There are
many really good things about having a dog.
One is that all the walking may even help me to lose weight - although I
have yet to see this hope come to fruition.
The other is that come rain or shine, winter or summer I am compelled to
visit the beautiful lanes and open spaces of our area.
When it is
not too muddy I tend to walk on the local downs, the rest of the time we go up
the lane where there is a field that has yet to be sown with any crops. Sometimes there is a bird in that field that
needs to be chased and Betty gets a really good workout.
She has yet
to learn how to sit still for photos so when I walked the up the lane today
this is the best photo I could get.
All this
contact with the countryside has reignited my wonder at its beauty. As I child I used to spend hours wandering
among the hedgerows and looking at the birds and the butterflies, the flowers
and the trees. I knew more then, about
their names and habitats, than I do now, but they are still beautiful.
I have been
meaning all week to take my camera to record some of these beauties, today of
course when I finally got round to it, it was raining, but perhaps this has
made it all even fresher and lovelier.
Just past
our house there is a mass of cow parsley - which I always love to use in flower
arrangements and seems to really herald the summer.
Then, a bit
further along, there are some escapees… I don’t know their names but we have
some of these blue flowers poking through the weeds in our garden.
Bluebells
are around, not masses of them as in other places but lovely all the same… they
are next to those purple flowers that invade the stones on the patio and steps in
our garden. Yesterday we had Chris our
son pulling them up—he needed money for an online game subscription. . . .
I saw these
yellow flowers for the first time this year . . . they look to me a bit like orchids
perhaps that’s what they are….
Then there’s
the vetch…- which are really pretty but don't show up well in the photo . . .
And these . . .
I really don’t know what these are but they are very sculptural.
The
stream meanders next to the lane and I often remember the Brambly Hedge stories
that I read to my girls. Tales of little
mice scurrying about the hedgerows, building little boats and houses, holding weddings
and parties, having babies: and all so beautifully drawn.
This month
in the shop I have produced two new patterns that tie in nicely with this
theme.
My little ‘mousies’
make a pretty doorstop or shelf ornament, and the pattern is available online,
either in my shop at www.lupinandrose.co.uk,
or on Etsy at www.ruthmaddock.etsy.com.
The actual mice are also for sale but
you will have to email me—telling me which one you want—and I will invoice you
from PayPal. They are £19.50 each. (plus
£4.50 p&p)
And for all you fans of things that go 'too whit' in the night, I have
made another owl, this time in the form of a crochet bag. Again this is on my website, Etsy, and also
Folksy (www.folksy.com/shops/RuthMaddock)
and it’s free if you buy 3 balls of the yarn (my website only), or £3.00 without the yarn. I do have the actual bag in the photo for
sale and its £14.50 (plus £3.50 p&p) - again you need to email me.
