Is it Summer now?

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.