Lavender tea, (from my garden) with homemade scones butter and lavender honey - and "Sunshine on Leith" - HEAVEN

Hi

Thanks for dropping by .

I love to make teas from things that grow in my garden - Lavender tea is one of my favourite. It freezes well. I have a lot of lavender in my garden so lots of free tea for me!

The young leaves or young flowers make the best tea - a few sprigs in a tea pot and let it steep for 10 to 15 minutes. Then pour into a nice broad cup so that you can best smell the tea. A white china cup is nicest - it needs sugar or best of all honey in it I find.

My lovely husband gave me some lavender honey for Christmas. It is really delicious. Its from Littleover apiary.

Lavender Honey Link to buy

I often make scones - some butter, self raising flour, sugar and milk - flatten gently then bake on 180 degrees fan oven. I measure it by eye I'm afraid. 

I laid a tray with all these goodies and put on Sunshine on Leith  - a wonderful feel good film. The ending sequence makes you smile from ear to ear - its based on the music of the proclaimers and the song for the final sequence is - if I could walk 500 miles... I expect you know it.

Below is a link to the final scene - my favourite!

Link to final scene of Sunshine on Leith

Anyway - my tea tray plus that film made for a lovely treat.

Love
Caroline
x


To learn more about me and Caroline's Cottage Gardens please visit my website. https://sites.google.com/site/carolinescottagegardens/

Zentangle Garden

With proverb!

Zentangle can be so relaxing to do - better than drugs I reckon.

I used to meditate for many years which was good but I find it so much easier and better for my anxiety to do something rather than do tricks with my mind. Zentangle was a real find!

Its cheap too - a very fine ink pen costs only around £2.50 - and any scraps of reasonably absorbent paper. Lots of patterns online - particularly on Pinterest to copy too.

Caroline
x



To learn more about me and Caroline's Cottage Gardens please visit my website. https://sites.google.com/site/carolinescottagegardens/

Happiness!

Hello

How is your day going

Most people can feel down from time to time. I learned this tip years ago from a book on depression and have recommended it to lots of people who say it really works for them too.

Every night take a minute to write down three positive things, for example:

3 things you did well today (no matter how small)

3 things good about you

3 things good about someone you know

3 things positive in your life

3 things you appreciate in your life

3 things that interest you

and so on ....

If you feel motivated choose more than set of three things to do each night.

Writing them down is important for it to work

If you feel very low you will find this hard to start with but choose very small things.

For example:  I brushed my hair this morning - I did the washing up today. I have enough food to eat. The sun shone today for a bit. I heard a bird sing.

Its hard sometimes to be positive, particularly about ourselves - but you will find over time it gets easy and you will have lots of ideas.

you may see an improvement in your mood as soon as after one week - or it may take a longer - don't give up - its worth it.

Let me know how you get on

Lots of love

Caroline

xx

.

In praise of catmint - stunning combined with herbs and roses.

Good morning

Hope you slept well.

I've always resisted buying catmint - I imagined it smelled bad and had visions of it encouraging cats to roll all over my garden.

How wrong I was. I bought some last year for the first time and this year I'm going to take lots and lots of cuttings and dot it around my cottage garden. It flowered right up to mid December and now in early January it still has good foliage to add winter interest to my cottage garden border. The multitude of cats I imagined were no where to be seen and the smell whilst not the best if you squash the leaves and stick your nose into it, from any other perspective is non existent.

The leaves are a delicate grey green which go so well with herbs like rosemary, thyme, purple sage and lavender. Catmint looks wonderful with most  delicately coloured roses such as those from David Austin but particularly with delicate blush roses like Penelope. I have the above combination of flowers in my cottage garden border at the front of my house.

Key to the picture above:

Top Left is rose Penelope (from David Austin Roses). Top right is Catmint – Nepeta Racemosa Walkers Low (from Perry Hill Nurseries). Bottom left is Purple Sage  and Thyme and bottom right is Lavender Munstead (widely available)

Please note I'm not connected with any plant sellers mentioned.

Key words: Cottage Garden Gardening Plant combinations Rose Catmint Sage Thyme Lavender Beautiful pastel Herbs Scent easy to grow