Roses, Roses All The Way...

I'm pleased you like the photo of our cottage...the droopy tree is gone now...it wasn't in the least bit attractive...goodness knows why we planted it there in the first place. It seemed a good idea at the time.

There was an enormous Pampas Grass on the other side...looking at the photo, the bathroom has the net curtain...then there's the sitting-room window with the bedroom the last one. I put this tiny sad little Pampas Grass right outside the bedroom window never expecting it to grow. It'd been a special offer and was practically dead.

It grew and grew like Topsy until the bedroom was virtually in darkness...it was there that the Hen Harrier landed one day and gazed at me through the bedroom window...don't know who was the more surprised, her or me...

So it had to go...murdering a Pampas isn't easy...but through brute force Himself finally managed it...shame really but it simply wasn't the place for it.

I'm not sure if I have any photos of the gorgeous rose which clambers over the wall near the car...it is I think, called a Galicia...which is a type rather than a given name...it rambles over derelict cottages and twines around crumbling gate posts. Dark red with a heady tea-rose perfume...

Useless for picking...the petals drop almost immediately almost as though they hate to be indoors in a jug.

When we first moved here you couldn't actually see the cottage...the front garden was totally over-grown with nettles and long grass...the front door hadn't been opened in donkeys years according to the neighbours...Mikey never used it...he always went round the back. We had to use brute force to get it open...then it never closed again properly and slugs used to squirm under it and come into the sitting room...

The windows were old sash type...the cords long rotted away so if we wanted to leave one open we had to prop it up with a stack of books...then Eilis sat on the windowsill until the urge to leap out became too much for her...she could jump over the garden wall then...we'd find her scuttling down to Hubert's to visit their dogs...

We'd have loved to have replaced the old windows with new sash ones...until we saw the price of them that is...

The cottage was thatched in 1911...from what I can recall of the census, there was only one house in the street which had a tiled roof and I think it was the two-storey which was razed to the ground when the people living there all died from T.B...the gate-posts are still in situ, but not a trace of the house remains.

I do like to think that the cottagers who lived here in our street gained some pleasure from the roses that entwine themselves in the hedges and grow over the old walls...even the tiny one-roomed place where an old man lived with his cow has those tiny pink roses clambering about in the wall close to what was once his home...

Their lives revolved around hard work from dawn 'til dusk with the ever present fear of being unable to pay the weeks rent...

I do hope they sometimes stopped whatever it was they were engaged in and bent down to take a sniff...perhaps cut a bud to wear in a lapel or brought a few home for the wife.

[redted]

It sounds as though you have both put an awful lot of work into the cottage, do all the cottages have a large plot with them,you have a lovely area at the back of your cottage.

[Azure_Sky]

Such a lovely cottage. It is wonderful to think that our generation are able to enjoy life, without the grinding poverty, backbreaking work and hunger. I daresay they had some fun and get togethers from time to time. Back in those days, I wonder what they had to eat and where they got the money to pay rent etc.

[Nikkers in reply to Azure_Sky]

You have to be kidding AS? Enjoy life on £150 a week - I don't think so?!

[Azure_Sky in reply to Nikkers]

I see what you mean Nikkers, I was meaning they lived in ramshackle places with earth floors and no running water. They had to toil all day for next to nothing. I would imagine whoever lived in Vashti's cottage, would have been relatively well off, when compared to those who had nothing but a tumbledown shack.

Vashti will be able to tell is more I hope.

Is there any news about your lovely Laburnum tree?

[Nikkers]

Sorry AS, misunderstood you.

I had an offer to move my tree £96, which was the best offer. I've asked the "man" (I'm being polite)who now owns the land, if it's ok to leave it until October as that'll be the safest time to move it, and he's agreed. So not much to report, but he has started to change the boundary already and it's very depressing. XX

[Azure_Sky in reply to Nikkers]

That is so sad watching that vandal, for want of a better word, digging up the boundary. Wouldn't you think he would have the decency to hang on a while.

I really hope all goes well with your lovely Laburnum tree. I hear they are becoming rare now.

When you have moved it and it is established, I wonder if you could get a tree preservation order on it. They don't have to be old, just unusual or rare..

[Nikkers in reply to Azure_Sky]

I'm not sure that it would qualify, it's just more sentimental to me than rare. He's still digging as I write this and I'm getting more closed in day by day! I've just been told that an officer from the HA is coming to see me next Tuesday, so that should be interesting?

Thank you for your interest. XX

[Hidden in reply to Nikkers]

You've probably heard the story about the Fairy Thorn and de Lorean? He made a huge song and dance about building a new car park for his factory up North...but...a Fairy Thorn was in the way and local protesters did all they possibly could to save it...to no avail. It was uprooted.

de Lorean went bankrupt very soon afterwards...to this day local people say it is because he went ahead and pulled up the Fairy Thorn...

[Nikkers in reply to Hidden]

No, I've not heard that one Vashti, but I'll curse him - if that'll work?! lol.

[Azure_Sky in reply to Nikkers]

Careful with curses Nikkers, better to hold up a mirror so he is reflected in it and wish for karma to catch up with him.

Curses need to be handled with great care as they can come back on you.

The Wiccan saying is "And harm none"

[Nikkers in reply to Azure_Sky]

I'm an Egyptologist, so curses don't phase me in the least - been there, done that, got the t-shirt (as they say!) XX

[Azure_Sky in reply to Nikkers]

I am not anything in particular, but I do believe in the power of thought.

I do hope your HA appointment goes well.

[Nikkers in reply to Azure_Sky]

Thank you. XX

[Azure_Sky in reply to Hidden]

I firmly believe it Vashti.