Self decided to join the American Rose Society this year, and was so happy to receive their magazine.
The July/August issue has a very interesting article about Memorable Rose Gardens by Mike and Angelina Chute.
“All great gardens are dynamic, constantly changing over time . . . “
She’s never heard of any of the gardens. There’s one called Roseraie de L’Hay, “in the municipality of Val-de-Marne, five miles south of Paris, and only 30 minutes by train.” From the train station, it’s “a short bus ride to the little rose garden.”
There’s one in Rome, Il Roseto, “located on the slopes of the Aventine Hill, a short walk from the Colosseum. Il Roseto is built on a site once home to a Jewish cemetery. In memory of the cemetery and those that had been buried there, the garden’s paths are laid out in the shape of a menorah.”
There’s Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regent’s Park in northwest London (also home of the London Zoo) and there are “approximately 12,000 roses on display.”
And there is Austin Roses in Shropshire, “an agricultural area in England’s West Midlands.”
Next time she’s in Europe, she’ll make it a point to see some of these fabulous rose gardens.
In the meantime, there’s a pretty fabulous rose garden in Filoli, less than 10 minutes’ drive away. And here are a few pictures self took of her own roses:
Capitola-by-the-Sea is your quintessential beach town, not as glitzy as Carmel and Monterey, and the pastel-colored cottages are so pretty! Who wouldn’t want to live in a pink cottage by a beach, even if just for the summer, come on!
Another REALLY interesting Foto Challenge. Self has tons of pictures of old buildings in her archives. But, looking over the pictures in Cee’s prompt, it is not enough that the structures be old, they have to be old in a certain way, a weathered kind of way.
She bought a sheet of first-class stamps commemorating the Harlem Renaissance. Aren’t they beautiful?
She receives all her literary journals through the USPS. Here’s the latest delivery: the Win/Spr 2020 issue of Calyx Journal, one of the oldest women’s presses in the United States, founded by her friend, Dear Departed Margarita Donnelly (She put the whole thing, she told self, on a credit card):
Cover Art: Dale Champlin’s “Mother Nature.”
Finally, Filoli Garden, in Woodside, is one of the area’s most beautiful gardens. The current art installation is by Kristine Mays. Here’s a picture self took on a visit to Filoli in July.
This week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is UNDER THE SUN.
Read to the very end of the post about the theme. The quote from E. M. Forster.
It is still summer. Can you believe it? Summer came. And stayed the usual length of time, despite pandemic and politics.
At the end of July, self visited Filoli Gardens, in Woodside. It had been decades since she’d last been.
Filoli Gardens, Woodside, July 2020
Here’s another picture of the gardens. Visitors wore masks and maintained social distancing. Lines to get in are long, because soooo many people want to get in, and those in line must stand six feet apart.
In contrast, here’s self’s own garden (sad, dry as the foothills). She took this picture just a few minutes ago:
The drive from Dumaguete through Bais and Mabinay to Kabankalan, Negros Occidental is an excellent road, past hills and valleys, even a zig-zag portion, through fields and towns, and hardly a billboard.
Self has driven this route. Ten years ago.
Doreen G. Fernandez (self’s second mother) had made an appointment to visit Vicente Lobaton, kinilaw artist. Kinilaw is the Filipino version of sushi. And it’s rather a specialty in the Visayan Islands, in the central Philippines. The number one requirement is that the seafood be freshly caught. And in a country with over 7000 islands, there’s no excuse not to have seafood that is freshly caught. Kinilaw is served with a “dressing” called sawsawan. Want to know more? It’s all in Doreen’s book, Kinilaw (1991) She goes on to describe the meal, which involved kinilaw crab, fish, and shrimp. (SO hungry right now)
Doreen was from the self-same island that Dear Departed Dad was from. It has a very non-PC name: Negros. That’s right, the island is named Negros because its people were dark. It has been named that since the 16th century. It is divided into two provinces: Negros Occidental (where self’s Dear Departed Dad, and Doreen, were from) and Negros Oriental. Negros Oriental has this really cool city called Dumaguete, which became the title for one of self’s short stories (It’s in MsAligned 3, published earlier this year)
Vicente, who goes by Enting, has two restaurants on Negros. One is Enting’s Manukan in Sagay; the other is Enting’s Lechonan on 17th St. near Lacson in downtown Bacolod, the capitol of Negros Occidental.
At the heart of the teeming South China Sea is Hong Kong, perhaps the finest natural harbor in the world. The first time I pulled into it was 1977, as an ensign assigned as the anti-submarine warfare officer on a brand-new Spruance-class destroyer named USS Hewitt. The captain, Fritz Gaylord, foolishly let me drive the ship as the junior officer of the deck for the sea and anchor detail. It was a complex mooring to a buoy, a huge floating concrete hulk anchored to the bottom of the harbor. The idea was to nuzzle the pointed nose of the 9,000-ton warship up to the buoy, hold it steady with the engines and rudder, and allow enough time for a handful of stalwart boatswain mates to jump from a small boat and affix our ship’s anchor to a kind of connection link to the buoy.
This was a situation that required great ship handling skills which I did not possess, at least not at that early moment in my career.
— Admiral James Stavridis (Ret.), Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans, p. 169
Your sanctuary is your ideal place of relaxation, tranquillity and safety and you can create it exactly as you want to. — Shakti Gawain
This week’s Lens-Artists Weekly Photo Challenge is SANCTUARY.
Self is soooo lucky that, less than 10-minutes drive from her home, is the sanctuary of Filoli Gardens.
This huge estate is managed by a trust, and is among the most magical set of gardens she has ever seen (and she’s seen a lot of gardens).
She happened to visit last Sunday, with a friend. Below are a few pictures she took during that visit. The place is so beautiful, and peaceful. A true sanctuary.
Close to the house are large trees providing plenty of shade:
Further away from the house are rectangular flowerbeds, planted by theme. Interspersed among the flowerbeds is an art installation by Kristine Mays featuring life-size wire sculptures in human shape.
There’s only one word for the Filoli rose garden: spectacular. The bushes are so fat and laden with what must be (at this time of year) their second round of blooms. Jealous.
There is a $25 entrance fee, which must be paid in advance. To avoid crowds, especially on weekends, mornings are best. They usually offer guided tours and classes, but these activities have been suspended during the pandemic. It’s wonderful just to walk, though. And self bought two wee basil plants in the Garden Shop.
All around the world people are noticing that their cities and towns are quieter during the pandemic. They say that they can hear the birds in the morning instead of traffic and are more aware of nature’s presence. In quiet moments during the day, I can hear neighbors chatting as they walk past. Children’s voices mingle with the sounds of water sprinklers. It feels like we stepped back to a less hectic time when people stayed at home more.
— A Quiet Moment, Lens-Artists Photo Challenge # 102, P. A. Moed
Last fall, self was in Ireland. What a different place the world was then!
During her visits to Ireland, she always finds calm and inspiration. These pictures reflect that mood.
from a cottage at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, Ireland
Just Outside IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art), Dublin
This beautiful avenue leads from IMMA straight to . . . the Dublin Castle? It is a wonderful walk.
