Flower Fairies

 The Flower Fairy books by Cicely Mary Barker are among my favourite children's books because of their delicate paintings of flowers and trees. They are a lovely way to help children learn about the natural world although the poems that accompany the paintings aren't exactly great literature:) I still have Flower Fairies of the Summer, Flower Fairies of the Wayside and A Flower Fairy Alphabet from my daughter's childhood so I thought I would complete the set gradually. Flower Fairies of the Spring seemed the appropriate one to begin with and it seems to have done the trick as the day it arrived the weather began to warm up:) The painting on the cover is of The Crocus Fairies.



The Windflower Fairy is one of my favourites from the Spring book partly because it's a lovely painting and partly because I love seeing the wood anenomes appear, they are always among the earliest of the woodland flowers along with the celandine. Windflower is the country name for the wood anenome. In the last couple of days there are suddenly sheets of them in Ecclesall Woods where at the beginning of the week there was no sign of them at all.



The other book I've just acquired is Flower Fairies of the Trees which is my favourite of all the Flower Fairy books I think, it's only rival would be Flower Fairies of the Autumn which I have still to buy. This is the latest edition, all the original eight Flower Fairy books have recently been re-issued. The cover shows the Willow Fairy which I really love.



Another of my favourites is the Blackthorn Fairy - she should shortly be appearing in our hedgerows bringing with her the blackthorn winter. The blackthorn blossom comes before the leaves and makes it look as though the shrubs are covered in snow. The old countrymen believed that it also brought with it a spell of cold weather - I hope that isn't the case this year as I think we've had sufficient cold weather during this Spring!




My final offering looks forward to the hot, sunny (hopefully )days of summer when we shall be seeing the Poppy Fairy in the fields - not a favourite with the farmers perhaps but definitely a favourite of mine.

Sudden Spring

Spring is sudden: it is her quality,
However carefully we watch for her,
However long delayed
The green in the winter'd hedge
The almond blossom
The piercing daffodil,
Like a lovely woman late for her appointment
She's suddenly here, taking us unawares,
So beautifully annihilating expectation
That we applaud her punctual arrival.

 Gerald Bullett (1893-1958)




Spring certainly is long delayed this year,by the end of March last year the blackthorn was in full bloom and there were wood anenomes, celandines and the first of the bluebells in flower. It's a completely different story this year, the buds on the blackthorn on Blackamoor are still tightly shut and in Ecclesall Woods although the green spikes of bluebell leaves are pushing through there's no sign whatever of the windflowers and celandine. However I can offer you the first of the 'piercing daffodil' I have just two or three groups of the smaller daffodils flowering giving some hope that Spring might not be far away. The crocus' are still flowering well but the light is poor today so they have declined to open up fully.




Another tiny splash of colour comes from a little group of chionodoxia, the blue is much more intense than it appears in the photo.




My ordinary yellow primroses are just starting to flower but the named varieties are further on, this one os a white double called 'Dawn Ansell'.




My garden is a complete shambles though not quite such a shambles as it was a couple of weeks ago. Due to being in Suffolk until early October and then a very wet autumn I did very little indeed at the end of last year, normally I'd expect to be able to work in my garden until well into December. The photo shows a scene of before and after, I work from the bottom up towards the house so the worst part is most obvious from the french windows and doesn't allow me to pretend it isn't there! Of course all the dead leaves will be falling off the beech hedges any time now so there will be no resting on my laurels even when I do finally cross the finishing line!




Up on Blackamoor the scene is even more dead looking than my garden but finally yesterday I spotted two brave little plants peeping through, this is golden saxifrage which grows in damp areas and has pretty yellow flowers when the buds eventually open and.....




..... further up the path I was delighted to see the first of the coltsfoot pushing through though they too remain tightly furled.




This is why they are so reluctant to flower -  it's still very cold up on Blackamoor! B Baggins and I walked up to Piper House Gate and across the top path to Devil's Elbow yesterday morning and there are still some patches of snow here and there.




So here I am, out of hibernation again:) Thank you for the kind enquiries as to my well being, there's been nothing wrong, just a general lethargy and lack of inspiration due to the grey skies and freezing temperatures.
I've been busy in other directions though, the village walk leaflet that my friend P and I have written has been published and proved to be very popular indeed - we wish we'd had more printed now!




I suspect I'm going to be even busier in the months to come! Apart from various outings and a new local history project that P and I have begun and the transcription I'm going to do of our local school's admission registers I'm also going to be doing quite a lot of knitting. I've just bought some yarn ready to knit another one of these......





.....those of you who have been with me for some time may recognize this. I've knitted four of them so far, one for each grandchild.I'm about to begin on a fifth one as Gabriel and George will be having a new brother or sister in the summer. Although I'm already sure which the baby will be I've backed the horse both ways with the new yarn as it has both pink and blue flecks in it:)

Snow Again

"If Candlemas Day be fair and bright
 Winter will have another flight."

 The old saying has proved to be true! Saturday February 2nd was a beautiful sunny day with clear blue skies but this morning I woke up to a white world and B Baggins and I came back from our walk looking like stand-ins for The Abominable Snowman:) We went up through Poynton Woods which looked very pretty but was treacherous underfoot as the mud hidden beneath the thin layer of snow was very slippery. I was very glad I'd taken my trusty hazel staff with me.

Things To Do In A Winter's Day

I really enjoy winter days like today. It's rather grey and miserable, the once pristine snow is now slushy and dirty looking and it's the perfect day for staying inside and doing interesting things. All three of the things are connected with my daughter-in-law Cesca in one way or another:) In the autumn she asked me if I would do this cross stitch sampler for her and so here it is well on the way. I'm enjoying stitching it as it is uses all my favourite colours and is depicting my favourite season.

In between stitching I'm re-reading some books by George Ewart Evans who wrote several books about the area of Suffolk where Cesca comes from. They are based on the many oral history recordings he made of local people. The books were originally published in the 1950s so many of the old people were born in and clearly remembered rural life in the 19th century. I've almost finished 'Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay' and shall be moving on to ' The Crooked Scythe' shortly. I've also just acquired 'The Horse in the Furrow' which is saving the best until last as far as I'm concerned as I have a real love of the big working horses and the old horsemen who spent their days ploughing and reaping and sowing. I'm hoping to do a post on the subject soon if I can find photographs to use whose copyright owners don't wish to charge me £10 for using them rather than just settling for an ackowledgement!! I do have a particular person in mind here of course.

Last but by no means least is some family history research again in Suffolk. Cesca's paternal ancestors include some of the old Suffolk horsemen and also a newly discovered shepherd. Soon I shall have to abandon the computer and spend some time in Ipswich looking at Parish Registers. There's only so much that you can do online then you need to go back to the old-fashioned way of researching so that you can check and cross check the information you have. I have to say that I'm happy to have any excuse to spend time in Suffolk - and also Essex now that I've found the shepherd who came from St Osyth. So which of my possible pastimes shall I follow now? The family history trail I think:)

Winter Wonderland

We finally had some proper snow overnight on Sunday so I took my camera with me when B Baggins and I went out this morning. He seemed to be determined to appear in as many of the photos as he could, this one was supposed to be just the path by the river.

Here he is again! This little 18th century bridge crosses Needham's Dike just above the point where it joins Oldhay Brook. In the past there was a corn mill nearby and later a scythe works.

A handsome blackbird posed very nicely for me - I hope he found some breakfast, these are hard conditions for birds.

This shows how deep the snow was in Dam Field, B Baggins has not got a case of canine measles! It was snowing quite hard while we were out. As you can probably guess this was originally the site of the dam for the corn mill.

I really like this photo of the dead grass stems covered in snow, they look so graceful and ethereal.It looks better if you click and enlarge it.

I'm rather taken with this photo as well, last year's alder cones and the new catkins just waiting for the warmth of Spring. It doesn't really show up in the photo but there is a real purplish tinge to the catkins.

You can see this better if you enlarge it too, it's the late 18th century road bridge leading from Totley to Dore and the river forms the parish boundary. There was a ford here before the bridge was built.

The warm brown of leaf buds on the oak tress in the field were surprisingly obvious. There is a line of them crossing the field which mark the edge of the old dam.

Over the stile and into the lane, this is the road carried by the bridge in the earlier photo.

A lovely splash of colour where the gorse is still flowering in spite of the cold and snow.

This is what my DH terms an 'atmospheric' photo and will definitely need enlarging:) It was actually very misty and also still snowing but I like the cosiness of the farmhouse tucked into the hollow and further up the hill is Hollin House which will take some getting out of today as it's at the bottom of a steep winding drive leading off an equally steep winding lane on the other side of the hill. I've known the people who live there for well over 30 years as their daughter and my elder son were in the same class at primary school and were good friends. That's today's snowy walk, I suspect that by tomorrow it will be much less pristine unless we get another dollop tonight.

A Frosty Day

Grass afield wears silver thatch;
Palings all are edged with rime;
Frost flowers pattern round the latch;
Cloud nor breeze dissolve the clime:

When the waves are solid floor,
And the clods are iron bound,
And the boughs are crystall'd hoar,
And the red leaf nailed aground.

When the fieldfare's flight is slow,
And a rosy vapour rim,
Now the sun is small and low,
Belts along the region dim.

When the ice-crack flies and flaws,
Shore to shore, with thunder shock,
Deeper than the evening daws,
Clearer than the village clock.

 When the rusty blackbird strips,
 Bunch by bunch, the coral thorn ;
 And the pale day-crescent dips,
 New to heaven, a slender horn.

 I thought this poem by Lord de Tabley (1835-1895) was quite appropriate for our current weather conditions:). We only have a light covering of snow here at the moment but apparently there's a good deal more to come this afternoon. The painting of the blackbird is by a Scottish artist called Archibald Thorburn(1860-1935). I really like his paintings of wildlife so you may be seeing more of them in the future.

My Son's Blog

My son has asked me to give his blog a plug to try and attract a little more traffic to it:) I'm sure many readers of my blog will be aware that Steve and Hannah and their two girls live in South Africa where they work at Africa School of Missions. Both Steve and Hannah write on the blog and the subject matter is pretty varied. Steve's latest effort is about a woodland walk where he and the girls were trying to identify various types of fungus - there are some where a bit of expert help is needed.

Naturally enough there is quite a bit about Steve and Hannah's work in the local African community including Backdoor PreSchool where the solitary blond among the children is my granddaughter Lucy:)

There are pieces about visits to places such as Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre, Kruger National Park and the Drakensburg Mountains

Some of the posts are about domestic life though not perhaps as most of us know it - at least I personally don't often get spitting cobras in my washing machine!

They travel to places other than Africa during the course of their work too, this photo was taken in the Czech Republic during a trip to Eastern Europe last summer. Do go and take a look,I'm sure you'll find it interesting.

Happy New Year!

Well, here we are in 2013 with a whole twelve months full of possibilities ahead of us. I'm planning to blog more regularly again this year so I'm starting as I mean to carry on:) Let's hope that this year holds lots of good things for all of us. A very Happy New Year to all of you!

Two Little Angels

I hope everyone had as good a Christmas as we did. These are just a few photos from Christmas Eve - not great as there were a lot of people around in a small space and it was a case of snapping what I could. A local farm does a Nativity play which the children take part in during the few days leading up to Christmas so I booked tickets for Steve, Hannah, Juliette, myself and the two girls. It was a surprise for Kaitlyn and Lucy as they had no idea where we were going when we set out. First of all the children are dressed up so that they can take part in the play. Kaitlyn and Lucy both chose to be angels - along with pretty much all the other children:)

The nice thing was that there were real animals - an 'ox' in a stall, real lambs for the shepherds and a real donkey for Mary to travel to Bethlehem on.

Afterwards the children were all able to ride on the donkey if they wanted to which Lucy definitely did!

Holding one of the lambs was fun too though the lamb seems to be more interested in Aunty Juliette's hair than anything else.

Finally came a visit to Father Christmas - Kaitlyn seems very happy with this part:) Lucy is more interested in what the parcel might contain! Grown ups weren't left out - there was a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie for us. It made a great start to the holiday.

Merry Christmas!

Here we are again with my traditional Christmas Eve post:)

The Night Before Christmas was always my children's bedtime story on Christmas Eve.
So for all of us who still feel the magic of this night......

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.




More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night."




May I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas!