Have you met Danilon?

Danilon

I don't usually put too many horse pictures on this blog but this week one of our guests was a talented photographer and asked for Danni to pose for him and so we scuffed the gravel in the car park up in our own version of in hand dressage. I think he took 170 odd shots and kindly sent us some with permission to use them, so this was our car park the other morning!

Danilon is a Pre Stallion (Pura Raza Espanola or pure race of Spain)

We started with some Spanish Walk a showy high stepping walk

I point with a stick to each foot to ask him to lift them extra high

The finished walk

and polo mint reward

Did i do it right mum!?

and finished with attempts at Piaffe a trot in place

Danni marking time

just finishing

Danni again near our entrance gate - he has to hold himself up and
 trot on the spot

Danilon Spanish Stallion at Ednovean Farm

Somehow the weather hasn't given me too many opportunities to take photos of the garden this week tending to be misty in the morning and then clearing towards the afternoon by which time I'm In the Supermarket/Gardening/or decided to sit down with a cup of tea. But all in all the garden has never looked lusher, with the Agapanthus looking huge and promising for a few days time. And I'm told the jet stream is about to move northwards taking the unsettled weather with it so maybe summer is in the air at last!

Spud started his tenure as only Cat by breaking the beautiful Epergne in the Dining room, Charles was not very pleased it must be said and even Spud looked guilty................

Requiem for Olly

Olly ? - 9/7.2012

Today we said our last farewell to Olley our beautiful Tom Cat whose purr could fill the room and who made friends from all over the worlds. He reamined indomitable until the last, he soldiering on, determined to fullfil his duties - only a few days ago escorted guests around the garden.  As the days have gone on, he has grown frailer, keeping to his daily routine but tottering slightly as he went until today i took him to the Mounts Bay vets for test's in the hope there was one last treatment for him but a blood test showed his readings were off of the scale and so with a heavy heart we let him slide away to the place where only the tears in our heart will reach him. He was buried today in the Italian gardens where he would always find us when we sat there in the evenings, i wanted to let you know as so many people ask where he is when they check in, our best friend and Ednovean mascot.

Olley our mascot thae photo that has pride of place on our web site

Olly one winter, enjoying a comfortable corner

Olly came into our lives many years ago from the RSPCA rehoming centre at St Culumn Major, boldly peering at us from his star trek like pod whilst other cats fled out through their cat flaps. The inspector said he had been abandoned in an empty house and until the end he always went outside if we were going out rather than stay int he house on his own. As we turned to walk away he marched out through is cat flap and sat looking at the sky rapping his tail around himself and as Charles said "I couldn't leave him there" - I think the sign on the cage saying "not to be rehomed with another cat" was also an attraction to Charles who preferred a single cat household as apposed to my cat collections!. Over the years Olly has always been there and it was only recently that he allowed Spud to move in - perhaps he chose his successor who knows.............

Yachts across Mounts Bay

Perranuthnoe's Church tower against the backdrop of
Mounts Bay

I've cropped this one from a larger image that I took form our garden using
 the cameras zoom

As I turn off of the A394 towards Perranuthnoe I always breath a sigh of relief that the obligatory supermarket shop is finished and the special piece of sea that we see each day comes into sight. Today as I drove home I spotted the yachts and luggers of the Mousehole Sea, Salt and Sail festival dancing across Mounts Bay so elegant and beautiful on a perfect blue sea, and so armed with our trusty camera i took a few shots from our garden when I got home. The day has been much better than expected - often the weather forecasters predict "rain for the West Country" meaning Dorset or Somerset and even if they are talking about Cornwall you must remember it is a good hours drive from end to end with many little micro climates in between. My method is to watch the early morning breakfast weather forecast on BBC and watch the satellite animation like a hawk for our area -  We had such a lovely sunset last night that things look good for our guests ...well today we were lucky anyway!

A surprise gorgeous sunset yesterday evening

a sheltered corner of the garden in the dusk

The garden grows more exuberant by the day

The church again with the sailing boats beyond

The view from the Blue room terrace

The moors stood out shraply today beyond the Italian Garden

and so today was a good day!

The Italian Garden continues!

As i walked towards the Italian Garden This morning my eye was
caught by the lifeboat and the helicopter busy in Mounts Bay

I wanted to explain the cross vista in the Italian Garden to try to explain the gardens design a little better so set off again after breakfast this morning first stopping to watch the lifeboat speeding across the bay so  a few more photos from the morning......

The cross vista to the statue of David

From the raised bench you can see the sea beyond

The sea that frames our garden

St Micheal's Mount to the right hand side

A stone bench on the mound

Which way, which way?

David on of the classics

The internal garden



and home to one of my courtyard pots



The Italian Job

The centre isle of the Italian Garden leading to its focal point























Deep in our gardens lays the sheltered, architectural, Italian Garden set in what was the horses old sand school. The privet hedges have miraculously grown in the remaining mixture of sand and mine waste as the top soil was pushed away when the area was levelled. Here I always find the temperature is  a few degrees warmer than the rest of the garden and the cool clean lines are a release from the happy jumble of plants and palms that forms the rest of the garden. Every year though, there comes the menace of the great hedge trim and we have come to regret our choice of the tough fast growing Privet - it was chosen as it was already growing on the farm and so we reasoned it would stand the harsh Winter gales from the sea hmmm thrive more like Still this year John of http://www.handyman-penzance.co.uk/ came along to sort out the chaos in a couple  of days and suggested that we could pick up the still green clippings with the lawn mower.....duhh! why didn't we think of that and so by the end of the afternoon on Saturday we had a tidy mulched-under-the-hedges garden ready to enjoy. We crept out again after supper and Charles took some shots the garden so follow me....

Leaving the main lawn, framed by the palms with the sea beyond,
 to turn to walk into the Italian Garden

Looking back towards the lawn past the intriguing series of door ways each
opening to a private lawn - sometimes each set of guests claim a garden
to sit in for the afternoon

The cross vista to the statue of David

Ian Lowe our designer cleverly used a borrowed view to
make the garden go on for ever!

A  little lawned garden forms the centerpiece with a cross vista to the
statue of David

The Discus thrower sits quietly in one of the enclosures

Hi I'm your blog host Christine in my "best" Gardening
outfit with my faithful cat Ollie

The border that runs behind the Italian Garden winding
in and out of the lawns

The raised mound at the centre of the Italian Garden

The last rays of sunshine of the evening on the gardens centerpiece

The statue at the end of the vista has become an old friend
over the years gathering lichen in the clean air of Cornwall

and back out into the main garden with the sudden release
from the cocoon of enclosure

One of the borders darker now but the sea is still blue beyond

Home again and good night from Ollie Cat