old things...

As I am now re-united with my computer (and Ian) in Wales I thought I'd make another post on here. This is one of the victorian COBB bottles we found under the barn floor. Apparently they were for lemonade, not beer, and were nicknamed the 'penny monster' being returned to the shop for a penny, unless the bottle was broken to get the marble out. Thanks Kelvin.

We keep the bottle in our 'eco-loo' out in the garden - a composting loo that uses sawdust and nature but no water (it smells a lot nicer than a chemical loo) - along with the old Hotel Splendide barn door from my parents farm:-

The picture below shows the door in situ with my Dad (far right) as a boy, his father standing next to him, his sister Molly on the left with their housekeeper and the American soldiers who were billeted there during the war. I remember as a child going up the precarious old stairs in the barn and seeing a loo apparently stuck in the middle of the floor - this is where they lived while they were manning the searchlight in Big Meadow. A little bit of Darch family history. That barn was since converted to an architects office and is now a lovely house. The strange thing about this is that MY memories are now part of the history of the farm - that really makes me feel old!

Small delights

Cyclamen bravely growing in the rubble of our garden.

A big green dragonfly that visited our little pond - is it laying eggs?
A tree covered in tiny crab-apples. We are gradually discovering what all the different trees are as they have come into fruit this summer. I think these are crab apples - they are a deep dusky red but are still rock hard.
Todays bottle-find uncovered whilst transplanting cyclamen. We now have about 11 or so little bottles of different shapes and sizes on a shelf in the shed. These include 2 victorian beer bottles with marbles in the neck, found under the old barn floor (previously a sitting room before we took the floor out) - I can just imagine a farm worker of 120 years ago relaxing in the corner of the haybarn to enjoy his beer after a hot day in the hayfields.
Bright yellow pumpkins quietly growing on some wasteground where we had removed some large bushes but not been able to dig out the roots. Although the seeds were sown very late, they have produced several large pumpkins and spread out beautifully over the lawn making great ground cover and keeping the weeds down.