Summer 2009 – Part One, by Cherry Menlove

This summer has been so full and busy and brilliant and heartbreaking and SO MANY OTHER THINGS that go to make up my existence at the moment that I wanted to put it all on record. Here, on my website. Not many words, just some pictures covering June, July and August.

We had great weather in June and ate outside a lot. Especially when it came to yumfyness like raspberry coulis.

My sunflowers started June as very little sunflowers.

And I shoveled rocket and bresaola into my mouth without coming up for air.

The Sweet Williams I transplanted from my old garden to my new one did wonderfully. I was proud as punch.

And we took the girls on many picnics.

This was the moon in June. High in the sky as Robert the Husband and I watched Vicky, Christina, Barcelona at home on a balmy Saturday evening.

Boo forgot that she wasn’t the messiah and can not walk on water. Falling into the pond and coming out smelling of poop. She’s looking grumpy due to embarrassment more than anything else. I was grumpy because I had to bathe a cat smelling of poop at ten thirty on a Sunday evening.

We ate lots of fruit based desserts. This blueberry cobbler was a favourite and went to the entire family for a taste.

We also awoke to misty mornings. A wonderful thing in the summer as it makes the whole world feel like one big room.

Speaking of rooms, this is our office and this is where I am typing from right now. We painted it white (there’s a surprise) and it’s now full of STUFF! I’ll show you one day.

This summer we picked a great many strawberries. Good, juicy English strawberries that don’t give you an acidic tummy ache after eating them.

Having a daybed out in the garden was great as on the hot days the strawberries tasted even better.

On the fourth of July we built a fence. A long fence that required me to get bossy.

When nobody would listen to me I drafted Daisy in to help keep the troops in line.

It was no good. Even Truly became exasperated and stormed off.

Robert the Husband found the whole thing hilarious and was just pleased to have a cold beer at the end of the day.

Some of the days were hot and dusty in a ‘fade the doormat’ kinda way.

But we had fruit lemonade ‘a plenty to keep us quenched.

The garden gave us so much and the vases were full on most days.

I had WIP’s laying around the place and was not mustering up the oomph to finish them. Robert and I decided to take a break and we knew exactly where we needed to go.