Think I understand why the rainforest is so lush………we have had what seems like mini rainforest conditions here in Scotland and the effect on the garden is incredible. Every thing is fresh and green and blooming. 
My herbs are really thriving; I planted a lot of new ones earlier this year. 
Some herbs I started indoors and some I sowed from seed into the containers in the garden. I’ve almost lost track of what I have in the garden but I h've started to harvest them more this year. 
I try to take a few leaves from all the plants as often as I can. This year I’m freezing my herbs in little tubs. It’s like using fresh herbs and now that I’m used to doing it, I prefer this method to drying them. 
In my freezer I have rosemary, thyme, coriander, basil, oregano, dill, chives, lemon balm, mint, chocolate mint, peppermint, lovage, parsley and marjoram. I’m also harvesting the lavender as it blooms. 
I’ve thought about harvesting what I have and then re seeding the potato barrel to get at least two crops. I have onions and garlic in containers and from what I see, they are all coming on ok. 
And at last my new vegetable plot, which is in the middle of what was my lawn, is ready to use. I know it’s very late in the season to plant root veg but this vegetable garden has taken me so long to do. The weather has held things up and the problems with the fence made it difficult to get on with other things in the garden. Anyway, this evening I planted two small rows of carrots, two rows of beetroot and two rows of parsnip. Maybe I’ll get a late harvest from them or maybe I could overwinter them and dig them in the spring. What ever happens, its good practice for next year, I can start planting in spring. 
Despite the high winds and the chaos building a fence I am getting a little fruit. The white currants are ready for picking and the gooseberries are ripening on the bush. 
When I look at my garden from the pavement I can’t help thinking other people must think it’s a very odd front garden. Most people have flower beds and neat lawns at the front of their house, my garden looks more like an allotment or some sort of urban farm. That’s because the only private garden I have is this little bit at the front, the land at the back is all communal garden, shared with neighbours. 
The fence still isn’t finished. More cement is needed in the post holes of the panel’s already in situ and there is one final panel to go in at the very end of the garden. 
This year I had decided to stay up and watch the sun rise. I stayed up, and the morning was beautiful. I walked around my little garden and picked a few flowers at exactly the time of sunrise. The birds were breaking into song and the big tree across the road rustled in the breeze. I didn't see the sun rise, my garden is in completely the wrong place, I would need to walk to the sea to actually see the sun rise, but at least I know I was awake and in my garden at the right time (4.15). Maybe one day when I don’t have to go to work I can go to a place where you can actually see the sun rise. I had a couple of hours sleep and went to work. It was ok because I don’t start work until 11.00. 
When I woke up, about 10.00am, it was raining. It rained all day Tuesday, all day Wednesday, and all day today (Thursday). It finally stopped raining at about 9.00pm this evening. 
I am very slowly, weather permitting, revamping my garden this year. I decided a while ago that I wanted a ‘green man’ to hang around my old apple tree in the corner. I looked around but couldn’t see any thing I liked. Then one day while visiting my daughter I saw her huge pile of wood ready to be chopped for the fire. She had what looked like whole trees that had come down in the winds. I saw one tree trunk that had the shape of a face, it had a little chin and cheekbones. So I asked her partner to slice me off a bit with his chain saw, which he did. 
I had previously bought some ‘dark’ plants. My intention was to plant them out into their own small space on the evening of the solstice. 
The rain was far too heavy to plant any thing out that evening and all I could do was look at them on the kitchen table and imagine what my ‘dark’ garden will look like when eventually planted. 
Found this video, its so very sad, how many times do people need to be reminded, we don't need to find ever more ways to use ever more fossil fuels, we need to find new ways to live with less................
Aus Heures Perd 'Midsummer Late Lunch ', I like the feel of this, can imagine taking lunch in the sun in a lovely french pavement cafe. 
Colin Carruthers 'Midsummer Landscape', can feel the heat in that landscape. 
Albert Joseph More 'Midsummer'...........a very popular choice. 
Edward landseer 'Midsummer Nights Dream'...........another well known one. 
Walter Withers 'Midsummer', I like the way the coloures look washed out by the sun here. 
William Frederic Witherington 'Midsummer'...........so very 'English' looking. 
Anders leonhard Zorn 'Midsummer Dance'..........it just looks ...'joyful' 
Edward Robert Hughes 'Midsummer Eve'..............for some people midsummer is the most magical time of year. 
Daniel Gerhertz 'Midsummer'.............not a very well known painting, but I liked the look on this young girls face. 
http://www.hospitalfield.org.uk/
HospitalField House had one of its open doors days today. These days give the public the opportunity to see inside this historic building. The weather was beautiful, I listened to a short piano recital given by a young Russian pianist in the beautiful gallery of the main house. There was a conducted tour around the interior of the house
and the opportunity to take plenty of photos around the grounds and exterior of the house.
The icing on the cake was a re-enactment of the historic signing of the Declaration of Arbroath performed by the Arbroath Abbey historic society.
This video was made a couple of years ago at the Abby but its more or less the same as I've just sat through this afternoon.
Part of what used to be the estate lands are now used as an organic gardening project, I had the opportunity to have a good look around there as well.
http://www.hopegardentrust.org.uk/
As you can imagine, I took many, many, many photos, all of which I will put into albums over the next couple of days. This is just a little taster of my day out.
Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor, born 8 December 1966, is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U".
Rossetti was painter, designer, writer, and translator who was, according to leading artists of the time ‘’the most important and original artistic force in the second half of the nineteenth century in Great Britain’’. Whistler called him ‘the King’ He was born and died in London, rarely travelled outside of London and only left the UK briefly on three occasions. His father, Gabriele Rossetti, (1783-1854), was a serious Dante scholar and Italian political exile, Rossetti grew up bilingual with a love and admiration for many things Italian, including Dante. 
He became the central figure in the formation of the group of writers and artists who were to name themselves ‘’The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’’. He seems to have known, and been known too, every notable artist of the time, and they all respected and admired him. He was apprenticed to Ford Madox Brown. He was friends and fellow ‘Pre-Raphaelite’’ with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Rossetti and Ruskin became close friends and for a time Rossetti played the role of pupils to the older Ruskin.. Even Walter Pater had great respect for Rossetti. 
Lizzie was discovered by the artist Walter Deverell who painted her as Viola in his depiction of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Lizzie went on to model for other Pre-Raphaelite artists and is most commonly recognized as Ophelia in the painting by John Everett Millais. Once introduced to Rossetti he fell madly, utterly and completely in love with her, he drew and painted her obsessively but also encouraged her in her own artwork and poetry. Their relationship was intense, they had a ten year engagement followed by a brief and terribly sad marriage. 
The couple suffered a stillborn child followed by a miscarriage. Lizzie was seriously addicted to Laudanum and died in 1862 due to an overdose. Rossetti, engulfed in romantic misery and overwhelmed by grief, buried the only manuscript of his poems with Lizzie. The manuscript apparently nestled in Lizzies famous long red hair. Seven years later, he had her coffin secretly exhumed in order to retrieve the poems for publication. There is a myth regarding the exhumation that Lizzies hair was exactly as it had been at her burial, she remained beautiful and her body was uncorrupted. The poem ‘Sudden Light’ was written about Lizzie and was one of the poems to be buried with her. 
There were other beautiful models in the life of Rossetti, but he never remarried. Fanny Cornforth became Rossetti's principal model and then later it was Jane Morris.
After the death of Lizzie he suffered with depression and hypochondria. He began to shut himself away. He narrowed his social circle, stopped exhibiting, and began drinking to excess and taking drugs ( Chloral). By 1867 his health was deteriorating and he thought he was going blind. It was at this point he became addicted to chloral. 
Despite Rossetti’s frail health , he went on to produce some of his greatest artistic and literary works during this period. Rossetti's brother William Michael called this last phase of Rossetti's life "the chloralized years". His health was broken and his mind tormented with guilt and regrets, Rossetti appeared to give up, he seemed to slowly die. 
After his last volumes were published he made two vain efforts to restore his health. He went to the Lake District in the fall of 1881 and later, on doctor's advice, went to stay with a friend at his country house in Birchington. He died while he was there.
One of my favourite Rossetti paintings is this one ‘’St. George and the Princess Sabra’’, it was painted by Rossetti in 1862. Lizzie died while modeling as Princess Sabra. 
I find the pose so sad, she looks like a woman saying goodbye to the man she loves. And the poem, ‘’Sudden Light’’ speaks the sadness seen in the painting. She overdosed on laudanum as this was being painted, I wonder how he managed to finish it. 
