At national level, on our screens and radios, we have access to the constant bickering of politicians - most of whom are driven by power and greed. The ones who were called to a political career with a view to "make a difference" for their fellow men/women/children, for their planet too, are treated with contempt and are regularly ridiculed by their small minded opposition.
My personal levelling has included trips south of here for a variety of reasons. The upshot of that is a very untidy house and garden!
And yet - and this is a biggy - everything in the garden is doing very well without me! The semi circle beds at the front of the house, planted by Clemency soon after we moved here, are so full of colour and interest. Okay, so there is a lot of goosegrass tying everything together, but, even so, it is beautifully lush and healthy.
The cottage garden through the kitchen provides a feeding ground with its trillions of insects and slimy things. Birds and mammals alike leave their little messages! Plants are growing, unchecked for most of the month, upwards and outwards. Wading through thick greenery, I can just about get around the little beds of perennials but access via a step I put in near the wild border has been denied by the vigorous yet delicate foliage of the musk mallow. It's set to bloom very soon and both surprised and delighted us last year.
Grasses by the roadside
The kitchen garden continues to be productive but needs a great deal of work after a month of near neglect. The greenhouse in the corner is an oasis of tidiness!!!
Not the greenhouse... but the conservatory makes a great place to grow our tomatoes!
In short, it's a good job the school holidays begin next week, 4th July. Ginny, Judith and Clemency are all teachers and so, while they aren't putting in their time planning etc for the new academic year, they will be able to work in the garden. We should get together a chain gang to cover most areas! The little wood is self managing really - apart from Euan's visits when he fills us in on any work to be done. He's very useful!
We wanted the pond area to be semi-wild. It's probably gone beyond the semi part! But, all the same, it is gorgeous with so many planted things - and also with wild sorrel. Have you ever studied sorrel in any detail? It really is very pretty. While excessive amounts are inadvisable for those with tummy trouble and can also cause kidney stones, sorrel has been foraged for food and medicine for thousands of years. It has a sharp, lemony taste.
Can you see the pond?
In the shrubbery, Judith has really overplanted to be honest BUT this means the extent of her planting is now making good ground cover and therefore keeping back the undesirables.
The orchard, where we keep the quail and the hens - and where a few experimental things are going on, is doing what it's supposed to do - growing fruit. The experiments include a jammery and a cutting plot. Steady progress is being made!
Perhaps one of the most surprising areas over this month of neglect has been the yard. We removed some of the flagstones to make little flower beds. Almost everything we have planted there has flourished. Simultaneously flourishing are the undesirables. Goosegrass, fireweed and nettles are not undesirable on walks down the lane but I ask you - growing amongst the lupins, dahlias and iris? I don't think so!
The new bench in the yard
So much to do!
To be honest, it's going to be a pleasure sorting it out - as long as we don't plan too much on a single day and get disappointed when we can't tick everything off that mental list!
Looking back over three diaries - from two years ago, from last year and from this year, I see that two years ago I heard the cuckoo so loudly that I thought it must surely have been flying over our garden. That was on the first day of June and, a year later, the first of June was a Saturday and the wind came from the north, pegging down temperatures as we planted, mowed and trimmed. This year, on 1st June, Ginny, Judith and I were travelling home from East Dunbartonshire where we had gone to research a branch of our family tree. It poured with rain as we left the area for the north road, but brightened up later.
The Auld Aisle at Kirkintilloch (Kirky locally) is one of the oldest burial grounds in Scotland. It has quite a history and was founded by Thorold, proprietor of the barony of Kirkintilloch and Cumbernauld and High Sheriff of Stirlingshire, in about 1140.
We went during the daytime but it wasn't difficult to see that an evening visit would turn up so much more than names on graves! This "God's acre" is clearly its own nature reserve.
PHOTO OF THE AULD AISLE
Back home at Stempster, we watched the swallows building around the light fitting in the storm porch, in the garage and in the outside larder!
I'm in the habit of leaving little notes inside things - such as the blue and white milk jug which my father was given as a baby when he took first prize in a baby show - "No longer safe for food, this jug was Grandad George's prize in a baby show xx".
There's a point to this - I found, early in June, a piece of paper on the ground just outside the larder. We're very litter conscious - well, most of us - so I couldn't understand why there should be a scrap of paper there. I picked it up and read, in my own handwriting, "Read the inscription! Very old!"
I had put it, when we first came here, into an old silver trophy which we had hung up in the larder - the one the swallows were building in. They had removed it!
Unfortunately they have abandoned their nest in the silver trophy but they keep visiting the larder for their breakfast of insects, sometimes swooping in front of the french windows, asking me to take the bungee cord off the door so that they can have easier access.
Nature here has many faces. The joy of the swallows' antics was sadly balanced, shortly afterwards, by the death of a sheep on the lane, presumably hit by a driver who wasn't aware it was grazing the grass around the broch and subsequently wandered out to try the grasses across the way.
Watching the baby birds being fed by the parent birds is just lovely. It always makes me smile. I felt a little bit of pity for the father blackbird a few days ago as he tried to satisfy his single offspring which seemed to have benefitted from being an only child and was bigger in all ways than Dad!
Still on the theme of dads, it was Fathers Day on 15th June and Keith had a good day with a visit from Lydia and family, messages from the children who are away and lots of love and attention from those here. Euan was co-celebrating with him.
It was also Fathers Day in France and Alex sent photos of their Fathers Day Foraging Fun trip into the mountains.
Elderflowers in full bloom
I thought of my own father and lots of lovely June memories came back to me of my childhood in the Isle of Axholme. Dad had finished pre-packing potatoes by this time of the year. We were then between carrots/potatoes and peas/broad beans. I would tag along when Dad went to inspect crops ahead of harvesting and I learnt when a pod of peas was ripe for the picking. Still have that knowledge - I'm afraid that very few peas which are grown in the kitchen garden make it to the table!
A necessary trip down to Inverness had its perks for us on the journey. I saw a kite so incredibly close and clear. I've seen many kites before. The first time I saw one was when we were travelling down to see my late aunt who lived in Northamptonshire. They were released and then spread - even close to the large town of Kettering. Since then I have often seen them as we travel down to Inverness and back again - but I have never had such a clear close-up before. Red kites soar over the villages north of Inverness and it's exhilarating to watch them. They really are a vision to behold!
The journey was quite lovely. Foxgloves dominated the route - so much beauty - delicate yet stunning. There were bands of wild roses, elderflowers and already-setting hawthorn flowers. In the fields, poppies cropped up here and there and sometimes flax too. The other significant blue flower was borage - and what an amazing blue that is!
I was going to collect some wild rose petals from the hedge across our lane with a mind to scatter them onto my brother-in-law's coffin as he was buried in Scunthorpe last week but that didn't happen because Keith gave the go-ahead for the farmer to chop the hedge!!! Needless to say - there were words!
Wild Roses
I have a special attachment to wild roses. My daughter does too. There is something about them which is incredibly special. Poets have written about them for centuries but no one has been able to put their magic into words.
There are babies all around us. The pheasant family is massive - twelve babies I think - and doesn't have very good road sense so I expect it to be reduced in number very soon - it's always sad when we see casualties but we cope by telling each other and ourselves that there is a meal for some other creature there.
Deer have been spending time grazing the bed of the old mill pond - Ginny saw them on several evenings and she and I saw them one morning last week. Keith has seen the barn owl flying over the garden on more than one occasion recently. That period between 8pm and 9:30pm seems to attract visitors. Judith also saw a toad in the orchard. Sadly the suicidal hare finally met its end. It seemed oblivious to danger so I wonder if it was ill?
Slow traffic on Stempster Hill
The weasels, mice and voles are regularly snacking on the bird food. We don't see the weasels as often as we see the mice and voles but Judith spotted one on the 18th. Judith has a soft spot for weasels. They're quite angry little things and would mercilessly hold on to your thumb if you upset them!
The cows have been moved from the field next to us now but, just before they left, I was sitting, with my early morning tea, at the kitchen table and looking out between the mountain ash, apple tree and Swedish whitebeam beyond the garden wall, across the valley to Lythmore Farm and then to the top of the hill behind it. Suddenly my view was blocked! It isn't until the light is obscured in this way that one fully appreciates the size of cattle. The cows had all come at once to graze the other side of our wall!
From the hefty cattle over the wall to a tiny chestnut wren - this little chap seemed stuck in the porch window but Judith found a net, caught the frantic little ball of feathers in said net and then very gently released it outside. It's been singing its little heart out ever since!
The purslane is now outside in bigger pots and I've put foil around them to deter slugs. It's windy at present (3pm 28th June) so I'm a bit anxious the foil will blow away but I've weighted it with stones and broken bits of pots. Of course the slugs will hide under the stones and pots but they will have to climb over the foil first - which they hate!
Potted Purslane
I often pop out into the garden for a little wander at this time of the year - when I don't have to put on my coat and wellies. One of the significant things in the little cottage garden at present is the sweetest honey fragrance from the lupin tree. It is so powerful it almost knocks me back!
So my very untidy garden is not a disappointment at all! It's crammed with sights, sounds, fragrances, textures and tastes too!
Lupin Tree
Personally, this month has been a leveller - getting things into perspective.
The first levellers campaigned for equality, religious tolerance and universal suffrage - but only for men!!!!! They were very much about the soldiers and the unfairness within the structure of the army but there was more than a hint of a fairer society about them too. They were stopped. Some of them died violently. Isn't it always the case when people who lack power speak up for those who cannot or dare not speak up for themselves that they are silenced? The first levellers were silenced at the time of the English Civil War. Today's silencing involves twisted media and an acceptance that lies will be told. What individuals who have concerns about justice, equality and freedom need to do in 2025 is decide what can be done with the time they have. I'm not an orator but I will always speak up for those who are unable to speak up for themselves. I go into my garden and I come back inside feeling empowered by it. Its loveliness goes above and beyond an immaculate lawn or a manicured flower bed. There is a greater power there. It empowers me in my little way.
I'm growing my purslane for my Palestinian brothers and sisters. This is a part of my own empowerment. Butien's family has been relocated many times in Gaza. She used to teach English online to people in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. She can no longer do that as she has no reliable access to the internet now. Here she remembers:
"We finally get to the seaside... we leap out of the car, weighed down with our bags, and race towards the beach in bare feet. I couldn't see anything but the colourful fishermen's boats, resting like weary travellers, and the endless turquoise sea. My parents stretch out on the golden beach to soak up the sun. My siblings and I race around, collecting seashells. We end up standing facing the water and screaming as loud as we can until our throats are sore."
I don't know if all or any of Butien's family are still alive in Gaza. Does her little brother still turn up the music in the car? Does Butien still breathe in the scent of the orange and guava orchards?
I suspect not...
From the cottage garden past the potting bench to the larder
"If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story.
Let it bring hope,
let it be a tale."
Refaat Alareer - teacher, author, mentor - died in an airstrike 6th December 2023
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