Days out with the kids: West Green House Gardens in Hampshire

Let me pique your interest with these beauties...

Come for a walk with me. We're going to West Green House Gardens in Hampshire, a third of the way down the M3...

We'll potter along formal garden paths, boxed by hedges and planted with such an array of beauty that your heart will sing, while your children run around excitedly playing hide & seek...

We'll explore woodland paths too, tickled by ferns and sheltered by boughs laden with all the shades of emerald...

We'll find nooks and outdoor rooms, and every now and then a peek at the house we wished we lived in, the chicken coop that is fancier than any we've ever seen, the statues that surprise us...

And if we're there in spring time, the blossom, oh the blossom. And for tulip lovers (like us), every shade, every form, every delight we could imagine. The children will hop over the channels of water while we soak it all in...

We'll take note of the colours we see, the flowers we love, and vow to take our mothers one day, who would love it so much...

We will show the children the flowers they can smell, the insects buzzing around in spoilt gluttony, let them run down the paths and play hide & seek some more...

And every corner we turn will bring us a fresh view of elegance, of artistry, of wonder. We'll imagine sitting by that fountain in the thirties, cocktail in hand, band playing in the distance. Or pushing open those formerly unlocked gates and strolling, Victorian dress swishing around our ankles, with someone we hope likes us back...

Our families will rest by the lake, searching the depths for signs of fish, watching the ripples as they dance away, looking at their reflections...

If we're there in early spring, the magnolias will be out in all their gravity-defying beauty. We will muse on their bold promise of warmth and daylight to come...

We'll grab an ice cream from the cafe, or sit at one of the pretty little tables, adorned with little pots of flowers, and drink coffee from a filter or tea from a teapot - served as it should be, - drunk with birdsong in the air...

If we're there with our husband, we'll hold hands and talk about life and our plans, delight in our children as they play, and think how lucky we are, and how many blessings we can count...

If we're there with our friends, we'll note the hellebores and bluebells hidden in the flower beds, plan our own gardens, tell each other of how our lives are changing and blossoming too...

Perhaps we'll be lucky enough to be local enough to visit again. Perhaps we'll plan trips to the opera there, staged in the summer, or the garden parties with strings. Perhaps though, like my family and I, we'll know that the chances of us ever passing by again are so very small, and instead we'll take photographs, breathe it all in, and then write a little about it to tell you that if you can't come with us, go with your own loved ones instead. It is heavenly.

Days out with the kids: Eyam Hall in Derbyshire

This post is a long time coming. In that it was April when we went and now, shhh, it's June. Still, you can bet your bottom dollar (does anyone actually say that anymore?!) that it's even lovelier now the late spring blooms are out.

We love visiting Eyam Hall, a recent acquisition by the National Trust in Derbyshire. It has a beautiful garden that still feels like a work in progress, and there are often (very lovely) volunteers gardening in it while you're there.

The house itself (it was too dark inside for pictures when we were there - the sun came out in the garden) is beautiful and so interesting. It was inhabited by the same family until just a couple of years ago, and so is a lovely mishmash of centuries. It almost looks like they were there yesterday and left in a hurry. I love it.

The best thing about it when you have small children is that the house is just the right size to be manageable by children who start inquisitive but can run out of steam in the more stately properties. And the garden is the perfect size for them to run off without getting lost, play hide and seek, and whatever other Robin Hood/Star Wars/superhero games are currently in rotation.

There's an adjoining craft centre with some sweet little shops, and the house is on the same road as all the information boards, the church and other historic places that reference what Eyam is famous for: its sacrifice at the time of the plague.

We go at least once a year. You should too.

An introduction to myself, which is a little odd several years into blogging, but here I am!

I follow a blogger on Instagram named Little Maldod, who is running a lovely project called my Thursday breaktime that I was featured in last week. She has also started a series called little introductions in which instagrammers reveal a little more of their true self behind their online business identities. I joined in and then I thought, why don't I share it here too? In all these years of writing online you've not seen much of me so, here goes, and here's the little snippets about myself that I revealed too...

Hello! Here's nine things you may not know about me:

1. I was clever enough to get into Cambridge University at 18.
2. I was stupid enough to get pregnant at 18.
3. I chose the baby over the university. He's now 16 and I couldn't be more happy with my choice.
4. I met my husband when my eldest was 5, married when he was 8, moved to the Peak District when he was 10.
5. I had my 2nd boy when the eldest was 11 & my 3rd boy when he was 13.
6. I chart my whole adult life by the age my eldest was, since my entire adulthood has been motherhood.
7. Surrounded by boys, I can be a bit of a girl. I love the little creative domesticities of life, from sewing to baking to flowers to... well you get the picture.
8. I dream big but I procrastinate and potter. Not the best combination! I have however made my dream of starting a sewing business a reality (Sparrow Stitch).
9. I am not a natural in front of the camera!

'Bringing colour into your life or, 'Cheering up a dreary May'

Either title to this post could do really. As I write this...

• Almost every day in May so far has required jumpers and raincoats. I have only legitimately worn sunglasses once, other than when we decamped to Southwold for the weekend.
• No ice lollies or ice creams have been ingested. No hosepipes have been played with or even - distant memories - banned. The water pistols lay idle and dirty from a winter on the ground.
• There have been no weekend trips to farms, gardens or up hills. Weekends have faded away in errands and to-do lists, and quiet moments with the paper (yes, our kids are old enough to do that now!) while rain tickles the outside of our windows like reminders from the transgressive imp that is winter. 'Yes, I'm still here' it says. We don't bother to tell it to go away any more. It never listens.
• And today, the one day with no rain and a touch of warmth in the fleeting moments of blue sky, we've been mostly holed up indoors while the youngest fights, and loses, a battle with a nasty bug that has seen repeated sickness in the night, and wearing a wooly hat indoors when the shivers set in. He's such a listless little love, and my heart aches for him.

So I'm bringing a little colour back. Every bright and brash piece of clothing will be getting an airing. If it pairs with another for a greater slap of colour, then great. Yes, I will be wearing that tomato red sweater with that fushia top and, no, it's not warm enough for just one or the other.

And everything we do will have a crashing of colour in it too. Rainbow brights for thank you letters (that's the Tiny One making a sliver of an appearance down there, in his happier, healthier days). Every vibrancy we can find in the vegetable kingdom to grace our plates. Fabrics sewn together to make wild coloured cushions. Flowers gathered from the wayside to make they gayest, most carefree of posies. Yes, I'm saying yah boo sucks to this damp squib of a May.

Spring has sprung

Yes it rains a lot, and gosh hasn't it been windy? But every few days we wake up to this:

And though the frost is there, the sun is singing that old song, "Morning has broken....", and I know it won't be long before the frost turns back to dancing beads of dew. If I step outside to look at that rising sun - and I often do - the birds are carolling about it at the top of their little lungs, as if they too feel like skipping.

We take a walk along the river that runs through our village, and the stream too is singing in its babbling voice, chuckling to itself with the glee of new life. The riverbanks are still largely void of growth, but look closer and you'll see that the sunshine with its warm breath has blown a message into the soil, and shoots are appearing. Trees are beginning to bud. Rabbits are scampering in the still-vacant campsite. And the birds are still singing in giddy chorus.

Walk a little further, away from the shade of the riverbank, and these glorious fellows meet you. That's my littlest, the Tiny One, in the distance there. He's exploring the farm lane, looking for new spring flowers, searching for lambs in the fields, grabbing every stick he can find with his brother.

It's such a good time of year. Everything has promise, hope and beginnings. While the winds are still often cold and the frosts plenty, the rains still flying in our faces; even on these days the nature around us is standing firm and believing in the spring days to come.

the end of winter?

I didn't think I suffered from SAD. 

I think it's the snow that bothers me most, in the way that it's so restricting up here and lasts so long, slowly turning into ice. And I'm not the biggest winter fan, but few are. I dance my way to Christmas and then idly twiddle my fingers and circle my ankles while I wait for winter to slope off, tail between its legs.

But a few days ago, before it turned chilly again, there was the littlest touch, the daintiest spring of Spring in the air. And oh my goodness. I virtually skipped everywhere rather than walking. I unbuttoned my coat. The boys took theirs off. The green tips of emergent daffodils were beginning to whisper their yellow secret. And you should have heard the birds. They weren't singing to communicate they were singing a song. Suddenly it was like the whole of our little, 200m-above-sea-level world stopped, stood up and listened. From cheery daffodils still hidden in their winter coats, to small boys throwing theirs off and whooping: we all heard the sound of Spring.

I knew that morning that the day was going to be good. I knew I was going to tick a whole raft of limpets off my to-do list. That I would be a lovely mother. That I would smile at the villagers as I walked past, that I would be airy and cheery when my husband came home at the hungry-boys-witching-hour, that everything would be so gosh-darned lovely.

And afterwards, when the next day dawned swathed in cloud and washing cold air past my ears, I thought: perhaps that SAD thing affects me after all. Or affects most of us. And actually, I'm done with treading water while the world tips over the bottom end of the year. We're 5/6th's of the way through winter. The snowdrops have already popped up to say goodbye to it. The daffodils are waiting impatiently in the wings. I expect I'll spot some crocuses soon. We're all done with winter. Let's all tell it to head off where the sun don't shine.

Wandering: visiting the National Trust's Speke Hall in Liverpool

We bought a family one-year National Trust membership and it was one of the best investments we've made for our family. This is because we use it. Every weekendwe have time for a family day out, we consult the National Trust map and off we go. Nice day? Somewhere with lots of outdoor space to explore and picnic in. Less nice? A house that will take time to look round, with activities for younger children. Meeting with friends? Yep, we National Trust it. We can't afford to be members every year so we go crazy with the National Trust properties while we can, then take a few years off until the boys are older and it's all fresh again.

A week or so ago we visited Speke Hall in Liverpool.

It's a beautiful Tudor property set in landscaped grounds, surrounded by a wood. And it has something extra that I don't think any other National Trust places have... it's right next to an airport. So you get the added extra of - wow! - aeroplanes taking off above you. It really helps to have a bit of variety to entertain little ones! So, I guess you want to hear some of the other plusses? We really did have a fabulous day out with our friends.

The architecture is beautiful. For us 'grown-ups', from every angle there's something new to look at and different buildings to appreciate. For your children, there are little carved faces where you don't expect it, a moat (now grassed) to run round or roll down, and the house itself is just the right scale for littler ones.

There are lots of nooks and crannies to explore, and woodland walks to take. Because the scale is smaller than a lot of the grand National Trust properties you may have visited, it is much more suited to little legs and it is much better for more independent exploring. As parents, you want your children to learn the thrill and the responsibility of being independent from you, but that desire clashes against a primal need to watch over them and protect them. Speke Hall just felt like the perfect place to find a harmony between those two needs.

The house itself is beautiful. Unlike more museum-like places, it was set up with signs of life (like this Singer sewing machine - you can't expect me to ignore a sewing machine!) as though the Victorian inhabitants of this Tudor manor had just downed tools and popped outside for a moment.

There was a great trail indoors for the children to do. I thought my then-two-year-old and four-year old would be too young but they weren't at all. The house was just disrobing itself from its winter hibernation, and so most rooms had a large, hidden picture of a bug in them that you had to find (huge fun at that age) and note in your little booklet. The Little One loved practicing his writing (b-e-d) and the Tiny One liked the funny bug names and their descriptions.

We all loved looking for signs of spring in the kitchen garden and on the woodland walk. They loved climbing in the playground near the entrance (blowing off those long-car-drive cobwebs) while watching planes soar overhead. They loved the second, surprise woodland playground even more - tree trunk steps, zip wires, climbing frames, houses. It was always close to rain but we managed to miss it. It was cold enough to legitimately deny the ice-cream pleas (why is a cake never enough?!) but throw the coats off while running across the grass. We managed a picnic (coats on). We were home in time for tea.

You really should go.

Wondering: a little update, in the moment

There's beauty outside in a spring that unfurled late and is hanging around. Daffodils when they've usually left us. The quiet earth, parched but cold for so long, suddenly verdant with grasses and new growth now that the rain has been coming. Some days it's a sprinkling here and there, other days fine and sideways but constant. Either way, we had about four or five days of sunshine and warmth over a week ago and that was it. Early spring weather, so ironically late to start, has just stuck, the clouds above viciously cycling and no sign of that mid- to late-spring warmth we'd have expected.

 

Some days I say I'm fed up with it, but today I'm trying to roll with its punches. Summer, which should be just a fortnight off, is something we can barely remember let alone expect. I suspect this year may end up being another damp squib, as the Gulf Stream - source of all our old glorious summers - slows down and drifts away from our shores. I find myself thinking of my Geography degree all the time now, and the uncanny truth that global warming will actually cool our country down. I still believe in fairy tales, and the story of hot summers to come, but we all have to grow up sometime.

 

Speaking of growing up, the Tiny One is talking like he was a year older than two, and we're all so lucky to experience his personality, his opinions and his quirks as a result of it. He is such a big boy in a small boy's body, and follows his older brother around all the time, echoing his sentences, hoping for his attention, laughing at his jokes. The Little One is nearly four. Serious, strong of opinion, fragile of emotion at times, and yet with such a fun and funny side. He rides, balances and plays like a child several years older, and I know that as soon as he's old enough to join in our village's cricket and football activities, he'll be flying. Despite his activity and physical prowess, he's also a wonderful concentrator, meticulous and imaginative in his play, advanced in his questioning, keen on his pattern finding, logical in his thinking.

 

The Big One, oh my. An early GCSE, girlfriends, hill walks with friends, Warhammer championships... he is such an independent spirit, in some ways so mature for his age, in others still so adolescent. This year has been easier than the last, as his body and mind become more accustomed to the testosterone of late childhood; as he walks more comfortably in the footsteps of a man. Sometimes I feel that he's so independent, he's almost and not quite my boy any more. I often view him as another adult (yet a surly one) in the house, and grasp tightly to those moments when he still needs me or shares some of himself. It's a funny thing, this growing up. When you think of it with your toddlers, you don't realise that as they reach their teenage years it's not so much growing up as growing away. It's an education for both of us, and while it's a little sad, it's also lovely to see glimpses of the man he will become.

 

My lovely husband is still working hard, but despairing of the cuts, bureaucracy and nonsensical decisions in his work, and dreaming of better times. He walks up hills alone most weeks, and we've come to a fair arrangement whereby his half day of walking while I 'babysit' is matched by a half day of sewing for me. Though, as you can imagine, my half day always gets curtailed one way or another! I love him but miss him. It's hard living with a man working shifts, small children taking all your time, and constant DIY and errands to do on days off. We try our hardest to get family time and couple time every week, and are still dreaming of a future when the whole family can head up a hill together, once all our legs are strong enough (and hoping we all have the passion for it).

 

I am sewing more at the moment, and my heart and soul are steadied, settled and smitten by it. My brother's quilt is finished, I've made and gifted a lovely drawstring bag, and I have two more and a cushion cover on the go. It's still often a difficult and frustrating balance between the sewing, all my responsibilities and everyone else's needs, but while things are flowing a bit better I'm going with it. I'll be showing you some of the sewing very soon.

 

I'm baking once a week; the craving to eat sugar versus the craving to bake seems to have lead to this sort of regular irregularity. I'm also making almost all our bread in the bread maker, and have been doing so since November. It's a lovely habit to have gotten into, and satisfying in every sense of the word. I'll be sharing some of my loaves here soon too.

 

The Little One is at nursery and the Tiny One is playing by my feet, little men and vehicles engaged in important work, and lots of talk of spiders. My lovely husband has just returned from his walk (he worked at the weekend, and is now on two days off - this walk earns me my sewing tomorrow!). There's a shoulder of lamb slow cooking in the oven, very gently softening til dinner time, and I've got a loaf of seeded bread due to get started in the breadmaker, a pea and lettuce soup awaiting cooking for lunch, and some peppers to blacken then skin. The sun is out, though rain is threatening, and I'm debating whether to plead for a few hours of family gardening after lunch (the lovely husband needs some heavy persuasion to garden, despite an alleged interest in it), ditch the gardening idea and go through a walk through our local gorge, or force myself to take the boys swimming before the Big One needs collecting from astronomy after school.

 

You may notice that none of those activities involve me sitting here, writing on the computer, and so I say goodbye and thank you for reading!

 

 

Wandering: winter to spring

A couple of weeks ago, I took a twenty minute walk with my two youngest boys. It took two hours. And they were glorious. It's amazing the things you notice and appreciate when moving at a child's pace. We stopped to feel the last of the snow, noted all the yellow flowers (funny that so many of the first blooms should be such a sunny, optimistic colour), talked about new shoots and how they grew, went fungi spotting, and surveyed the first signs of life in the kings of the wood: the trees. There was so much brown and green around, but they were the least dull colours you could see, suffused as they were with such promise and being such cauldrons of life. Be languid on one of your walks one day. Notice everything.

Making: changes

We have been waiting for the change-over from winter to spring. And here it is. Some days are still hat & gloves weather, like the photo of the Tiny One above. Other days, like yesterday, the windows are flung open, the jumpers are discarded, and the garden becomes a room in our home.

 

I have been making changes with the blog design. There may still be a little tinkering to do but why wait to write because of that?

 

I want to tell you that some days I feel so myself and other days are still playing catch-up. It's like the difference between riding a wave on a surfboard or swimming in it. There's no drowning going on, but the wave riding is the hope I'm heading for.

 

I have so many plans and ideas that just tinkle from my head, dance merrily on the floor below me then wander off to get lost somewhere. Time keeps marching on, life keeps needing to be lived, and I am now settling down to that rhythm. I'm doing what I can, rather than living always frustrated at the lack of time to do what I could have done.

 

There has been precious little sewing going on since Christmas, and what I have done has run away without a photograph. I made my parents a king-size quilt, a mammoth task, and I am still waiting to show it to you. I finished sewing my sister-in-law's belated Christmas presents. I've made a cape for a boy's birthday. I've made a one-strand mobile for myself. And right now I'm in the middle of sewing another king-size quilt, this time for my brother. As normal service resumes on this blog, I'll show you as many of these as I can.

 

But I want to tell you that as I sat at my sewing machine yesterday for the first time in a fortnight, and heard the first whizz of the needle as it woke from its slumber, my eyes pricked with tears. The kind that you get when the television shows you a happy ending, a cured child, or a couple brought together at last. Part of me felt silly at being so pathetic. But the rest of me felt that quiet joy and ease that comes with finding yourself again, and smiled at it. Everything about sewing tells me who I am. And sometimes I need reminding.

Nice Spring if you can get it

This was a week ago, early one morning.

 

I won't even bother showing you today. It's too depressing. There's a blizzard outside, several inches of snow and over a foot banked up in places. A bitterly cold easterly wind is roaring through the valley. It is sending the snow under our roof slates and there are buckets catching all the drips from our attic ceilings. It will take some time to dry out when all this weather's calmed down, and then of course there will be the cost of re-tiling our roof. We've had leaks before but this is by far the worst. I am trying to remain philosophical about it.

 

In other news...

: : I finished sewing my parents' quilt and gifted it to them. No photos. I'm having a strange photo famine at the moment that I need to make an effort to rectify.

: : I'm sewing a quilt for my brother now. And there's another one waiting in the wings for my auntie.

: : The two little boys are their own little gang. Watching them play together is just heaven on earth. The occasional squabbles are not. But then, of course, no siblings grow up without squabbles.

: : Our windows are also leaking. Our boiler broke. So did our fridge-freezer (four times), needing replacing. And our outside drain was badly blocked for sometime before the nice man came and jet washed it (but left a pipe facing upwards, causing the water from our sink to back up and flood under the cabinet and causing the aforementioned boiler to break). Trouble doesn't come in three's. The stress levels are undulating. The bank balance is sinking. I am trying to have an 'oh well' attitude about it.

: : I am typing this with a Little One on one side and a Tiny One on the other. Both are alternating between interfering with my typing, playing with toys on the desk, and practising their counting. I think I may have to vacate the computer rapidly!

: : Nearly Easter. Nearly the Tiny One's second birthday (oh my).

: : And time for me to decide whether to ramp this blogging up a gear or finish it altogether.

 

On that note, and with a nagging boy desperate to get on Word to type numbers in different colours, I shall leave you.

May Day - or my attempt to be 'glass half full'

Happy May Day to you all (yes it was yesterday, but I started writing this yesterday). A day to celebrate the start of summer in the fields, fecundity in flora and fauna, warmth on the ground, and a community to share it all with.

The reality: we've had two or three days without rain in the past week. That makes two or three days in the last month, almost. It has been the wettest April on record. I drove out on Sunday around midday, at the car thermostat said 3.5oC. I'm itching to ditch the jumpers, to see some blue in the sky, to leave the kitchen door open so we can all flow in and out to the garden. I have to say, I'm not feeling very May-ish.

But I am trying to count my blessings and mark my glass as half full. The photos here today (lovely photographing: lovely husband) are from our day at the zoo, when it was dry and we all had such a fabulous time. The rain has brought more time for indoor activities all together. The food in our fridge is gradually changing as British asparagus and rhubarb start to arrive (heavenly). And spring will come, eventually.

PS I crossed my fingers when I wrote that.

Nine things

The week that was; the week that will be...

Forest Floor fabric by Central Park, found here at Fabric Rehab

1. The Tiny One is coming on in leaps and bounds, quite literally. In the past few weeks, he has learnt to walk along holding onto his ride-on car, to turn it round a corner, to sit on it and push himself along - and backwards, climb the stairs, get down the stairs, stand without holding on, and screeeeeeem!
2. My sewing is coming along too. I am getting onto the sewing machine several times a week, often in the afternoons while the Tiny One sleeps and the Little One plays around, next to or on me. Even then, I love it.
3. We have had some lovely short walks, the two littlest and I, despite the drizzle. The secateurs come with us and I try and get a few sprigs of this and that for my kitchen table.
4. Speaking of which, there are buds everywhere. The uncommonly warm, dry March has given way to a cold, drizzly April. But the dip in the weather has taken the turbo-charge out of spring and let it take a more leisurely pace. I'm glad. More time to enjoy it.
5. We've visited our local Bluebell Wood twice in the last week. The floor is carpeted in bluebell leaves and there is the occasional fuzz of distant blue as they begin to bloom. So excited! We'll be going again before the week is out. And I have this post by Dragonfly in my mind as I try to keep patient.
6. Not much baking here lately, other than the burst of Easter bread and cake making (watch this space). I have plans to change it. A cake a fortnight, anyone? It's part of the plan to keep connected with my teenager. The Big One is increasingly independent and responsible for himself. But I don't want him to only be an annex to the family. Or continue being surly! We are trying to find ways to include him more without boring him, spend time with him on his terms, and talk to him with reasonable, adult conversations rather than just being cross with each other.
7. More card plans for the week to come. And present making. A dear friend has had a baby, and babies must have mobiles!
8. Shock horror, I plan to actually put some of my pinterest pins into action. That's where I'm heading after this.
9. And lastly, I have almost finished reading Alison McNicol's Craft Business Handbook. I have lots of ideas and plans, but I am forcing myself to take it very slow: it is two years until the Tiny One goes to nursery and I have mornings without children around. Until then, I have to pace myself. I don't want to wish their youngest years away. They may be hard, but they are also the loveliest years we'll have.
 

Coming and going

Just look at these beautiful spring bulbs in bloom. Yes, it was spring. In fact, it was practically summer.

Two weeks ago, we were sat in the garden all day, short-sleeved tops on, ice lollies in hand. I was slow in remembering the sunscreen and the Little One got slight sunburn on the back of his neck. The Tiny One crawled in and out of the house like the outside was a second room. I dug out my flip flops.

This morning we woke to arctic temperatures, snow everywhere, fierce gale force winds and a blizzard blowing. The snow continued all morning. The power kept cutting out, the mobiles and TV went down and have yet to work again. Jumpers back on; two little boys with colds. My knuckles are slowly freezing-over as I write this.

Global bloomin' warming or just freak weather... I don't care what caused it, I want my spring back!

Another wandering Wednesday

There were lambs to be seen. Fresh as the newly mown grass on our walk. New as the spring bulbs in flower. Delicate as the gauzy blossom. Young and so delighted to be gambolling on our hillsides. It made me wonder:

• Do those born in the countryside still get the same sense of wide-eyed excitement and childlike glee at the sight of the first spring lambs?
• What about the farmers - do they also feel like this or is lamb simply livestock?
• How do such glorious, giddy little creatures - so full of skippity energy - turn into the sedate, mundane sheep? (No offence sheep, but you do seem to have lost your sense of lamblike wonder).
• And are we just as bad? Oh I hope not. I'd like to still be making a fool out of myself over spring's hatchlings, sucklings and sproutings when I'm old and grey.

By the way, there were also tiny toads whenever our steps took us streamside, heading from winter hibernation to the scent of water. They were so lovely to watch and we saw so many, crawling and pouncing their way home. But I won't show you the photos of the macabre sight of so many who had reached a squashy end en route to their earthly heaven. Go slower cars, there are toads about!

Spring has sprung

The Spring Equinox was yesterday. We are officially in Spring and I am going just a little bit la-la-crazy for it. A big welcome!

I have lots of new beginnings to show you and to write about over the next few days. Watch this space!

Wandering Wednesday

Walking is good for the soul. Fresh, clear air filling the cavities of your skull; earth tramped beneath your feet; eyes full of nature and weather; ears full of  birdsong and chattering water.

There is a glorious story to tell you of our walk last Wednesday. It includes streams, canals and mill ponds. Canadian geese pressing pause and refresh on their migratory journey. Ducks in gentle pairs, horses breaking into a run, coots sat atop miniature nest islands. Old railway buildings reinvigorated or left to delicately decay. Old mill buildings existing only in ghostly echo; old mill sluice gates rusting and mossing over, turning from engineering utility to al fresco art. The first hawthorn blossom innocently white yet singing so loud and brashly of spring. Gorse bushes yellow as sunflowers in midsummer; magnolias on abandoned manor driveways whispering an excited promise of glory; daffodils audaciously growing from dry-stone walls. Doesn't that sound like a story worth reading?

There is another story I can tell you too. It involves tears and tantrums over stones in shoes, bunched-up socks in shoes, the wrong snacks being brought, tired legs, tired feet, carries versus buggy boards, and coats versus jumpers. There is a baby sleeping gently but at the 'wrong' time, leading to a ruined afternoon. There are slow footsteps and short strides leading to a late lunch and a grumpy car return. In fairness, there is also joy at the ducks and birds, laughter at buggy pushing, and long stretches of walking beyond toddler years. There is time as a family, jovial greetings with strangers, enthusiastic sightings of yellow diggers and men at work.

The problem is that, Jekyll and Hyde-style, these two stories co-exist on the same walk, and I am not sure how to do justice to both in one telling. So I am leaving you with these worded snippets, a few photographs courtesy of the lovely husband, and a sneaky view of the darling but demanding Little One, happily tramping along with precious bear long after the grumblings and tantrums, and a little before the late lunch meltdown. Enjoy.

 T