Following a tree through the year

I've just signed up to follow a tree! That sounds as if a tree got up and walked and I snuck along behind!
As usual when it comes to technical bloggy things I'm not sure what I'm doing but I think I've linked up with Loose and leafy blog  to do a post on the 7th of each month about a tree. I should have started earlier in the year and today is the 8th so I'm already too late - story of my life!

These, on the left of the photo, are the sticky buds opening on our Horse Chestnut  last week. The Horse Chestnut is the tree I will be following with photos

 I believe our tree is a
Ruby Horse Chestnut tree is a particularly choice clone of a hybrid horse chestnut, resulting from a cross between the European horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) with white flowers and an eastern North American native (the shrubby Aesculus pavia) with red ones. It is a better landscape plant than either of its parents and should be planted more widely. 'Briotii' originated in 1858 from seed grown at the Trianon in France.

I didn't know that in the States the Horse Chestnut is known as the Buckeye, so I've learned something already.
Here is our tree today

We are not sure how old it is, probably around 40 years at a guess. (This is an awful photo- must try and keep still when I click!) It was already a good size when we moved here in May 1992 and  it was a treat to find it flowering with pink flowers, taking me back to primary school days where we had a huge pink flowered Horse Chestnut in the playground.
Who ever planted this tree unfortunately put a row of Leyllandii very close. We can't remove them as they separate our garden from the campsite. I'm sure they have restricted the growth of  the Chestnut.

I completely forgot to mention that April 4th marked one year of blogging on Blogspot after my trials of using Wordpress. I've made so many blogging friends during that year. It's been brilliant. So a belated thank you to everyone who has read, commented and hopefully enjoyed reading about our quiet Suffolk life.

Back tomorrow
Sue

We have rain + Campsite info

After more than a month without, we have had some good steady rain today. It will fill up the water butts and seep a good inch or more into the soil.
I made bread and did the ironing ( and all the egg stuff of course) and C spent a short while tidying his workshop ( He needs about three days in there really!), sorted out some bits to mend the broken poly tunnel frame, cut some wood and, in a dry spell, fixed the broken post in the fruit cage so that we can get the net over the top soon.

When people have asked about our campsite via this blog, I've always referred them to our site number in The Camping and Caravanning Club Big Sites Book or on the C&CC website, then yesterday I thought I'd better check that searching via our site number on the web site actually works.Whoops......it doesn't! So I've added a sort of link to the top right of the blog where the address can be copied and will take you straight to the page. One of the Clubs new rules is to stop us advertising our site anywhere other than via the Club book or website so I hope this doesn't break their new rule. ( Ya Boo Sucks to them if it does!)
The C&CC Big Sites book is sent to members of the club every two years and all the bumf for renewing our entry in it arrived in the post the other day. Although we can get a free entry, it is very basic, allowing no extra wording to inform people of whats around about in the area. So I've always paid about £40 to have up to 20 extra words. They've now increased this to £180!! Telling us how many more people we will get to our site if we pay the extra. ( How do they know?) There is even a more expensive package for £345!! I certainly can't afford that. That would seriously erode the profits.

Working out how to say everything in 20 words for the book is difficult. I came up with

Rural location.Good for birdwatching.RSPB Minsmere 5m.On Suffolk Coastal cycle route.Circular walks nearby. Tourist information available.

 However this "enhanced package" allows an extra 150 word on the website. Somehow writing 150 words about our campsite is even harder. I shall need to work on this.

Thank you for all the interesting comments yesterday.
The Weaver of Grass ( sorry I keep forgetting your name which I've seen mentioned somewhere) said that on a new campsite near her farm the owner makes scones for new arrivals. In theory this sounds lovely but here in practice it would be jolly hard work! Sometimes people arrive at  midday, others arrive late evening and some days there are 3 or 4 caravans arriving, sometimes all at once!
Our friend has a holiday cottage on her farm and when they first opened she started baking a sponge for new arrivals. Then people mentioned this in the visitors book and now she feels she has to bake every time, and whereas when they first opened they had weeks empty between visitors, now they have someone there every week. Worst of all is that sometimes she finds the cake in the bin when she clears up the cottage between visitors. People are odd!
Sue at Our New Life in the Country said that on a site near her the owner is going to use shepherd huts  in place of some caravans. The Camping and Caravanning Club have varied the rules so that small Certificated Site owners like us can have shepherd huts or movable pods that can be put on and off the site for visitors to use instead of them bringing their own caravans or tents. Seems like a lot of extra work to me and the cost of these huts or pods is VERY EXPENSIVE! We won't be doing that. I've got enough cleaning to do without cleaning a shepherds hut or camping pod!

I hope what most people want is a friendly welcome, quiet, tidy campsite with short grass, clean loos,  and rubbish bins emptied. That's what we aim for here.

Car Boot Sale and scones

There was some rain at about 4am but by 7, when I let the chickens out, it was fine although very grey. We decided to risk it and popped 10 minutes up the road to the first car boot sale of the season. Not many boots there but we found the two loo roll holders that we needed for the gents loos for 50p each. Much better than £8 - £18 they were charging for a new one in B&Q. I also bought a little Christmas tin just like the two I got last year, for 50p, only this one was full of marbles!

These two bought last year and  another one this year they are just right for small Christmas cakes.

When I told C that I'd bought a tin of marbles he said they would come in handy in case I lose mine! Cheek!
The marbles have been sorted and the prettiest ones added to some we had.........left from the days of having a Marble run game and Kerplunk. The ordinary ones have gone into a plastic bag and we'll take them to a boot sale ourselves when we do one later this year.
The only other purchase was £1.50 spent on an OS map for our area. The one we owned was pinned up on the wall in the campsite recreation room last spring which left us without one indoors.

We were  home again before 9 o'clock so after a coffee I decided to make scones and also, while the oven was hot, a cheese and herb quiche.

C was working in the poly-tunnels weeding and sinking some flower pots between the tomato plants, we always do this to make it easier and more efficient for watering. The water goes into the pots and down to the tomato roots rather than just running off the topsoil.

My next job was to sow 2 more cucumber seeds, a dozen courgette, a dozen pumpkin and a dozen squash seeds.  We want 30 to 40 squash plants this year as they sold so well last autumn.

1 more campsite booking by email and one by phone, we now have our full allocation of 5 touring caravans over the Easter weekend. We also had an enquiry about someone for a possible 19 night stay in May!!
Putting the shower in has really done the trick in encouraging more people to come.

That's my lot for today
Back Tomorrow
Sue

Odd jobs on Saturday

Nice and sunny here until the clouds arrived and the wind strengthened in the late afternoon.
C was working for a customer in Leiston this morning and after I had done a clean up in the kitchen I did what I like best - pottering around in the garden. Weeding the newest raspberries, putting the two peppermint plants into a big pot until I decide where to plant them. Digging  Welsh Onion and chives  plants from the old herb garden and potting them up. Watering all the pots, Tidying the shed (again). I found our other campsite sign that we put down the end of the road, which C did when he got home.
And Good News......Our first unexpected visitors to the campsite......one small motorhome, without an electric hookup for two nights = £20.
Our 22nd year of running a small  campsite has begun!

Back Tomorrow, I decided if  it's fine we will be at the car boot sale but if it's wet I'll make scones instead! Sounds good.

Sue

PS Thanks for comments yesterday

Some "Welcomes", news and My 2014 Carboot list

Before I forget I must say welcome to Felicity and M Stevens who are new followers on Google and Lucy and Kerry who follow via bloglovin. Hope you enjoy reading about our quiet life here.

I am feeling more settled today - thankfully, or I would drive C up the wall with my yearning for an even quieter life. We already live in one of the quietest parts of Suffolk and much, much more simply than most people, as he tells me frequently! But we've been here 22 years and before this had only lived for 5 years in one place.So I think it's time we moved.  (By the way, thanks to everyone for comments yesterday and it's nice to know I'm not the only person who dreams of perfect peace)

I'd better update you on what's been happening here over the last couple of days.
The gents loos on the campsite are finished. Just waiting for the floor paint to get really dry.
More bookings for Easter have come in.
More tomatoes have been planted out into the small poly tunnel.
One side of the middle poly tunnel has been dug out ready for replacing the plastic.
A load of hay has been delivered = £70 income.
Oldest Raspberry bed has been weeded.
Edges everywhere have been strimmed and grass cut in the garden again.


Yippee and three big cheers as the car-boot season starts on Sunday ( weather permitting of course).
 I've been thinking about what I need to look out for.
and guess what.........I made a list ........... love lists :-)

2 Toilet roll holders for the new Gents toilets on the campsite.( We looked in B & Q - some were £18!!)
New Tea Towels as long as they are less than 50p each
Card making bits, although they have to be cheap and I must be really choosy as I have shelves full already.
Wine glasses that look like this

Because I found a box of 4 at a boot sale and would like some more to match, the others I have are odds and ends.Chances of finding any - unlikely I think, but you never know.
Things that could be Christmas presents.
Books from my "looking for" list............. these have to be cheap.
Books not on my list but look really interesting.......they need to be even cheaper.
A Hosta that has green leaves with yellow edges. Love Hostas.
New cheap ( less than £2) T shirts.

What I MUST NOT buy.
Christmas Cards - I probably have enough for 5 years.
Christmas Wrapping paper unless its a big roll for less than 50p
Cross stitch magazines and cross stitch kits.
Note cards, writing paper and birthday cards. I should be using all my card baking bits.
Mason Cash pottery Pudding basins. I found several last year - I have enough.

Fingers crossed for a fine Sunday morning

Back tomorrow

Just an unsettled Thursday in April

We lost internet connection for part of the day again, but apparently Open Reach ( why did they change from BT? what on earth does Open Reach mean? - don't answer that!) are working on the phone lines up on the main road so maybe that's the reason.

The haziness that is Sahara dust and pollution from Europe is really bad here today. It seems silly, here we are in one of the cleanest parts of the country.....no motorways..........no factories.....clean sea air and yet today we have this nasty chemical smell drifting in. Thankfully this is a really rare event and we should be back to normal tomorrow or Saturday.

I've had an unsettled day today. Sometimes I get the urge to move somewhere that is even quieter than here, down a long lane, surrounded by woodland but with an open view over the hills with a stream close by. It would have to be somewhere close to the sea - not our grey old North sea that we have here but the Atlantic where the sun reflects on the water - and I would visit the beach at least  twice a week to hear the waves roaring or rolling in gently. I would live on fresh air, love, homegrown veg and our savings! It would be a small house so there wouldn't be so  much cleaning,  I would potter in the garden, and it wouldn't matter that the garden wasn't tidy because no one would see it  except us. I would have lots of shrubs and fruit trees and part of it would be wild with little pathways through. I would climb the hill everyday to admire the view, wander through the wood and enjoy the silence, read lots of books( even more than I do now) avoid people, shops, crowds, traffic. No strange people would ring the doorbell to tell me they had just put some money through the letterbox. No one would suddenly appear at the back door and make me jump. It wouldn't matter what I wore as no one would see me. Peace and quiet, day and night.

Unfortunately  all this is very unlikely to happen anytime soon due to the fact that it is only me that gets these crazy fidgety feelings!

Back Tomorrow, when I'm sure  I shall be back to normal again - whatever that is!

A year in books link + where we went today

Linking in with Circle of Pine Trees    -   For the year in Books
Where you will find all sorts of ideas for reading, from lots of different bloggers.

 These were the books that I brought home from the library van in Mid February to read in March.

My recommendations from this lot are
Barbara Kingsolver- Prodigal Summer. I hadn't read any of her fiction books although I very much enjoyed " Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Our Year of seasonal eating".
Prodigal Summer is the story of two women from an Appalachian farming community whose lives are changed over one summer. Their stories intertwine and there is lots of information about the flora and fauna of the area too.  I give this high marks.
Tracy Chevalier - The Lady and The Unicorn.
The fictional story of the people involved in the making of a tapestry, based on some facts. I enjoyed this but didn't think it was as good as The Last Runaway and Remarkable Creatures.
Emma Smith - As Green as Grass, growing up before, during and after the second world war. Emma wrote a book when she was still in her twenties all about her time on the canals during war. This new book explains how she grew up before the war after moving from the west country,about her family and on to her marriage.

My April books are these

I have already discarded The Yard - no good!
Now reading the Elly Griffiths and I also have some still to read from the first picture.

As for where we went today, it was more a case of where we didn't go!
C needed some plumbing bits for the campsite that could only be got from Ipswich. As I've said before we always try and do lots of errands when we are out!
 So we went to The plumbing place via
 Sainsburys,
 Aldi,
 The town centre for The Grape Tree, Poundland and shoeshop
Asda
B &Q
Then he got the plumbing bits he needed and we came home doing a slightly out-of-the-way detour through Haughley to pick up the picture from the framing shop.
Very glad to get home after that trip

 This is the water colour painting of Kersey in Suffolk, that I found at a car boot sale for £3. It is by a Suffolk artist -Brian Lilley-  who now sells paintings for £50 +.

I'm very pleased with how it looks with new mounts and frame. The framing shop have regular contact with this artist as he lives locally to them and uses them to frame pictures before he sells them. The date on the painting was illegible so they asked him and he thinks it was from 1993 or 94 when he first swapped from painting in oils to water colours.

Welcome to Kaye, follower number 155 on Google friends.
Thanks for comments yesterday

Back tomorrow, when I shall be at home ALL DAY - thank goodness!

Sue