A Good Monday

A little cooler on the Island today, at least in the morning it was.  I managed to get the plums picked and some jam made, did some gardening, studying and painting.  I enjoyed a lovely walk in the later afternoon and was delighted to spot some dolphins out in the bay - about four or five, it was difficult to tell, and unfortunately a bit far out for  my little pocket camera.

In the garden today:

Beautiful roses.

All a bit too high for me to prune  and dead head roses unfortunately.

Fabulous dragonfly

It was very high up so I had to zoom in to capture it on film.

Someone's cat visited the garden.

In the kitchen:

Picked plums.

Cutting the plums open - quite a lot had yukky creepy crawlies in them, so they ended up in the compost, that was partly why I prepared the plums outside.

A 'double plum'.  

I'm not sure what type of plums they are - either Cambridge Gage or Pershore apparently.

Chop them up. (1307 g of plums)

Add 120 mls of water with 1 tbsp of lemon juice.

Boil and then simmer until plums are soft, add sugar - I added about 1200 g of sugar,  boil until reach setting point.  Pour into sterilised jars.

On my walk...

A bit a sea mist/haze this afternoon, I took this from the seat I sit on most times I come down to the bay.

The fields are so very dry.

A couple of crows.  There was quite  a few of them at one point and there was a kestrel (?) trying to dive bomb them - normally it is the other way round, but it must have been after something.  In the end it did fly away.

The highlight of my walk, as mentioned at the beginning of the blog, was seeing the dolphins.

Art today:  

I'm finding it a bit frustrating that I don't have any of my easel boards anymore, (no thanks to the removal company who lost them!), as I have nothing to prepare and tape the watercolour paper to.  I tried out some of the other papers I have... one was really for acrylic paints, and it definitely wasn't as good for doing water colours on.

This is just a mess!  Free style, is definitely not my style! Ha ha.

I tried an elephant.  Room for improvement, but pleased with my first attempt, using only one colour.

A VERY HOT Weekend.

I can't believe how HOT it has been this weekend.  It is still 28 degrees outside in the shade this evening and almost 8.30 pm...  I am absolutely dripping - I can't move without breaking out into a sweat.  Okay so that is probably a bit of a gross way to start a post, but it is what it is. HOT.  Definitely a heatwave for sure.

I think it was even hotter today than it was yesterday as yesterday morning I managed to get some gardening done by mid morning - today I have barely done anything - it has just been far too hot for me.  Gosh never thought I would say that!

So here we have Saturday morning in the garden:

Before:

After:

Much tidier.

Before:

After:

Tomato plants also staked up.

I also weeded the above bed, but more difficult to tell in this photo.

I dug up some more potatoes in the orchard garden as well as beetroot, a couple of onions, radish (which I had for lunch yesterday) and picked a load of beans which I prepared and froze.

In the afternoon I did a little bit of art, but the paper wasn't so good for what I was trying to achieve.

I think I much prefer to paint things on smaller pieces of paper, than the larger sizes!

I am so out of practice, having not painted for several years now, I think it is going to take me a while to get back into it.

No photos for Sunday - as I say just too hot to do anything really.

Art on Friday

Gosh the last two days have been absolutely scorching!  Needless to say not a lot has been done in the garden.  I haven't gone for a walk either.  I was going to go this afternoon and then I remembered I was expecting my grocery delivery sometime between 2 pm and 10 pm and hadn't received a time (as don't often get a signal for the text to come through) and although it will probably arrive late this evening, I thought knowing my luck if I did go out for a walk, then it would arrive while I'm out!

I ordered an art book the other day to encourage me to get back into painting again.  I haven't got a book on how to paint leaves and flowers and saw this one, read the reviews and decided to get it. I am quite pleased with my rose picture, although not so much with the picture of the fern.

So this was June!

So June is at an end, we are now half way through the year!

I thought I'd sum up my month...

The most miles walked in one day:  8.2 miles

Miles walked this month: 81.3 miles

My favourite walk was returning to the amazing beach along the Old Blackgang Road, although I returned via the NT land over fields and hills and wooded areas.

An exciting nature watch was the Sea Lion diving for food at one of the bays (during the above favourite walk!)

From the garden:  Discovering what is flowering and eating home grown vegetables every day.

My favourite creations this month were my shell and driftwood hanger and Bramble Brown Bear.

Goals achieved: I set up and opened my new Etsy shop 'Kiwi Wight Creations' for the bears and other creations I will make and I reopened my Doll Dressmaking Etsy Shop 'Muriel Makes' and made the first sale since the beginning of the year which is good.  Hopefully I will make more!

Started: A personal project which involves reading and art that I am quite excited about.

My trolley arrived, it was easy to assemble and is well made, being all metal, and I will spend the 1st July organising it.  Simple pleasures.

We had some pretty decent rain today so hopefully that has helped the garden and grass somewhat.  Unusual for me to say this, but we could have done with more, but at least we got some.  

So all in all a pretty good month.

Playing Catch Up.

Thursday morning it was clear by very early that it was just going to be far too hot to do any work in the garden, and anyway I like to have a day of rest every other day if I have worked hard in the garden...of course as it has turned out the weather turned so I have had several days 'rest' since Thursday.  Anyway, back to Thursday, I packed a lunch and a drink and set off for Brighstone Forest as I was pretty sure it would be cooler walking through the forest than anywhere else less sheltered.

I enjoyed a lovely morning walking through the trees.

It was very quiet and peaceful. 

Lots of options of where to go should the fancy take you to head out of the forest.

At lunch time I decided to head to Brook Bay to have my lunch on the beach...rightly or wrongly... as it was VERY hot so I didn't spend a lot of time on the beach that was for sure.

Still it was lovely to sit on the sand while eating my lunch and admiring the view and the stunning blue sky.

For a bit of fun I changed the setting on my camera to monochrome to take a photo of this crab shell.

...then left it on that setting for a few other photos.

This boat is always here, and has been for years.

Once home I sat on the deck in the shade of the umbrella with a nice cold cider and my book.

Friday just sort of came and went.  One of those days where I didn't do a lot at all, for various reasons.

Today we finally had a bit of rain, but it wasn't much and didn't last long, so I doubt it will make a lot of difference to the ground.  It has been pretty overcast most of the day and quite windy.  It has been a stay inside and do housework type of day.  

I tidied up the dining table as it had become rather unusable.  As I am on my own I can use this at the moment for my scrapbooking/journalling, not that I have done any for a while, but now it is tidy perhaps I will!  I ordered a three tier trolley from Amazon for my supplies, as I have nowhere to put them - a severe lack of cupboard and drawer space due to not getting them before lock-down.  Hopefully I will be pleased with it and it will do its job.  All going well it should arrive Monday. This in part helped motivate me to start clearing the table.