Tuesday, August 4, 2009

I almost got to see the sun today, look how close it was :-)

When reading in the blog 'Keep the coffee comming' about her outdoor shower a memory comes back to me. It is from the time I lived in a cottage without hot water. Well I lived without most things there and loved it. But during summers I used to lay the gardenhoose, filled with water, in the sun so that the water inside would heat up.



Pelargonium inquinans. One of the mothers to our common geraniums in all colors. Grows wild in South Africa, but nowdays I think it also grows wild in California.
When it had been in the sun for a couple of hours I hung up two sheets towards my neighbour so they didn´t have to se me shower and then bring out soap and shampoo. I had to be rather quick though, because the new water that came in the the hose wasn´t especially warm :-) After I was finished I just let the sun dry me up.

My hibiscuses have been slow to start flowering this year, this is the first one to open up here.


My first pepper for the year. I´ve had this plant for almost two years now, but never tested it in my cooking. I also almost watered it to death this early summer :-)




This was perfect during summers. Just the fact that I didn´t have to heat up the water on the stove and wipe the kitchen floor afterwards made it even more perfect. One day when I stood there and turned around watching the field just beside my cottage a tractor came around the corner in high speed. You should have seen the face on the man driving it :-) :-) He never looked me into my eyes after that :-)



Monkshood 'Bicolor'.



Later on, when I had my gardencenter, I had some old ladies that often came and bought flowers from me. We started to talk about where I had lived throughout my life. I then told them that I had lived nearby in a small cottage without hot water or anything. Then one of the ladies suddenly said, with a smile: So it was You we always saw naked in that garden! :-)
What I didn´t know was that there were an old growel road just on the other side of this small field beside my cottage(perhaps 50m wide, 164 feet), I couldn´t see it from my home because there grew a lot of bushes hiding it. I can only hope they enjoyed it :-)
Have a great day now!




Impatiens glandulifera, Himalayan balsam. This is a gardenrunner in all our country I belive. It grows so dence that even nettles dies. But since it´s an annual it´s easy to get rid of if one wants.





11 comments:

Vittran said...

You made our day!:):):)
Hur mår hunden?
Have nice day!

Anonymous said...

That's a funny story Christer. Kat at Coffee will bring the memories back. I recall my younger days when a friend spied a family of nudists who would bathe outdoors in an open shower. They were three girls we went to school with and by the time the news of the bathing naked outside traveled through our neighborhood several of us walked the woods to see them from their fence line. Then, of course, we made fun of them once back in school. It was funny as nudism was more acceptable in those days by adults and where we lived in New York had hundreds of nude camping grounds, beaches, and nature walks. We were not nudists but it wasn't till we came south that people who were nudists were frowned upon in Northern Virginia.

I bet those peppers coming in are hot, hot, HOT! Try some in a stew.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Tjänare Vittran!
Tänkte nog att det minnena skulle roa lite :-)
Det är fint med alla hundarna, pigga och glada allihopa :-)
ha det gott!
Christer.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Z&M!
I can imagine that You ran through the wood to watch them :-) :-)

I don´t think much people have anything against nudists over here, as long as they have their own beaches. I loved to bathe nude before, but since I´ve had malignant melanoma once (to be honest, they took it away so early that it´s almost wrong to say that I have had it) I´m not allowed by the doctors to stay to long in the sun without clothes on. But I really want to choose when and where people can see me nude :-) :-)
have a great day now!
Christer.

Kat said...

Christer,
I got a wonderfully long laugh from your story. Those ladies just didn't recognize you dressed.

I remember well showers like that in Ghana though I had the luxury of a shower room. The first blast of water was always hot from the sun heating the pipes, and I'd hurry to finish before the cold water came. I'd put on a robe and go into the house still wet so I could fall asleep as I dried in the heat.

jaz@octoberfarm said...

hehehe...the naked horticulturist! we spent time in a small time in ireland and the house had an outdoor shower for washing off when you returned from the beach. i liked taking my regular showers there naked and i sure surprised the gardener a few times. that was in the day when catching me naked in the shower was a good surprise! HA!!!

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Kat!
I did wiegh about 20kg (about 44 pounds) lighter when they looked at me, so I can understand that they didn´t recognise me :-) :-)

I remember the first of the cold water hitting like a bomb on the skin, if I wasn´t awake before I surly were it then :-) :-) But it is a nice feeling showering outside.
Have a great day now!
Christer.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Joyce!
Those days that happened it was a good surprise to see me too :-) Well perhaps not for the man who came with his tractor then :-) :-) :-)
Those were the days :-)
Have a great day now!
Christer.

Wsprsweetly Of Cottages said...

Well, Christer, :) if the lady smiled...I am sure she was relieved and amused to find it was her sweet neighbor and WHY your were out there. What a cute story.
I always enjoy reading about your flowers...
I had tea this morning and yesterday morning...and smiled to think I had gotten away from drinking it. It was wonderful!
Mona

Wsprsweetly Of Cottages said...

Christer, I came on and made comments on your posts going back at least four or five...trying to catch up a bit...but none of them are there. I thought perhaps you were saving them as some do, for approval..but I don't see anything at the bottom mentioning it...so...I have just lost my comments...I am so sorry...
See you on Wed. or Thursday as tomorrow is doctor day. :)
Take care, Christer.

The cottage by the Cranelake said...

Hi Mona!
I could see in my mailbox that You´ve been busy commenting my blog:-) If I can´t reach Your comments in any other way I´ll probably can through that way.

If it only had been one woman, there were a wholr groupe of them :-) :-) But since they smiled I don´t think they thought I was to ugly anyway :-) :-)
have a great day now and good luck at the doctors appointment!
Christer.