Five on Friday 30/10/2015

Joining in with Amy again this week for Five on Friday - thanks Amy.

Here are five things that made my week:

1. Plant Skeletons

Walking the dog last weekend, I picked a couple of dry stalks of cow parsley from the hedgerow. I just adore the delicate form of dry cow parsley - umbelliferous is the term, I think. So fragile and elegant.

 

 

2. Country Living Christmas Mag

 

 

Squee it's here! I LOVE the Christmas edition of this lifestyle magazine. It is full of pictures of delicious food, lovely cosy cottages, snow and frost (even though it is a balmy 17 degrees here at the moment) and general rustic loveliness. I am watching the pennies in November and at £4.10 it isn't cheap for what is essentially a lot of lovely pictures I could find on Pinterest for nothing.

 

 

 

But it is such a pleasure to savour, flicking through it with a hot coffee and daydreaming about living in a beautifully decorated house and spending my time eating artisan bread and on rustic country pursuits. One day, sigh....

3. My Coffee Mug

Talk about the simple things...well this is one that has given me a lot of pleasure this week.

 

It was a birthday present from LB's mum and I hadn't taken it out of its box until now. You can't tell from the photo, but it is HUGE - she knows me so well. I feel like I am in a coffee shop drinking out of it - and like a proper grown-up.

 

 

4. The Moon

 

I have tried several times in vain this week to capture the beauty of the moon - there have been some gorgeous, fat, pink, eerie, bright moons. Each time, my camera has let me down - even my digital SLR camera, which can't cope with such a long exposure, left me with a blurry mess.  This is the best I have managed, from the pub window on Wednesday when we popped in for a drink:

 



 

So instead of trying to take any more photos, I have just been standing at the window in awe.



 

 

5. Warm and Wet Weather = Grass!

 

Although the evenings and mornings have been chilly (to a human being- not if you are a germinating grass seed), we are yet to have any frost here in Wiltshire. I am glad about this as they are the perfect growing conditions for my new grass. I blogged about my distinctly pedestrian garden overhaul back in October, and since then the grass has been growing away nicely.

 



It's difficult to tell from these photos, but what once was barren earth, now has a bristle of tiny green shoots coming through.

I literally squeal with delight as I walk up the garden path every day and every raincloud is welcome as it means I don't have to be out there with a hose. It's so important not to let immature grass dry out, and thankfully I recon this lot will have a chance to establish before the cold weather. I WILL have a lush green lawn in the spring!

Although not if this little schnauzer has anything to do with it - she loves digging holes!

Wishing you a good week ahead, enjoying the last flush of Autumn.