Times Revisited!

Having written about my cameras I thought it would be interesting to look back in my other blog Dyeing2Sew and see when I bought it. Well it was at the end of April 2007 and this is what I posted:

I've been having such fun with my new camera! It is HUGE! Bigger than my old one. The zoom works beautifully and so does the macro facility. Most of the pictures I've been taking I've used the Auto facility but I have been trying out some of it's other features. Here are some examples:

This is Wallflower called 'Patchwork' which smells delightful. Picture was taken on the macro setting. I’m still not that good with macro pictures!

This is zoom picture  taken at night. This is a lovely Begonia I have in a stone pot. Eventually the flowers will grow and hang over the edge more.
Normal everyday picture of my herb pots taken with Auto facility. The Begonia from the picture above is the small yellow blob in the centre!

You can see a slight difference in today’s garden and the picture above. In the picture above my Rose of Sharon was big and bushy above the square stone pot. I cut this right down and moved it and it is doing really well. I moved it and the rose behind the lavender to the garden on the left in front of the wall. In this picture there is nothing there. And the herbs have all been planted in the herb bed in front of the kitchen window. Notice how small the bronze fennel was! Also note the obelisk in the back left hand corner. How clear it is! Today it is covered in clematis and that corner is lush with honeysuckle and my pink climbing rose. I tried growing bamboo there in the corner as it was damp but it didn’t take. Now I just have a fern there which is doing really well. It is really interesting to look back a couple of years and see how things were!

Taking Pictures!

I am so pleased that I was able to upload a video yesterday. However that was the tip of the iceberg. I still have oodles to learn about videos, not least of which is editing!

The first digital camera I owned was a Fuiji Finepix 4900 with a 6 x Optical Zoom. It was a super little camera and took amazing pictures. Unfortunately the video on this camera  didn’t have sound. So I didn’t get into making videos. Then the camera decided to go wrong. The button for choosing the mode worked randomly and seldom in picture taking mode. It was going to cost me an arm and a leg to get it mended so I bought another one.

As I’d been pleased with Fuiji I bought that make again. This time a Finepix S9600. A lovely camera with 10 x Optical zoom and sound on the video! What more could I want? Well this is a large camera and not easy to carry around all the time. So I bought a small Fuiji camera to keep in my handbag. So often one sees something to photograph but has no camera. This one is a Finepix J50 with 5 x Optical zoom. Not a lot but adequate for my everyday needs. And tiny!

I can highly recommend all these cameras. The pictures they take are wonderful. Yes I am talking about all of the cameras. Because as soon as I bought a second camera the first one decided to work again! The following are some of the photos I’ve taken using the zoom or macro facilities.

Using the zoom!

I’d be really interested to hear what camera you have and why you like it!

An experimental video!

This isn't anything special. There is no plan, no director in the background pointing out good shots, and not necessarily good viewing BUT it is an experiment. If it works I will promise to get better!




And on a happier note it has stopped raining - for the moment!

Losing the will to live!

I have been trying for over an hour to insert a video. I give up! Well at least for the moment! So instead of the post I intended to write I shall just show you a before and after picture!

This was my garden in March before I planted up my herbs and courgettes. And this is what it looks like now! Over crowded and overgrown! I really didn’t envisage it like this!

Perhaps tomorrow I might get lucky and insert a video!

Marjoram – A piquant sauce!

I grow Pot Marjoram as a perennial herb. The other variety, Sweet Marjoram isn’t so hardy though it has the better flavour. I grow this variety afresh every year. Being Mediterranean plants they like full sun (in this country!) and good drainage. Once established in a spot they like they will do very well. However it is a herb that gets forgotten in my garden and I don’t use it as much as I should. Here is a superb recipe for a sauce to serve with sausages, beef burgers or meat loaf. Or mix with cooked spaghetti and serve with a bowl of grated cheese to sprinkle over the spaghetti.

Pizzaiola Sauce

1 tbsp freshly chopped marjoram

2 onions, 2 garlic cloves, 1 green pepper

1 dsp olive oil

2oz mushrooms, 1lb tomatoes

5fl oz stock

Tomato paste, chilli sauce, salt and pepper

Mince the peeled onions and garlic cloves. De-seed the pepper and dice the flesh. Heat the oil in a pan and fry garlic and onions over gently heat for 5minutes. Add diced pepper and cook for further 15 minutes before adding chopped mushrooms and skinned and chopped tomatoes.

Stir in the marjoram and add the stock. Blend thoroughly and cover with a lid and simmer for 10 minutes. Season to taste with tomato paste, chilli sauce and salt and pepper.

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Marjoram leaves can also be mixed with sugar and used to flavour bread and butter or rice puddings.

Braving the Rain in Falmouth!

We went to Trago today which is a large ‘sell all’ cheap department store in Falmouth. When we got to our usual parking space it was over subscribed! This is now tourist season! But I made Martin wait while I took photos of these plants. I don’t know what they are but they are very striking. They are on a bank running parallel with the main thoroughfare in Falmouth. As well they were under planted with Agapanthus and Red Hot Pokers which seem to be very popular in this town.

In the end we had to park nearly on the sea front which meant quite a walk to the shops. Most of the gardens had Draceanas which is very common around here.

Lovely bushes of fuchsia. Even though this is a common variety I do like the red and purple.

Then we came to Arwenack Manor which is the oldest example of a dwelling place in Falmouth. It is a lovely old house and has an interesting knot garden. It is hard to do justice to it with a photo as one can’t get a clear view.

Next door was a garden laid out to palms and succulents. Plants for hot, dry climates which Falmouth once was. We weren’t called the Cornish Riviera for nothing!

Tragos on a Sunday afternoon is crowded! In the summer it is mega crowded. I needed some things or I would have avoided it like the plague! It lies on the edge of the harbour where the small yachts and boats are legion. Opposite on the other bank is the village of Flushing.

There is a good garden section in Tragos down in the basement. They also do hot house flowers of which a few are pictured below. The red flowers on the right looked as if they were made out of metal but I touched them and they are real plants! I don’t know the names of any of them and labels were in short supply!

Coming back along the sea front I was impressed with the display of agapanthus and some white and yellow flowers of which I don’t know the name! What a useless gardener I am!

Not everything in the garden is lovely!

I had my usual amble round the garden this morning and to my horror found that there were things going awry! This rose below is being eaten by something nasty. I remember reading about semi-circular holes in the sides of leaves but can’t for the life of me remember what insect it was that made them! Duh!

And on the same climbing rose I found a new shoot growing up extremely vigorously. But is it a new shoot or is it a sucker. The two pictures below show it. Unlike the rose this new shoot is exceptionally bristly; covered in thorns. And it comes from the original rootstock. So do I yank it off or what? I know very little about roses!

I think this is mildew on my courgettes. I pulled off the really badly affected leaves but wonder if this is the beginning of the end! Not fair as I’ve been so careful about watering them. It’s all that rain!

And a couple of the tomatoes that were ripening fell onto the patio. One of them had blossom end rot! Just what I need. I looked at those still on the plant and they seem OK at the moment!

On to happier things. The hydrangeas are looking lovely and beginning to turn from pinky blue to turquoise. The Cosmos continues to do well and I am dead heading daily. This beeis obviously having a good time! And the self sown Mimulus in with the parsley looks great. I meant to pull it out and forgot it but they look really good together. Sometimes things work well!

I am so fortunate

to live where I do. This is the first week of the school holidays and already the visitor count has gone up. On hand are lovely safe beaches, good coastal walks, fantastic scenery, interesting historical buildings and wonderful gardens.

This is my nearest beach, just five minutes walk away. It’s downhill on the way there but uphill on the way back which is a shame!

This is one of the satellite dishes at Goonhilly Earth Station. It is not as fully operational as it once was but has a very good visitor centre.

This is Porthleven harbour which is a small fishing village on the south coast. It is a very popular spot with tourists.

Cornwall is full of old engine houses from the tin mining that was all over Cornwall in the last few centuries. Sadly the industry has collapsed and all that remains are these ruins.

A year for foxgloves. I didn’t have any in my garden this year. Usually they are self sown but I have noticed some coming so next year I’ll have some.

The Bio domes at the Eden Project. This is a fascinating place to visit and is one of the most popular visitor places.

Just a few pictures from inside the Eden project. The hut was part of an enclosure representing the far east with its temperature and plants. Below are mangos.

Sailing is very popular here. These are boats on the River Fal. This picture on the left is the Carrick Roads which is a wide part of the estuary leading up to Trelissick House which has great gardens and a craft gallery. The other picture is of the harbour.

These two pictures are from inside Pendennis Castle which Henry VIII built to stop the Spaniards attacking the town. There is another castle on the opposite side of the estuary at St Mawes and these two castles protected the mouth of the river.

Old mining town of Redruth complete with statue of miner!

So it may rain more than the sun shines here but I think I live in a very good spot!