A garden in the rain
Jun. 6th, 2026 02:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
puddlesharkMy PC has been freezing, every time I use it, almost exactly five minutes after I switch it on. Not even crashing and restarting itself. Just freezing. Result: a forced Digital Detox all this week.
But today it occurred to me to switch on the PC on in Safe Mode with Networking, and, ten minutes later, it is still working! Looks like the Computer Wizard was right, it's not a hardware issue, it's a killer update issue, and reinstalling Windows 10 might possibly be a fix.
***
A wild old day today, the rain blowing in silver curtains on the wind, and the trees lashing their branches above the green June lanes. Drove over to Bloxworth to visit another private garden open to visitors in the National Open Garden Scheme. Parked in a field on the edge of the village, and wandered down the gravel drive to Bloxworth Lodge, another of those enormous late 18th-early 19th century rectories built like fortresses of privilege, a huge great intimidating square block of a house, white-painted, high windowed. It does have a lovely rambling and irregular old stable range and coach house attached to one end, now part of the house itself, one plastered wall entirely draped in bright pink Alexandre Girault roses.
No photos - it is a private garden - just a few notes for my own records...
Rain blown on the wind
On the white walls of the Lodge
Restless pink roses
A large garden, mostly laid out to lawn, with many beautiful specimen trees, and views across the fields and woods. It's on the high ground, a very windy spot (according to the owner, who was serving tea and cake to visitors in a little old brick barn), and the soil very dry. Corners of the lawn left unmown as little wildernesses and wild flower gardens, and the tall grass very beautiful, rain-soaked & silver, blowing in the wind.
A wilderness
The quiet spires of spotted orchids
Hide among the grasses.
Dog roses play on wiry stems:
Wind and rain is nothing.
A mown path through the grass leading to the orchard, passing along an avenue of mature apple trees.
Tall grasses gather
Round mossy trunks. Look up.
Tiny green apples.
From the orchard, the mown path leads to the vegetable garden, fenced off to keep out the deer. Neat rows of raised beds & fruit cages. A few beds planted with flowers: poppies & peonies, love-in-a-mist & sweet peas. The remaining beds planted with beans, leeks, lettuces, herbs.
Shy in the rude wind
A poppy folds its petal
Covering its face
And still the rain falls
Look down, contemplate the earth,
Peony flower
After a walk through the gardens in the rain, tea and home-made cake in a lovely little old red-brick barn with pink roses climbing up its walls. There was seating inside, so the few hardy visitors could sit in the dry and look out of the big square door into a walled garden, where the rain was falling on old flagstones, and on a weathered oak pergola covered in vines - an optimistic addition to any English garden when we are having a traditional British summer - and on deep purple clematis flowers drooping sadly along a plastered wall.
Felt a little sorry for the owner, who must have put in an immense amount of work to get the garden ready for visitors - only for all those weeks of glorious sunshine to come to a sudden stop, and the wind and rain return. But the owner had at least one very appreciative visitor: I love gardens in the rain best of all.
The stewards had had to lay branches in the muddy gateway to the car parking field, and advised me not to stop on my way out - they would hold any traffic up along the lane as I came out. It was a little chancy, but momentum carried the car through the mud onto the lane, no wheelspin.
***
I thought I had shaken off my summer cold, but apparently not, if I am writing haiku. I only write haiku when I am feverish.
But today it occurred to me to switch on the PC on in Safe Mode with Networking, and, ten minutes later, it is still working! Looks like the Computer Wizard was right, it's not a hardware issue, it's a killer update issue, and reinstalling Windows 10 might possibly be a fix.
***
A wild old day today, the rain blowing in silver curtains on the wind, and the trees lashing their branches above the green June lanes. Drove over to Bloxworth to visit another private garden open to visitors in the National Open Garden Scheme. Parked in a field on the edge of the village, and wandered down the gravel drive to Bloxworth Lodge, another of those enormous late 18th-early 19th century rectories built like fortresses of privilege, a huge great intimidating square block of a house, white-painted, high windowed. It does have a lovely rambling and irregular old stable range and coach house attached to one end, now part of the house itself, one plastered wall entirely draped in bright pink Alexandre Girault roses.
No photos - it is a private garden - just a few notes for my own records...
Rain blown on the wind
On the white walls of the Lodge
Restless pink roses
A large garden, mostly laid out to lawn, with many beautiful specimen trees, and views across the fields and woods. It's on the high ground, a very windy spot (according to the owner, who was serving tea and cake to visitors in a little old brick barn), and the soil very dry. Corners of the lawn left unmown as little wildernesses and wild flower gardens, and the tall grass very beautiful, rain-soaked & silver, blowing in the wind.
A wilderness
The quiet spires of spotted orchids
Hide among the grasses.
Dog roses play on wiry stems:
Wind and rain is nothing.
A mown path through the grass leading to the orchard, passing along an avenue of mature apple trees.
Tall grasses gather
Round mossy trunks. Look up.
Tiny green apples.
From the orchard, the mown path leads to the vegetable garden, fenced off to keep out the deer. Neat rows of raised beds & fruit cages. A few beds planted with flowers: poppies & peonies, love-in-a-mist & sweet peas. The remaining beds planted with beans, leeks, lettuces, herbs.
Shy in the rude wind
A poppy folds its petal
Covering its face
And still the rain falls
Look down, contemplate the earth,
Peony flower
After a walk through the gardens in the rain, tea and home-made cake in a lovely little old red-brick barn with pink roses climbing up its walls. There was seating inside, so the few hardy visitors could sit in the dry and look out of the big square door into a walled garden, where the rain was falling on old flagstones, and on a weathered oak pergola covered in vines - an optimistic addition to any English garden when we are having a traditional British summer - and on deep purple clematis flowers drooping sadly along a plastered wall.
Felt a little sorry for the owner, who must have put in an immense amount of work to get the garden ready for visitors - only for all those weeks of glorious sunshine to come to a sudden stop, and the wind and rain return. But the owner had at least one very appreciative visitor: I love gardens in the rain best of all.
The stewards had had to lay branches in the muddy gateway to the car parking field, and advised me not to stop on my way out - they would hold any traffic up along the lane as I came out. It was a little chancy, but momentum carried the car through the mud onto the lane, no wheelspin.
***
I thought I had shaken off my summer cold, but apparently not, if I am writing haiku. I only write haiku when I am feverish.
no subject
Date: 2026-06-06 09:03 pm (UTC)If you are indeed still suffering with the cold, get well soon!
no subject
Date: 2026-06-07 08:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-06-06 09:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-06-07 08:56 am (UTC)Now things are getting this complicated, I'm thinking it's time for me to order a new PC. :-)
no subject
Date: 2026-06-10 03:25 pm (UTC)