Our friends Barb and her son Ian came for a visit. Picture of the boys up on the rock wall around the house. Climbing along this wall is one of their favorite pastimes.
Summer is a bit late in coming this year, but normally in the UK and northern Europe the elderflower blooms. As I understand it the flower typically blooms in late may and June, but they have been in full swing this year in the second half of june and now into July. They are quite nice turning an otherwise dull bushes into brilliant colored trees. Take for instance this picture below of the elderflower growing out of the old church across the road.
Here is the same location a few weeks back prior to bloom. In addition it turns out that it can be used to make a very nice (non alchoholic) beverage referred to as Elderflower cordial. I probably will not end up making it on my own but I did end up buying some pre-made elderflower sparkling beverage from a local UK farm.
Kelly and I sampled it last night while enjoying the nice summer evening and it was really good. It actually had a very light, flowery taste to it.
Also - here is a good article on the elderflower as well.
Noah turns 6 in wales!
Well its finally summer here, its Wimbledon season, time for garden parties and Pimm's! What is Pimm's you ask? - Well I had the same question so I decided to pick myself up a bottle of Pimm's #1 from the display stand in Waitrose this week. It seems to be a classic 'English' drink that is gin based and most often mixed with lemonade and garnished with cucumber, strawberry, oranges and mint. It seems to have some level posh'ness associated with it .... Makes me feel like I should have a cardigan wrapped around my shoulders while watching a game of polo perhaps...
Anyhow...here is a video of me making this drink with color commentary from Abbie who is sitting behind the Iphone...
Abbie has been taking ballet, but this is her own ballet/salsa style...
PJ likes to sit in the freezer....
Kelly asked Noah to put the toilet paper up stairs in the bathroom and to just stack it to the side of the toilet and look what he did....
We have Wisteria around the house here in a few places and its booming right now. Its a very pretty flower but looks even nicer with stone as a backdrop. The first 3 photos were taken early morning. The second two were taken 'after school' in full sun. You can see Preston in the first shot and the boys hanging off the upper deck in the second.
One of the things we like here in Great Britain is the history just in the homes that people live in, and how many houses don't even have a number - they simply have a name based on some historical use/reason. Our house is called 'Churchfarm'. That the first line on our address... thats it. Sort of strange given that its actually a converted barn, but there is in fact a church around! Its not obvious and is now property of the cattle that graze around it but here is the actual church that was part of the Clemenstone Hamlet and estate area at some point in history. Its a couple hundred yards down the road from the house up on the hill. I took these shots while walking the dog about 5:30 AM (days are long in june!)
The lanes around our house offer beautiful countryside walking/jogging especially when the weather is nice.
