The days leading up to Lughnasadh are often a reminder of what lies ahead. Oftentimes rain and grey sky prevail, making the cottage more like the cave it becomes in late Autumn and Winter.
This cave-like view from the back door seems to sum it up!
However, the flowers on display offer a reminder that Summer continues to hold sway in the shadows cast by the Lughnasadh light.
And it is quite mesmeric just how the dimming light brings paintings to life. Art galleries would be so much more alive if natural light was the way of illumination…
The way that still life can capture real life…
…and flowers can create added dimension to a painting. 
Even my fairy doll seems to breathe despite her dusty mantle!
For me, the light is all! This was the way my ancestors marked time and place. The changing light was their anchor for each day, each season…even the night sky shone time and place for them!
My book is near to an end. I had promised myself Lughnasadh as a point of birth, before the Celtic New Year of Samhain and it is almost ready for the printers in my local town to take charge of the next part of its journey into the light.
I am designing the cover, as I have done for all my work. Once I am happy with it I shall put it up on this website for preorder. In this way I can set to address the envelopes in which it will begin it’s final journey from Bealtaine Cottage to you.
In the meantime, harvests are to be reaped, with equal amounts left for the life around me, for it is this growing life that has energised and nurtured me.
My trusty friend, Jack, has watched the changing light with me, sitting at my feet wherever I rest.
The growing fertility of the land has drawn my physical energies out into the enchantment of the woodland.
The delight of rain caught for a moment on leaves, again a reminder of the power of the light.
Hooks that were set down in preparation for another task, now rusted and forgotten as time moved on.
Young grapes waiting patiently for the rain of Lughnasadh to plump them and the late Summer sun to hasten them for eating.
And even the tiniest of spiders holding sway in the fading light.
While outside the Sedum is neutral whilst waiting for its colour to be bestowed by Autumn…and why it’s called Autumn Joy!
(Sedum Autumn Joy. Sedum Autumn Joy will bring fabulous colour to a mixed border or cottage garden in late summer. It produces neat clumps and long-lasting vivid flowers. A great plant for suppressing weeds and growing between gaps in pavements. Sedums are highly attractive to butterflies and insects.)
Cotoneaster is heavy with berries throughout the woodland gardens and around the cottage…this one grows up the corner of the cottage near the barn.
Blessings of Lughnasadh to you XXX