Project 365 – Day 206

24th July 2012 – “Honeysuckle”

Read Full Post »

Weekword: Scent

My life has been very fragrant of late, as the flowers in my garden are in full bloom.  Roses, pinks, jasmine, honeysuckle and sweetpea all vying for my attention.  At work this week I’ve had all of those as well as philadelphus (Mock Orange), so my sense of smell has been working overtime enjoying itself.

Sadly no one has yet invented a scratch-and-sniff computer screen, so you’ll just have to make do with photos of the flowers instead

Now take a trip over and see what Katy and Jenna have put together for this week’s word.  Oh, and at the last minute we’ve been joined by Margot over at Tulsi Crafts and Sally at Sow & Sew too!

I’m tagging Katy over at Creating Misericordia to choose the next word, so pop along to her blog on Monday and see what she comes up with.

Read Full Post »

Project 365 – Day 178

26th June 2012 – “Sweet as honey”

Read Full Post »

Honeysuckle and happiness

The garden is looking remarkably well at the moment, and it’s sheer bliss to sit in it when I’ve finished work for the day.  The climbing roses are filling the air with their fragrance, and to my delight the honeysuckle has just started flowering too.

Honeysuckle is one of my favourites, not least because I love to taste the flowers.  I learned this trick from my father, and it never occurred to me that other people didn’t know about it – until quite recently, when I realised that I hadn’t met anyone who didn’t give me a strange look when I mentioned it in passing.

So, before showing you some more of my latest notebooks, I’ll give you a quick lesson in sampling the sweet delights of honeysuckle.

First, let’s see the flower itself:

These flowers only opened yesterday, so they’re very fresh and not yet as sweet as I like – ideally you want to taste them when they’re a few days old and have matured a bit.  Remove a flower from the plant:

Right, you see the green bit at the base?  You need to use your thumbnail to gently remove that – but don’t cut all the way through, because you’re going to pull that green bit away with the stamen still attached, so that what you end up with looks like this:

When you pull the stamen out, you’ll notice a small bead of fluid being pulled down to the base of the flower:

Click on the photo if you need a closer view.  That drop of liquid is the sweet nectar, and it’s divine.  You don’t get much, but one little drop can lift the spirits marvellously!  Try it, and if you do please report back and let me know!

Back to business, I was actually down in my garden for a reason this afternoon (and not just to relax); I went down to my studio to finish another couple of books:

More stab bindings, as I’m having fun with them at the moment, but there is another project fermenting in my brain so watch this space!

Read Full Post »