoroughbred now, her nose no longer fits between the stables bars to beg for polo mints, in the same way as it did as a small foal those three nearly four long yeas ago. We walked quietly back to the house together and glancing across Mounts Bay, Mousehole lights glowed across the Water - Mid Winter day just before Christmas and we shut the front door back to our tree and branch.

The Christmas Tree in the Hall

Our Christmas tree for this year at Ednovean Farm

Each year Charles and I wrestle a prickly tree into place in the hall - it is not allowed one step further into the house because of the needles that drop but I suppose i am lucky to get it that far! I studied the trees over the years - agonised for hours over the best one in wet cold farm yards and garden centres and have now hit on the perfect solution for choosing a tree know as the "pot luck" method. It is simple peer at the tightly wrapped trees and choose the one that "speaks" to you - a rather plump one is usually a good bet. Force said tree into the back of the car and attempt to drive lopsidedly home, drag into hall and release from its wrappings and only then will the excitement of know what kind of Christmas it will be will be revealed.

We waited with baited breath to see what Spud would make of it or more to the point what havoc his little paws would wreak but he was the soul of discretion fondling a couple of ornaments gently with his paw before retiring to his bed for the night!

Christmas 2011!

P.S i love this tree so I hope it will be a good one

The Soloman Browne

On this day the 19th of December 1981 Soloman Browne went down taking her brave crew with her as they struggled to save the crew of a stricken vessel off of the Cornish coast, The lights of Mousehole will be dimmed tonight in memory of that tragic nights and you can read more here:- Soloman Browne

A winter walk

A view towards Trencrom from Ednovean Farm

In an instant the leaves seem to have disappeared from the trees leaving the bare tracery of branches against dramatic Winter skies. The sudden alchemy of the season always surprises me and each one has its own charm. This morning before breakfast i could not resist the idea of seeing St Micheal's Mount in the Winter Mounts Bay, with the huge arching sky from the top of the farm - well actually I had seen two buzzards on the ground feeding as I walked back along the lane and naturally they flew off at the first sight of the camera even though I crept along behind some teasels - perhaps they thought I would take their good side - so i continued to the top resting field across the tussocky winter grass, that still looks surprisingly good and how fabulous the air smelt, cool and crisp.




Looking down on Mounts Bay




St Micheal's Mount with Penzance behind




The point beyond Mousehole



and back through the gate with the little spinney that has grown up on some mine waste, where the foxes have their earth - shhhhh



passing the muck heap the church below in the valley has its Christmas cross




That fabulous sky





Hay ho it's off to work we go - Charles leading Archie and Amie out to the field

and that was our morning at Ednovean Farm

St Micheal's Mount, taken from just outside of the Pink room this morning.

It has been a lovely, if chilly morning here in Cornwall - St Micheal's mount looked glorious in the winter sunshine and all was well in the world. The days are short now and the stables take most of our time but we found time this afternoon to find a Christmas Tree and brought the prickly object home still waiting in the landrover to be released from its nets - will it be a good one or will it be a bare one, will the branches be symmetrical or not? tomorrow we will know but at the moment the scent of Christmas is in the air - reactions from Spud-the-young-Cat will be following shortly!

Spud rules OK

Ollie would like......

Ollie would like to assure all of his friends from around the world that his attachment to the Rayburn in purely temporary and he will be out and about meeting and greeting in the car park as soon as the weather improves. He has a truly splendid box in the mean time, with some mega newspapers in, that he has personally shredded to his own satisfaction and has settle in a warm and comfortable place to wait for the weather to improve - not long to the shortest day! At the moment though "Do not disturb"

The bird bath and Spud

I carried the camera out with me this morning ready to see if a buzzard would wheel near the back stables or the horses would scatter passed across the field as i worked but I was enchanted by Spud-the-Cats acrobatic to drink the freshly fallen rainwater from the little bird bath that presides over our "welcome to our garden" little formal garden that is beside the path that our guests take to our front door



Spud treading carefully around the water - the threat of a wet paw, perish the thought, has to be born in mind!

I was originally taking a photo of the Fennel still in flower and the reflection in the rain water when Spud added so much more to my picture as he does to our day now scampering around full of joy and getting underfoot. So that was today after the storm.

After the storm

A View across the garden out to sea today


We had a wild night here in Cornwall with gusts of seventy miles an hour as the first of the real winter storms hit us. The weather reports are pretty accurate now and so we had prepared extra stables for our brood mares to come in out of the storm, stacked more of the garden furniture away in the garden room and moved the most vulnerable pots. But still there was a few thing tossed around after the gale. There were some consolations though - As we finished in the stables last night with all of the horses munching contentedly, i heard a Robin's song high in the rafters and there he was back, to shelter for the winter, our winter mascot.












Penzance



It has been a mixed day of sudden squalls and bright sunshine - Penzance was quite clear across the bay seen from our garden this morning but we are going to have a challenging week - still I've spotted a high approaching on the weather map so it should clear for the weekend!

You could see the waves breaking over the headland even from our garden

I saw in passing

View from the lane down on to the rooftops of Ednovean Farm

Such a joy to wake up to December sunshine this morning across the bay every house and filed lay in sharp relief - unfortunately the camera didn't agree and apart from taking one photo from beside our gate looking down at our home it declared "change batteries" and shut itself down with a resounding and determined click to spend the rest of the day in idle tranquility charging itself up in the Dining room.. By this evening in the brief interlude before darkness fell, in our curiously foreshortened days of the moment, we spotted three ships on the horizon to good to miss - unfortunately by the time I had disturbed our camera from its health spa to do some work and puffed back down the garden only one was left - ah well this was my day, the things I saw in passing.

Feeding the mares i spotted this ship, one of three on the shipping lane this evening, on her journey.

The fishing boat

A fishing boat passing Perranuthnoe church tower on its way home in the dusk.

I can never resist a sunset if there is a moment between ferrying the horses into the stables and nigh falling the lure of a hint of pink or tonight orange in the sky is usually too hard to resist. So tonight when I popped back into the garden, I was just in time to watch the sea birds going overhead in orderly groups as they always do on their way to roost and this little fishing boat making its way home in the dusk.

i spent some time on the border near the Blue room this afternoon ready for our weekend guests the chilly earth clinging to my gloves and my feet feeling slightly numb as the afternoon wore on but i was rewarded by a hot streaming mug of tea from Charles and we sat on the terrace for a few moment stolen from the Winter to enjoy the garden while I described the newly emerging bulbs that gave me hope of the spring just around the corner. The quiet markers of my day and of the season.

Faded Agapanthus seed heads I'm letting the wind carry the seeds to see where they will settle