Frugality, environmentalism and optimism…big helpings of each on this very wet Wednesday!
Much of this is embodied in the painted stone which nestles near the climbing Rose next to the veranda at Bealtaine Cottage.
I love natural shapes and garden ornaments that don’t cost the Earth.
This painted stone, embellished with water colour paint and some varnish to hold it together, was gifted to me by a child who visited Bealtaine, on a rainy day, like today, and who sat engaged in this task for simply ages, as his mother and I drank tea and shared time!
I adore Owls and have yet to see one here in the west of Ireland, so I keep Olly Owl perched on wood just outside the back door!
Never throw away an old Bear…they just keep improving with time!
My heart cries for the Brown Bears kept in captivity in China for their bile…absolutely horrid and cruel!
A peek out the window in the Den is as far as I go into the gardens today…much too wet!
On the upside, it’s incredibly mild!
I might mention all the divine charms of a bright spring day, but if you had never in your life utterly forgotten yourself in straining your eyes after the mounting lark, or in wandering through the still lanes when the fresh-opened blossoms fill them with a sacred silent beauty like that of fretted aisles, where would be the use of my descriptive catalogue?
GEORGE ELIOT, Adam Bede
In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast;In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove;In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
ALFRED, Lord TENNYSON, Locksley Hall