I got a bargain from Morrisons on Monday, a Charles de Mills Gallica rose for £1.99! I always look at their plants when getting my elderly fathers shopping every Monday. Unfortunately all the other roses were hybrid teas which I am not a lover of-give me an old fashioned rose any day!(a good description of myself I think-well the old fashioned part!)
Still havent got my camera working or learnt to use Kates complicated one properly yet, so heres a Charles de Mill from google images

have planted it in between Ferdinand Pitchard and Rose de Rescht, surrounded by peonies, larkspur, oriental and annual poppies and lavenders. Cant wait to see it flower hopefully this summer.
Well back to decorating.....

I started this blog really to be my garden diary, which I never really got around to, but from this time of year, most of my posts will now be my garden. I wanted to a week by week diary to see what was flowering and to see how the seasons are changing and plants flowering early than previous years. I have to spend at least 2 hours every day from now on in the garden (what a good excuse!) It was so lovely to actually get in the garden yesterday and do some gardening (before more snow is predicted!) I decided to move quite a few things around and dug up the potato patch (found lots of potatoes still in the soil!) and planted my soft fruit bushes there instead. Thornless Blackberry, Tayberry, loganberry, about 20 raspberries, loads of black and red currants, and gooseberries. I had forgotten which were the black and which were the red currants, until I dug them up. The overpowering smell of blackcurrant came from one bush, it was like dunking my head into undiluted ribena! I had never noticed this before, and it seemed to come from just one blackcurrant bush. The potatoes are now going to be growing in potato bags, as it will be so much easier to earth them up I feel. I struggled last year in the rows which was rather akward, hence finding lots still in the ground yesterday-I shouldnt have that problem with bags. My strawberries I am also going to grow in bags this year, £3 in Morrisons, like the planters with pockets for the strawberries or herbs, but made from black woven plastic. Wilkinsons do some, but in a horrendous orange..... In the place of the soft fruit I have planted my favourite of all flowers, the rose.
There are 6 arches going across that part of the garden, like a division in between my herb garden and my brick parterre, and I had the fruit and grapevines growing across the arches, but now in place of the fruit are climbers and ramblers Albertine, Alberic Barbier,






 Golden Showers, Pauls Lemon Pillar, Emily Gray, Penny Lane, Felicite Perpetue and Pauls Scarlet - I also bought David Austin Heritage and Burgundy Ice which I have wanted for a couple of years, it is a sport of the white Iceberg, but has dark burgundy flowers - cant wait to see that one flower. I need about another 8 bush roses which will be all David Austin or Old English Roses. I dont really like modern roses, although buy some which have an old look about them. But for me theres nothing like a Bourbon or Damask rose. Every year the one thing I look forward to is my roses blooming, and being 56 soon, I am starting to count the rest of my life not in years, but how many times I will see and smell  the roses.

I have had a request from new blogger friend CraftyHelen on how I have made my printed words on my cushions etc.
The way I do it is to use BubbleJetSet and my home printer which is just an ordinary Canon ip3300, nothing special. There are easier ways to do it using printer fabrics which can be bought from ebay or any good craft shops. That is the easier way to do it, but it is limiting as the fabrics available are very limited.  I wanted to print on my own fabrics so decided to have a go. Bubble Jet Set is not available in many places, and I have only been able to buy it online. I found ebay quite expensive but then found it at George Weir, a craft shop online for about £9 per bottle. I think with the fabrics you buy already treated you get about 10 pieces for £10. With my Bubble Jet Set I got around 25 pieces of fabric printed, so it does work out cheaper, but you can get mixed results and it is a lengthy process which I feel would put a lot of people off. If you want to have an easy life I recommend the ready treated papers!
With Bubble Jet Set method you have to first cut out pieces of material in the size of paper your printer would take(mine is an A4 so obviously I cut out pieces of linen and cotton A4 size. I do have an A3 printer which I bought for Kate when she was doing Art A level, so I am thinking of trying printing with that printer). You then have to soak the pieces of fabric in the Bubble jet set solution. I used a new cat litter tray which was just right for the purpose. I then hung the pieces of fabric over the bath and let the excess drip back into the tray (therefore you dont waste any, and the bubble jet set is reusuable) You can then place the materials onto towels to speed up the drying process or use a hairdryer. Once dry you then go onto the next step.For this you  need something called Freezer paper, which again is available on ebay or craft stores and it is widely used in the crafting world for many purposes. You have to iron the freezer paper to your A4 size piece of fabric before putting the material into the printer. Depending on your fabric this can be a bit hit and miss. I tried various linens, and the best one was Laura Ashely natural linen which is quite smooth. I wanted to use my favourite white linen, but it was too thick for the printer, and I had some tricky times trying to get fabric out of my printer! I would recommend if you use this method, to try material with freezer paper before you use the Bubble Jet Set, therefore not wasting any of the solution on material which just wont go through your printer! Through trial and error I found that putting masking tape on the leading edge made the fabric feed through better, although again it was a bit hit and miss and sometimes I got some ink where I didnt want it!
I used different fonts and pictures onto a word or publisher program and just had fun experimenting.
After the ink has dried (best to leave for 24 hours) you then have to rinse the fabric in a solution of synthrapol, adelicate detergent,  (cost about £5 again from George Weir) which takes all the excess inks off. You only have to use a tiny few drops of this, and will probably last me a lifetime! You have to let this dry naturally, and when dry iron on the wrong side to set. It is a lengthy process and you may waste some fabric but I thought it was worth it to use my own fabrics. The Laura Ashley Linen in natural is my favourite, it takes pictures, photos and the written word lovely. I have printed some photos of my mum onto fabric, and will use these soon to decorate boxes where I will keep some memories of her.
Well Helen, I hope this hasnt put you off. Feel free to email me if you have any trouble finding the products or need help with anything.

Heres hoping we all have a much happier and healthier 2010. Ive been looking back over the last decade, there were some good things and some very bad and sad things (losing mum, Kates accident in 2003 which changed her life forever, have got to be the two absolute worse things that have happened in my entire life).

Heres wishing you all a merry Christmas and hope one and all has a happy, healthy New Year for 2010.

Fell rather sad and guilty today as a couple of herons or cranes have eaten 11 of my fish.  Noticed this morning that rather a lot of water was missing but didnt realise the fish were also. Then as I was waiting for my cousin Deb to pick me up to take me shopping I noticed one heron/crane on the rooftops. I had netting over the pond but when I had replaced the pump in the summer I hadnt put the netting back on properly.... When I returned from shopping I thought I had better refill the pond, only to realise that there were only 8 fish in the pond instead of 19. Daughter Kate then heard strange noises from my dads garden which we later identified as a heron. Then son Damon saw two swooping down on the field at the back of us while he was walking Max our German Shepherd. I caught sight of them in the distance and thought that was the last of them. So I refilled pond and put new pond protection net over and thought that the fish would be fine now... Then this afternoon my dad came home and came running in to tell me that there was one large and one juvenile heron on our roof! I rushed out into my garden to make sure the fish were alright, only to find the fish in only about 6 inches of water...the herons beaks had cut into the butyl liner without me realising it. So now the poor remaining 8 fish are in a temporary plastic box in the garden with lots of metal grilles etc over them to protect them. My poor fish.... I feel really guilty. If only I had put the old netting back on properly, Ive had the new netting for about 2 months now and hadnt bothered.... I love birds, and normally see the cranes or herons fly over my garden early in the morning on their way back to the Thames marshes and never see them in the middle of the day. Just hope they leave the remaining fish alone.