Saturday 26 July 2008

garden party love

I've been meaning to upload these photo's for a couple of weeks, but as usual, I keep getting sidetracked. The other weekend we had a family gathering at 'The Mill', my mother's family home, and still home to my grandmother and mother's brother.
You see the Mill is actually a real, still working flour mill that is in Ponder's End (located in between Enfield and Chingford) on the River Lea. It is the family business and has been for 140 years, and the Mill itself is even mentioned in the Doomsday Book, if you are interested you can read more about it here (if you do read it Ken was my grandfather and David who is in charge now is my uncle.)



You may have seen our bread and cake mixes in you supermarket (Wright's) we also make the own brand flour for Waitrose and Budgens and Warburtons (also a long standing family run business) use our flour to make their bread. If you watched 'The Great British Menu' last year One of the chefs from the South East choose our Sungold Pastry Flour to make shortbread for his dessert.



More than anything the Mill is full of lovely childhood memories for me. Since my mother was a girl there has been a swimming pool there, and I have fond memories of garden parties we had when I was a child, when all us cousins would clamber out of the swimming pool all shivers and goosebumps, wrap up in towels and feast on doorstep sized jam sandwiches made from Mimi's (my grandmother) homemade rasberry jam and freshly baked bread from from the test bakery.





We where lucky with the weather (as alway's with Mimi's garden parties) and it was a beautiful day, as always she took me on a tour round the walled garden



wouldn't it be lovely to have agreen house/potting shed like this...



on the way to vegetable patch, I managed to acquire some beetroot and a recipe for pickling them!



and this the window of a little out building, used buy my mother before and after my birth, as her pottery.



A glimpse of the River Lea, where the Mill would have originally got it's power from.



Finally, on a slighty less picturesque note, it's amazing what can happen after a few glasses of wine, and with the help of a highlighter pen, a uv light and few cousins.

16 comments:

  1. Wow, that mill its quite amazing...
    And to know that belongs to your mum`s side of the family its even more so!
    Love your blog and website as usually!
    Kisses Kisses
    Debbie
    xxx

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  2. What a gorgeous place, how lovely to have that in your family.
    I use Wrights bread flour all the time, it makes the best pizza bases!
    Julia x

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  3. Hi Jess,

    It sounds like a wonderful day out. How I would love such a window ~ the shape just invites further investigation ~ I wonder what you can see if you look through it...

    Enjoy your weekend.

    Marie x

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  4. What an amazing place!
    Hey, a wanted to shout out a HUGE THAN YOU to you as the parcel of goodness has arrived! It really made me smile - thank you!
    The doily will be made into a brooch for me, the card will be written in and sent off to friends who have just had a baby in the UK and the button will be used to fasten an apron I'm working on. So lovely of you to include me in the give away.
    Bye for now, Alison

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  5. Hi jess, what a lovely piece of family history and what a fantastic place to be able to visit for a summer party,such a pretty garden!
    looks like you had great fun with that marker pen!! are you all still glowing?

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  6. Thanks for sharing your photos. I'm originaly from Enfield where I lived for 44 years then we upped sticks and moved to Spalding in Jan 2006. This post has bought back memories for me so didn't want to just read and run. Debbie :-)

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  7. What a lovely place for a garden party!

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  8. What a fun day Jess and at such a beautiful place. I can tell you really treasure the mill and its place in your family. And what fab weather to enjoy it in. Hope you got my thank you email for the cushin, I adore it! Something in the post to you in return tomorrow.
    Hope the weather stays fine for you.
    Stephx

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  9. speaking as one of 'the flourecent people' i can tell you, that we all were slightly yellow for a couple of days, but as you can imagine, it was TOTALLY worth it.

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  10. It loks lovely and I bet you had a nice day.
    Have a great weekend:_

    Hugs Gunilla in Singapore

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  11. just wonderful!
    love the pottery window

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  12. How nice to have such a traditional business in your family. The mill looks like a really beautiful place I love that greenhouse wow so pretty! Bet Ella enjoyed her dip in the pool the last pic made me giggle hope it came off your faces ok!!!
    Sarahx

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  13. Wow - what a wonderful place. Thanks for sharing your photos.

    I use Wright's bread mixes - they are fantastic.

    Jane

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  14. Just stumbled into your blog...Interesting one. Will be following from now on!

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  15. lovely site...beautiful pictures. your vintage finds really are little treasures - thanks for making the world a little bit more beautiful everyday =)

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  16. What a wonderful and nostalgic post, full of family history. A fabulous place to feature in your childhood. Much like my own childhood memories of the farm where my mother grew up and where I spent every possible moment until it went out of the family a few years ago.

    Sue

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Thank you so much for making the time to leave a comment. I really appreciate every one (even if I don't manage to reply to them all - I tend to get sidetracked quite easily) and it always brings a little smile to my face when I discover one in my inbox.