Nature's bounty

Thank you for your lovely comments on my previous projects, I have a few more to show you and then I might finally be able to show you the dining room!  My last post was all about taking something that cost nothing and turning it into something beautiful.  This is a similar post and ties in nicely with getting something for free.

It rained on Saturday but it didn’t last long and so early morning we went out meandering around our local antique/vintage shops I haven’t visited for a while.  An old artist, a man who I spent time with doing a painting for a friend of mine, had died and his shop had been turned into a lovely vintage looking flower shop. On the way out, in the window I spied a green vase and I fell in love with it instantly.  It has a very vintage feel to it, but I think it’s the shade of green.  Of course then I needed the flowers, the Ammi Visnaga, so beautiful and white, the Clematis, the tiny daisy like flowers (don’t know the name) mint, and some green lollipop looking flowers and I had to look them up first to tell you the name - Dianthus Barbartus!  I wanted cottage garden flowers, like I’d just picked them myself. 

We are very fortunate to live about 5 minutes from the seashore but also have green areas where in summer, hedgerows of ripe fruit are abundant as well as wild flowers.   Late afternoon we took ourselves out for a walk and I took along my gardening scissors and a container for foraging because you just never know what you might find when out walking.  Mother Nature did not disappoint…..there was enough blackberries for hundreds of bottles of delicious sweet jam or a sauce for vanilla ice cream.   The fruit proved more difficult to get to than the flowers.  Prickly and with the ripest ones high up and out of reach, I only managed to pick 500ml, but enough to have with ice cream! On the way back a neighbour was picking his apples that had fallen from his tree and placing them in bags to offer to whoever passed by. He offered us a bag to take home and said he makes puree and freezes it so instead of making a crumble I'm thinking of making an apple puree which can also be used as a sweet sauce…rich pickings for an afternoon walk!

Sometimes it’s the small things in life that gives us the most joy and walking in amongst the wild flowers, picking fruit and flowers to my left, and watching the boats bob up and down on my right, is pure contentment!

and these are the wild flowers and fruit we picked later in the day:

And last but certainly not least - welcome to my new followers, thanks for joining me!

Hope you have a wonderful week!

Sharon

xxx