Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, friends. Have a great day.

Yule blessings

And the Wheel of the Year turns, and the light will return :) 

Winter Solstice blessings to all,  dear friends.

Crafts with a friend

Had a lovely couple of days recently with a friend visiting, we spent a day crafting and made Mosaics and Folk Art wooden plaques, as well as glass painting tea light holders and using various different makes of acrylic pens to decorate wood cookies made from trees grown in Moors Wood (my woodland)

These are my Mosaic and Folk Art wooden plaque kits from Cosy Craft Club.

Curled up in the warm

Whilst not getting battered by the storm, it is rather cold, wet and windy here, so fire lit and I'm ensconced on one sofa, with both cats curled up on the other one.

Hope all of you are safe and dry.

FiLiA Glasgow

Blown away to have watched/listened to JK Rowling at FiLiA this morning. Utterly wonderful woman.

Had a fabulous time last night at the FiLiA party.

The talks and workshops have been fabulous, all of them.

It was a long train journey up to Glasgow, but it was worth it!

Mabon blessings

Mabon blessings to all my friends

A fridge full of produce from the garden

Yet more harvest

Yet more pickings from 10 mins in the garden and polytunnel

Damsons, Victoria plums, courgettes (round and normal) Tomatoes large and small, Peppers.

Really need to make soup, and chutney, to clear the freezers for more stuff.

Or just buy another freezer?

Full, Super, Blue Moon rising over Moors Wood

Her lovelyness Full Moon rising clear of Moors Wood tree tops

Harvest!

5 mins in the veg garden and Orchard, today. 

8 lb of Tom Putt apples, 6 lbs of Beth pears, 6 lbs of Victoria plums, 3lbs of Runner beans (Lady Di) 3 lbs of Climbing French beans (Blue Lake)

8 lbs of Courgettes (Black Beauty, Yellow Zuccini and Nice du Rond)

5 mins in the Polytunnel 

4 lbs of Red Peppers (Sweet California) and 5 lbs of assorted coloured Tomatoes.

I need to make freezer Soup/Chutney/Jam to clear out the freezers of last year's produce, so we can have room to start to process this year's produce.

And get the Dehydrator out of the loft!

Fleck the broody hen escapes!

After shutting Fleck safely away last night (cue much outraged squarking and pecking me and bok bok bokking when I removed her from the ivy covered nest on top of the wall where she'd hidden herself) 

I put her in the top of the double decker hutch she and Chancellor live in at night.

This morning I went to check on her and give her fresh food and water and she rushed at the door, squeezed herself through the gap and legged it. Bok bok bokking, as only a Broody hen can. 

Chancellor tried the "dance of love" around her, prepatory to mounting her, but she was having none of it.

Her single minded intention was to get back in that ivy!

And so, she did.

A Broody hen, who I thought was past it!

Fleck Serama hen has gone broody, and was hiding in the ivy on top of the wall.

Fortunately she was only sitting on one, very old egg (we marked it and kept removing the new laid eggs)

Now safely shut in the top section of the double decker hutch she and husband Chancellor the Serama share.

 He's now downstairs, and NOT happy!

Fleck is at least 8 years old, if not older, and I thought was well past all this hormonal nonsense!

Razor Blade of Life Blog party

Had a lovely long weekend away at Z's Blog party, over in Norfolk.

I have really struggled to do very much for the last few years, since getting Covid in March 2020 (then Long Covid, then getting Covid again in 2021, and July 2022, despite being multiple jabbed as a "vulnerable" person)

So it was fab to get away on the train, (can't drive that far any more)

Left Ledbury at 10 am, arrived in Norwich at 3.15 pm

Z and her sister Wink were as lovely as I remembered, the house is as fab as Z described, and the whole weekend was just amazing. 

I also met blog friends and Fb friends in real life, and it really cheered me up. 

And reminded me just why I used to blog, and made me want to revisit blogging, although maybe not as often as I used to. 

I hope I was a helpful guest, as well.

Still v tired from train journey back, but felt I wanted to start blogging again. 

Lammas blessings.

Lammas Full Moon blessings to all my friends.

Fruitful harvests to everyone xxx

Fabulous evening with Jackie Morris and Seckou Keita Music at Hellens

This was absolutely fabulous. Ian and I were entranced. Packed out hall at Helens, despite the heat!

BEAUTIFUL evening with Jackie Morris and Seckou Keita Music at Hellens last evening - poetry, painting, gilding, colour and music - what a unique, magical and memorable evening - generosity and warmth. 

#lpf23 #ledbury #ledburypoetrycritics #letscreate #ledburypoetryfestival Creative Pathways in the Shire Poets for the Planet Arts Council England Herefordshire Libraries Visit Herefordshire Ledbury Town Council Tinsmiths What's On Ledbury Area Ledbury Reporter Hereford Times The Poetry Bookshop Arvon The Poetry Society

Photos and words  from Ledbury Poetry Festival.

Summer evening in the garden

More flowers from the garden. Looking lovely.

Sitting on the Patio, enjoying the birdsong and the flowers.

Solstice Blessings!

Solstice greetings to all my friends.

Giant Scabious, with bees.

Blandford Fly bite (again)

Got bitten by Blandford Fly on Thurs night (yet again 🙄)

Now have v v painful left upper arm between elbow and shoulder, with two bites within an inch of each other.

Been monitoring it, as I was hospitalised in 2014 for Sepsis from a bite, and nearly died. Horrible memories. 

Done the whole "drawing round the redness" which shows it isn't spreading, thank goodness. 

Seems OK, just v v painful, but stopping me using my left arm at all.

Which is v inconvenient, atm.

Maybe due to us having a pool for wildlife, we've just rejuvenated the pool, it's heaving with wildlife again BUT it also means a source of Blandford Fly, which is difficult for me as I KNOW I'm in trouble if I get bitten.

And yes, I was covered with anti bug spray, yet still got bitten.

Torrential rain today :(

My beautiful perennial flower borders :(  totally flattened by torrential rain tonight, as are the hay/flower meadows areas :( 

Trying to feel positive about great rainfall for the veg plot, but lots of plants destroyed.

Only climbing beans planted in plot, I held off planting out everything else, because if I'd planted them out, they'd have been smashed to bits, tonight.

As it is the beans are looking pretty sad.

#climatechange

#globalwarming

Happy Beltane!

Happy Beltane!

Here are some bluebells in our wood.

By the pool

This evening, by the Pool.

New meadow.

Remember how the new meadow looked in October last year?

This is what it looks like, now.

We intended to seed the  new meadow grass mix last October, but the weather was so wet and cold there was no point, so this was seeded in March this year.

Also a swathe of wildflower seeds went in around the pool about then.

 

Farewell to the JCB

we've finally said farewell to our JCB.

Tom, who has done some work for us, made us a good offer, and tbh We've basically done all the things we bought her for, so she'd been standing around the yard, not doing much.

Tom wants to use her and restore her to her former glory.

So we waved her goodbye, today.

Spring

It's 7.40 pm and it's still sort of light outside!

#Spring

Ravens!

We have had a pair of Ravens in the garden today. 

We hear them around, a lot, but it's the first time they've wandered around on the ground. 

Hope they choose to nest in our wood.

Wild Isles.

Even the cats are mesmerised by Wild Isles!

My book pile

My bookpile in the sitting room.

(some lower down were read during lockdowns, so are awaiting a re read due to... You know... Stuff)

#internationalwomensday

Imbolc blessings, and some Wild Stitching

Imbolc blessings to all my friends.

Here is a solar dyed silk piece I started a few weeks ago, as part of a Wild Stitch weekly workshop during January, at The Nest just up the road from us.

Natural dyeing , placing materials on the silk

Rolling up the silk and tieing it tightly.

Then stuffing it into the Mordant jar (rusty iron in water) and placing the jar on a sunny window sill 

I used the S facing lower kitchen window sill.

And now unravelled and dried out.

I think I either left the silk in the Mordant too long, or it was a bit too much sunshine, as there *should* be more colour differentiation.

However, progress not perfection is the object of  this course, it was a very meditative, natural materials oriented four weeks, with lots of "let your fingers do the stitching" and tea and cake and laughter.

I felt very relaxed after two hours each week there, with women who became friend

Thank you Anna for the lovely safe space you created, for us to Wild Stitch