The sun shone today as we sang with a view of the Penryn River. A cormorant (or maybe a shag) stayed on the buoy for the whole time we were singing. 
A beautiful old sailing boat went by.
These vibrant primulas were on sale near our bread shop.
Cormorant, Sail and Primulas
Jigsaw, Cathedral and A Film
We finished the streets of London jigsaw.
It was hard but was lovely to remember walking those streets in the early days of our being together . We even found the street where we came upon a junk shop and there in the window was a painting of Truro Cathedral! How serendipitous was that, it being my home city? We had met at the end of October, found the painting while I was with my lovely Mr S in early January and then we agreed to be married on January 4th, just ten weeks after meeting!
We are just home from watching a fascinating film, The Lost Boys of Carbis Bay, about a group of men who explore and climb around in the old tin mines of Cornwall, incredibly dangerous but obviously very fulfilling for those involved.
Seedlings, Ingenuity and A Mantra
We have hundreds of onion seedlings at Roots and they will be ready for transplanting next week.
Today we transplanted 200+ baby lettuce and pak choi plants and they are now in one of the big poly tunnels as there is no room in the smaller prop tunnel where the propagating takes place. The ingenuity comes in the suspended racks to create more room for the baby plants. 
We are ten days into February so it’s a bit late to share this month’s mantra from The 2026 Almanac but I like it so here it is:
Primroses, Amaryllis and A Beautiful Book
Primroses in the garden and our five week old Amaryllis, first potted on January 12th.
I have been given the most beautiful book by a very dear friend who knows of my love of words of all kinds. It’s called “Ninety-Nine Words for Rain” and is by Manchán Magan with gorgeous illustrations by Megan Luddy. Expect to see lots of lovely Irish words over the next few months. 
As regular readers will know, Cornwall has had enormous amounts of rain and some vicious storms over the last couple of months and there are words here for every kind of rain. Here today, gleidearnach, which beautifully describes some of our recent rain.
Tree Planting, Singing, Community
What a wonderful day as two of my communities came together, The Roots gang to plant an orchard and the Ingleheart Singers to entertain the crowd and then to sing Wassail to welcome the trees to their new home! Enjoy the gallery. Click on any photo for a bigger version and the caption.
Early instructions from Matty
Fruit trees will go where the blue squares are markedAll setting off to find a place to dig
Setting off to choose a spot
Us digging a hole for our tree
Busy diggers
Our plum tree is in. Now to go home to change ready to sing this afternoon.
As we leave, there’s a rainbow!
Choir singing the Newdigate Wassail
Trees all in and mulched.
Children giving bread and cider to the trees
- Symbolic Offering: The toast represents a gift to the spirits inhabiting the orchard, specifically the “Apple Tree Man” or tree spirits, ensuring they are well-fed and inclined to bring a good harvest.
- Attracting Guardians: The bread attracts robins, which were historically considered guardian spirits of the orchard.
- Fertility Ritual: The act is part of a wider fertility ritual that includes pouring cider on the roots and making noise to wake the trees from hibernation.
- Representing Abundance: The bread symbolizes the previous year’s harvest and acts as a pledge for a fruitful return in the following autumn.
The ceremony is rooted in ancient pagan customs to ensure the health of the trees (from the Old English “waes hael” meaning “be in good health”).
Baking, A Treat and Music
I spent the day baking for tonight and tomorrow. One cake was for this evening when we joined friends and others for an open mic evening with a pot luck supper. The other cake and the bread buns are for tomorrow when we have a Tree Planting event at Community Roots and will need to feed the volunteers and the choir. 
There is always an interesting spread at a pot luck supper and tonight there was a special treat – utterly delicious ba bao fan, Eight Treasures Rice.
One of the ‘turns’ was a wonderful player of an accordion.
The evening was in aid of Children of Peace.
Singing in Solidarity, Sunshine and Fish
Today at our choir rehearsal, The Suitcase Singers sang in solidarity with the people of Minnesota. With our singing we send love from Penryn, Cornwall to you all. Thank you so much Heidi Wilson for writing such a brilliant song, to Katy Rose Bennet and Sarina Partridge for inspiring our leader, Claire Ingleheart to teach it to us. Do click on the link and share the solidarity. The first video is us and the second one, the singing in Minneapolis.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17nRsPprFT/
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1C6dfJFRNF/
The sun was shining on the far side of the river lighting up the coloured houses.
After singing on Thursdays, I go to the local fish shop.The beautiful arrangement of the Red Mullet caught my eye.
Curtain, New Jigsaw and A Poem
I’ve made the curtain for the back door today to hang on the new rail put up last week.
We have a new jigsaw, a present from my lovely Mr S’s brother at Christmas. It is a street map of the part of London where they grew up. We’re not sure if it’s going to be very hard as so many pieces look alike or easy because the road names are all so familiar. I’ll let you know.
I love this poem by Simon Armitage, so few words that tell the whole story. It is taken from his collection, ‘Dwell’ inspired by The Lost Gardens of Heligan.
Salad Crops, Daffodils and A Jigsaw
In between jobs at Community Roots today, I walked around all the poly tunnels to see what was growing.
I love seeing random daffodils growing on the verges.
We have just finished one of the jigsaws given to us for Christmas. It was quite a challenge and very satisfying to complete.
