A Room With A View.................

Random harvest

Fantastic huge potatoes, just a pity we can't remember what variety we planted. Loads and loads of all kinds of peas - sugar snap, mange-tout and ordinary. Excellent broad beans. Lovely beetroot. Unfortunately the cauliflowers have bolted and have really flowered..................probably still OK to eat they just look a little weird.
Flower beds now looking superb, antirrhinums are out and the cerinthe have also done well. Wallflowers just on the way. New spirea flowering and all the potentillas also flowering very profusely so have benefited from their haircut.

Chilly for June

 Amazing light effects in the showery weather

 We've already eaten the first one....................

 Beetroot trial..............."Red Ace" on the left doing markedly better than "Detroit Globe" on the right though planted at the same time

 Angi & Gordon's Pieris in position................

 Containers for a bit of colour until other things grow in................

 The Return of the Cotoneaster.............and its babies, all planted along the back.............couple of Helenium for colour

 The shade corner. The vinca have taken and are looking good...............have added a climbing hydrangea, some Cerinthe and some hostas from home, with bedding begonias and lobelia until they get established.

 Nemesia "Vanilla ace" and diascia "Flying colours" just for prettiness

Although actually......................we have had glorious weather while the rest of the country has been cold and wet. It's been bone-dry until the last couple of days and the veg were gasping............much further ahead than our Edinburgh garden and with a little bit of watering they have all shot up. Most things are establishing and doing OK.............the herb barrow was absolutely parched but still hanging in there, water feature not watering but quick to start up again with the first rain. Progress not perfection..................

Happy New Year from Hill House

Blazing fires............cosy heaters.........warm living-room.........contented little purring cats snuggled up on our laps......howling wind, sleet and rain in the pitch dark outside unable to penetrate the double-glazing..........Jackie Bird shivering in off-the-shoulder frock on BBC Scotland Hogmanay programme reporting on Edinburgh fireworks.....glasses charged.........tummies full..........well, it's too good to be true isn't it. So what does Carrie do? - chivvies us all outside into the (*^*%(^!! freezing )(*(*)%$!! cold and dark to see in the New Year................ Truly it would not have been a proper Hill House experience if we had all started 2012 being clean, warm and dry..........someone had to fall in the mud and get soaked so Melanie obliged, throwing champagne down your trousers is not usually part of the HH ritual but we could certainly incorporate it for the future.........once the fireworks from Ballachulish had been dimly sighted through the sleet we were allowed to go back in, but not before lighting our sparklers...........
Alison had miraculously survived the experience of staggering off the sleeper, being met by Carrie and Fiona and hauled up a mountain in the lashing rain to be soaked to the skin while suffering from a virus..............what doesn't kill you will make you stronger and all that................
These are not black-and-white photos, this is what it looks like. We are having lots of weather. Trip to Kyle yesterday to see Charlotte & Peter, beautiful views and interesting road conditions..........Carrie and Fiona tried to set fire to Ferndale with a massive box of fireworks but yet again we all survived so they will have to think of something else............

Trampoline rescue

Fiona's trampoline rescue pictures.............