Wordless Wednesday: Spring in a Bowl

Growing

Playing catch-up: Cousin B's Birthday

Cousin B had her birthday during our Field Festival. She's been wanting a camper can for a looong time, and her dream is finally coming true. I whipped up something to go in her new home on wheels.

Perfect material, right? Although her's isn't a VW, it's still pretty cool. I went for a simple brick pattern (like my first baby quilt) to make a patchwork cushion.

Here is it planned out...

And finished! A very fun and easy make, just hope it goes with B's colourscheme for her camper!

Stay tuned for more posts - a few book reviews to come, and a lovely 2CC weekend!

xx

And the final flutters - Easter Monday and beyond...

Monday was bright and sunny despite the rains of the evening before.

It heralded a lot more departures : J to see E in London, Hopkinshaws on to the road to avoid holiday traffic by 9 and finally T and H after lunch. However we did mange to pack a little more in...

Hurdle and trough moving from the old sheep field. - 3 years ago I borrowed both space and Suffolk sheep from two sets of friends and put them together to have sheep from Easter to October half term for a few years. In this process I acquired some equipment - hurdles and feeders.  These have kindly sat in what is now Barton orchard anticipating the moment when life might change for us and sheep return. They are heavy and awkward so having help to move them was great and took us an hour rather than all day by myself.

We then set up Crook Peak for egg rolling and a picnic of Italian Easter bread in the shape of a sugared dove, a wonderful selection of cheeses, olives and tomatoes. The storm kettle did its bit too and we had tea on the very steep slopes of the south side of the Mendips. As ever the slope's steepness did for the eggs and we lost much of them in the smashingly stony trip down the hillside! 

Some clearing up and octonauts watching finished the day...

Tuesday 

Departure day for Little S, L and MB back to Cornhill terrace and genomics and nursery... However we fitted in a visit to see some Nubian goat kids and texel lambs and play in court farm park nearby.

And the final flag flutters of the weekend...

We managed to collect an enormous amount of lost property: three egg moulds, a pair of black shoes, a single large walking sock, a roll of glittery wrapping paper, a car key, a little French recipe book, a blue and maroon striped scarf, a computer charger, toothpaste... Much of this has an obvious home and has been posted or delivered back but if any if this is yours do get in touch. 

And Maidens' Piece is well and truly named - more to follow about the name! 

A home-holiday

 

For the first time in many years E has had a week at home, J has been off work and A & T have been free intermittently all at the same time!

 E's project has been a quilted and padded bag for Tilly which has been a fantastic feat of manipulation of layers of fabric inside out. More to follow in a post by E herself! J and A have been the helper elves and we have looked at our amazing Spring garden, watched the tank of tadpoles grow and fitted in a couple of films on Netflix and some games of Settlers.

Coombe Cottages looking its beautiful Spring time self.

Signs of Spring

Spring coming to my windowsill garden!

Spring coming for a new sewing project! (more to come on this later)

And most of all Spring coming to Two Coombe Cottages!

Bring it on!
 

xx

Miracles

It's funny how you can forget about things. This is a plant that has sat, looking just green and plain, in the conservatory all year - until now, when it shoots into life again! So many pot plants don't come up two years running, so this was a nice surprise.


And, an even better one. Do you remember what I said in this post that my peace lily had never flowered again? Well, look what has happened:

It all fits in with the card that A sent me last week.

Love to all E xx

Blue

The garden at Coombe Cottages is dominated by blue at the moment. Every autumn I carefully avoid digging up all the tiny forget me not seedlings that then survive the winter to give us the most amazing display of blueness in the spring. It makes it difficult to grow vegetables as there is no room for them until June as I cannot bear to dig the blue up! But somehow forget me nots do grasp a bit of sky at this amazing time of year...
And where E is has a wood with the same blueness but in the shape of bluebells - it's nice to think of us both being bathed in blue.

The first swallow of 2013!

Yesterday, the first day of May, I ran up the hill early, and just before getting to Hilltop Farm, there on the telephone wire, was my first swallow of this year! Last year's was on the 18th of April, and a similar date in 2011, so I suspect s/he and mates may have been around for a while and I haven't noticed. This is my mental pattern most springs with the first swallow though: I think I must just have been missing them, and then over the next few days notice increasing numbers, which suggests that that first one really was pretty early. I didn't get a picture, so  here's a link to one of Somerset's best birding photographers

swallow | Swallow - Hirundo rustica »

WildImaging

And when I got ten metres further, I met a couple of escaped lambs noisily roaming around outside the field where their mothers and the rest of the gang were. There were less than desperate to get back in, and rather than running away, came up and bashed my shins. Not bottle lambs though, as when I offered my fingers they didn't respond.

This is another cheat photo, being in fact one of Alison's lambs from three or four years ago, taken on a very misty morning with a very damp phone. Still it looks appealing, and they were!

Getting bigger......

The tadpoles have moved home to the big tank and are now getting through 2 large braised lettuce leaves daily. They are fantastic - doing sudden leaps and dives, hiding in the rock crevices and rehearsing to be frogs. No legs as yet but wonderful golden stripes and little beady eyes.

The blueness of the garden is also getting bigger - I made a wonderful posy for E and like to think of it with her windowsill garden. Soon the garden will be an ocean of forget-me-nots.

Growth

The tadpoles have done a growth spurt this week and are now even more definitely frogs-in-waiting. They have big bulbous abdomens and tiny eyes, and close up are beautifully stippled in brown and green. Next step are legs! None to be seen yet but I guess they will be soon. As I understand it that's when they move from their vegetarian stage to being omnivores with a penchant for meat. As we are a vegetarian household I'm going to stock up on fish food instead...as well as a much bigger tank with stones for them to crawl out on to.

The garden has also been transformed this week with the rise in temperature. All the primroses have flowered at once in a mass of yellow and mauve, there is bird song in the mornings, the flowering currant is covered in amazingly pink blossom and the grass needs cutting!