July part one: sunflowers and lavender

Hello! Welcome to another intermittent, better-late-than-never blog post from down here on the south coast of unusually sunny England. July has been such a bumper edition of a month that I've split all my highlights and happenings into two posts for, despite all the craziness of school and work, there have been weekends which were wonderfully full. Sometimes full of seeing people and going to places, sometimes full of nothing more than drinking iced coffee and hanging out loads of washing on the line while listening to audiobooks and wandering round the garden barefoot. Both were lovely. 

July began cool and lush, with woods still bursting with green. 

The sweet peas (over now - the heat got to them) were abundantly fragrant and filled little vases here and there around the house. Back at the start of July I was watering the garden very enthusiastically every night but I have to confess that I'm running out of steam now.

The outdoor sofa continues to be our best purchase for the house for some time and is in constant use, mostly by the children. It's a good spot to read.

The dog is not allowed on it, much to his confusion. 

There were evenings warm enough to sit outside by the sea and drink cocktails with friends.

And some pretty spectacular sunsets.

I picked all the redcurrants and, despite the attentions of pigeons who - hilariously - kept trying to perch on the branches while nibbling the berries - have almost 500g.

They have all been frozen ready to be turned into something during the summer holidays. Probably a jelly or chilli jam as I don't actually enjoy eating them, too sharp and bitty.

I managed about the same weight of blackcurrants, most of which were frozen ready to be made into ice cream, but some were turned into a compote for yogurt.

I made a top, a summery vest. It is made from Drops Paris cotton so is quite heavy in weight, but lovely to wear. I made up the pattern as I went along and kept trying it on for size, adjusting the length with a few more rows as and when. 

It was inspired by a huge sunflowers blanket that my mum recently made, and she passed on to me all her leftover yarn. I wanted something very summery and floral that I could wear with jeans, and that is what I have. The pattern for each square is a "sunburst granny square" of which there are many free patterns available online, I just chose shades of brown and yellow to make it look like sunflowers.

Other garden pickings included bunches of lavender from the bush in the front garden. Never a very reliable gardener, I am constantly surprised when I manage to grow anything in enough quantity to pick, and since lavender is one of my favourite scents, this did make me very happy.

Talking of lavender, we visited Lordington Lavender Farm, about fifteen minutes from where we live and it was so lovely. We last went before covid so I was really keen to go again because it is such a nice experience. They are a lavender farm who open their gates for one week a year for members of the public to come and look around. You can take photos, buy ice creams or lavender flavoured cakes as well as their products, and just spend a happy morning wandering up and down the rows listening to the hum of the bees.

The lavender ice cream was delicious. I always like anything with a floral flavour. Parma violets are still one of my favourite sweets. A scented candle and bottle of hand soap also came home with me.

We visited the weekend before the heat wave and it was hot. We got there when it opened at 10am, and were gone well before midday, but it was still warm.

And that takes us up to mid-July.

Since then there has been much adventuring and seeing people, but more of that in another post.

Here, we are now settling in to the rhythms of the six week school holiday. Every year I forget that this takes time, everyone getting used to being together all day long. I went into work yesterday and tidied my classroom ready to be deep cleaned over the summer break, and now don't intend to think about school until the end of August. I have written a huge to-do list of all the odd jobs I hope to get done this holiday, and started catching up with a lot of life admin including: dentist appointments for the kids and I, hair cuts, booking dog-sitters, changing our energy tariff, booking the car in for a service, deciding what colour to paint the kitchen and going through all the school uniform to see what still fits. More excitingly, the calendar is filling up with friends coming to stay, days out in London and drinks with friends. All lovely things, and still a novelty after covid.

I hope you are all safe and well. Thank you as always for reading. :-)