Summer Shenanigans
- Taz
- Aug 18, 2018
- 3 min read
I don't know what everyone else's summer has been like but mine has been a veritable roller-coaster of highs and lows, travels, and activities, not to mention the longest, hottest summer weather I can remember since I came to the UK in 2004. So amidst all of this, my poor blog has suffered and I am only now returning to give it some love and attention.
Something that I finally managed to do over the last few months was to put some plants in the garden and it was one of the most rewarding things I have done recently. It started off with something that came up on my facebook feed about saving bees and because I love bees and appreciate what they do for our environment, I made a donation and was promised a packet of seeds that would produce bee friendly plants. They duly arrived in the post and I dug up a strip of lawn close to the fence in our garden and my 3 year old daughter and I sprinkled the seeds and covered them up with soil and compost. I had to stop my daughter a few times from digging up the soil to see if the seeds were growing!
Before long little green leaves started to poke through the soil, something my daughter found excessively exciting. I decided to also add a few other plants and when my parents came to visit, my mum helped me pick out some good ones for the garden. My mum is a keen gardner and I was glad of her help. We also found some old bulbs in the shed and decided to plant them as well for good measure and to my surprise they all came up as well.
Once all the plants came up and started to flower, suddenly there were lots of bees as well. They absolutely loved the bee friendly plants which was encouraging and I counted at least 8 different types of bees!
The other lovely thing that happened in my garden was a gorgeous big pink poppy came up all by itself. Possibly the seed was scattered by the birds or blown in the wind, but whichever way it happened it was a lovely healthy plant and caused great excitment for my daughter who told me before it bloomed that the flowers would be pink and me not wanting her to be dissapointed, told her that they would most likely be red or white. When they came out and were pink she was over the moon and said to me ' Mummy, I told you they would be pink and you didn't believe me". ( I just hope she wont be throwing that back in my face when she's sixteen.)
I have found that the time spent in the garden, even just watering the plants was quite therapeutic and made me feel relaxed and content. I read somewhere that people who have contact with and spend time in nature are more likely to be happier and content in themselves and it is definitely true for me. I wish I could find the link to the article I read but it has escaped me. If I find it I will post it on the lifestyle page of my website.
So let me encourage you all to get in the garden and if you dont have a garden maybe plant something in a pot on the windowsill.
Speaking of getting into nature, my daughter and I have been most fortunate to be able to forage for lovely juicy blackberries in the woods near our house. We picked about 2 kilograms and I would have picked more but I was limited by the size of my freezer.
With the ones that we picked, or rather those that actually made it back home without being scoffed by my daughter, we made Blackberry frozen yogurt, some absolutely delicious no churn blackberry ice-cream and of course we ate loads of them just as the were! The rest are in the freezer waiting to be made into jam at a later date.
Here are all the links to the recipes I used for all things I made with our blackberries.
Frozen Yoghurt
No Churn Blackberry Ice-cream (I just substituted the cherries with blackberries)
I hope you enjoyed this somewhat rambling post on the highlights of my summer and are inspired to get out there and forage for blackberries while they are still around or plant something in your garden or at the very least try and identify some different types of bees!
