Bluebell Beauty

 

It's been another cool and unreliable spring, and we had to just seize the moment and head off to the bluebell woods on Wednesday morning, spontaneously abandoning maths books.  We didn't even pack a picnic - just through some snacks in my bag, grabbed the dog and the camera and drove off.

 

 It just never ever ever, fails to  delight us!

 

 

Every sense is held captive to the magic of the woods - the sweet, cool, honey fragrance of the flowers and the green smell of the fresh, young spring - the sound of the rejoicing birds and the bees - the amazing blue that seems like a hallucination when we turn a corner and suddenly there it is, flooding out among the trees.

 

 

Every year, the children are almost overwhelmed.  The spring time woods and our traditional visit are well-remembered and much anticipated but the beauty is so amazing, so other worldly - the whole place completely transformed into something out of a story book by the over-flowing of a fairy's garden.

 

 

 It does my heart such good to watch Kitten running as swift and graceful as a deer along the narrow little pathways among the bluebells, usually with Coco dashing behind, ears flung out like wings, and to watch Mouse unbend a little and stalk about majestically with a staff in his hands as if he was exploring an undiscovered land.

 

When we go the woods are always quiet, but I watch the mostly elderly couples who pass by, and I ponder the years to come.  Will we come here with teenagers who try to sulk or act cool but get won over by the beauty and the memories? When the children have grown and gone out to live their own lives, if they will share this tradition with their own little ones? Will Oz and I will still come here, in decades to come, white haired and alone except for a dog, to walk and wonder?

 

In such an ancient place, where the slow years turn, where flowers bloom and fade and bloom again, where leaves grow and fall and grow once more, such questions seem natural and nonthreatening.

 

I have been reeling all day since I accidentally stumbled across news of the nightmare come to life on the streets of London, and I didn't want to post these photos and share some happy moments, because it seemed an insult to the young man who died, to his family, to those who had to witness the atrocity.

But then I thought that actually love and beauty and joy are an irrefutable answer to the hate and rage and insanity of the murderers.

 

The world is full of sad and terrible and ugly things. But God is love.  And the way to change the world is to love the world, the creation and those we share it with.  The way to stop hate or killing or fear or pain is not to add more hate, killing, fear and pain to the world.  When we celebrate real beauty, notice goodness in others, express patience, offer forgiveness, live out peace, and open our hearts to love, we are working with God to defeat the evil that turns ordinary people into conduits of death.

 ^"My little children," wrote the Apostle John in his first letter, "let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.... Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.   In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. ...Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another... If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?   And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also."

20/20 Vision: May

I've decided on the 20th of the month to take 20 photos without fussing over composition or editing that tell the story of our day in some way.

 

 It causes shouts of excitement every time the couple in the weather house swap places.  The woman was out today, which was good news.

 Every morning there are new flowers in the garden and I  am just thrilled that finally  the peonies are making buds - perhaps we will have peony flowers this year!

 

The children seize every chance to use the play stucture their daddy made for them - there is a cosy little room with ladders and trapdoors for access under the platform where Mouse is standing.

 

 

The pond seethes with tadpoles - they need to be fed twice a day which sends them into an aboslute frenzy.  It is endlessly fascinating to sit on the wall around the pond and watch them, the minnows and the snails busy in their little green world.

 

 

How many times a day do I look down and see this lovely little face peeping up at me? Always a joy!

 

We're really happy with how the garden is coming together this year.  I love this view.

 

 

Kitten brought this lilac home from a bike ride with Oz and it scents the table during lessons.

 

 Kitten literally shook with joy to have a new spelling book and start using it this morning. Today we did our morning gathering, maths, language arts, history and art.

 We are studying Ancient Greece  and made pastelli today as we start to prepare for a symposium of our own.

 Our darling Kitten is loving her lessons - changing educational tactics mid-stream has been a big change for us all but a good one.

 

 Over the past couple of weeks the children made oil lamps from clay.  They painted them today.

 

 The idea of a symposium is thrilling for the children - on Wednesday we will try lighting the lamps!

 Mouse has been finding things challenging recently - he had a huge health scare last week, spent the day at A&E having MRIs, blood tests and a lumbar puncture, and we're all still coming to terms with it - but he's still our sweet boy and I adore him.

 

 

On Mondays we enjoy a visit from Kitten's "god sister" before the girls go to Rainbows together - the children always play schools (and little P is a stern teacher who sends children to the "sweat box"!)

 

Walking home from taking the girls to Rainbows, Mouse and I enjoyed the wild flowers.  It's lovely to see them in the heart of a city.

 

 Lilacs always remind me of growing up, with lilac trees in the front garden.

 

 We pulled together a bouquet for the table with some of the wildflowers, lilacs and columbines from  the garden.  It lifted my spirits so much.

 

 Mouse just loves to play Uno, so we had a few games while we waited for Kitten, and then played some more with her on her return. 

Kitten brought home an invitation to attend her promise evening for Rainbows - she's loved this opportunity and is getting a lot out of it.

 

Some more scrap booking for me tonight - still working on 2011 and 2012 photos, and I'm at the stage of  just wanting to get them done and move on with my life!

may in the garden

Lately we have been enjoying the blossom on the little apple tree in Daisy's garden. They are so lovely in all their shades of pink, opening into white. Kitten thought it was another miracle from Daisy - as we all thought it was when the tree blossomed in the autumn, the year Daisy died - but as the big bumble bees bump around among the flowers and the small honey bees dart in and out, the totally normal, expected miracle of blossom in spring is just as lovely as a "miraculous" surprise blossoming in autumn.

Our tiny pond is full of minnows and tadpoles. We spend ages sitting on the little wall around the pool garden, just watching and waiting for the little shoal of minnows to emerge from the deeper water below the weed and slip among the taddies at the shallow end.  There is something so fascinating about their cool, green world and the busy lives they are leading, open to our observation, familiar from childhood and yet somehow still so mysterious.

And now it's that time of year when we start to eat most of our meals outside and the children have been asking to do our morning gathering outside too - we sing "Immaculate Mary" each school day in May, and it feels so right to be sitting outside beneath the big apple tree singing a hymn in praise of the mother of God. Oz has been hard at work building a new play structure for the children, laying the new paving area and getting the hen coop ready for the per chickens the children have been patiently waiting for since last autumn, and we have done a little helping, a little planting of seeds, the tiniest bit of weeding and a whole lot of just being and playing out there with him. It seems as if this year will be a good one in our back garden.

This has been a slow, late spring but now it has become warm and gentle, full of blossom and beauty.

We had a wonderful day out at Castle Acre, one of our favourite places to go, during our Family Fun Week.  At the edge of a tiny village (mostly pubs and tea rooms - we always come out of season, but in the summer it must be very busy!), there is a ruined castle - just grass and old walls.

 

 It's a lovely place to go because there is nothing there except sky, stone and soil, so the mind and heart are free to make of it what they will.  The children ran about exploring the amazing earth works and the huge expanses of flint walls.  They especially enjoyed poking about in mole hills for "treasures" brought to the surface by the moles. 

 

 Apart from the pneumatic drill some work men were using to dig away concrete up at the castle bailey and the Tornado jets that kept screaming over, it was very actually strangely peaceful - just birdsong and over the course of an afternoon maybe a dozen other people walking by, many with their dogs.  Of course, when the workmen aren't there and the jets aren't ripping through the sky it is even better - just a place outside time.
 

 

The collection of treasures next to the picnic bag grew - an old buckle, a round metal thing, some little animal's jaw bone, a piece of pottery, a fragment of china...
 

 

We ate sausage rolls, hard boiled eggs, cheese and pickle sandwiches, oranges, a cake Kitten baked - all of which was, of course, that much yummier eaten on the grass under a blue sky. 

The children disappeared over one earth bank and then popped up on a wall at the other side of the castle a moment later.  Oz read and I knitted.  Birds sang.  Wagtails strutted about.  We all watched for ages as an ant laboured mightily to carry a flake of pastry as big as he was through a jungle of grass stems.

 

 

It was one of those days when everything was right.  The amount of time we spent playing frisbee and scrambling up or teetering down steep earth banks was perfectly balanced with the amount we spent sprawled on the grass talking about nothing.   

 



 

The number of times a child complained or whined or repeated the same question was equalled by the number of times they caught their breath in wonder or laughed as if they and the world were both brand new.

 



 

It was such a gift of a day. I am so thankful we went and that all this amazing history is just literally lying around the countryside.

 We've designated this past week as "Family Fun Week" - we all needed it.  We bought a frisbee and played with it at the park and on our day out.  We also bought a bag full of water pistols which gave us an entire afternoon of hilarity - especially when the children and I ganged up on Oz and attacked him in the house! 

 We've had a barbeque, been on a night time walk at the heath, bounced on the trampoline with the hose pipe spraying "rain", baked a cake, and we watched a funny Muppets movie.  We've all pursued crafts - Oz and Mouse carved spoons, I knitted home and away, Kitten made cards.  We've spent ages sitting next to the pond and watching the tadpoles while being serenaded from the oak tree by wrens and goldfinches and blackbirds - beautiful background music indeed - and it's been such a pleasure to have hours to spend doing nothing.

 

 

We met up with friends at the park and talked and/or played until we were exhausted and "needed" a chinese take away for supper!  We went to visit a new little baby girl, bearing gifts, and had a lovely visit with her mama and big sisters.

 

It's just been a whole bunch of fun and messing about, a lot of saying yes and a lot of us bigger people allowing ourselves to be silly - and the fact that I am fat and 38 doesn't mean I can't run about my back garden squealing and spraying my children with a water pistol like my life depended on it!

Birthday gifts

 

 

Our adorable girl turned six and so naturally we made her some things.  I renewed her Baby Daisy with a new wig of alpaca hair, and made her a mermaid costume, a new dress and a set of fairy wings. 

 

 

 Her Dada made her a spoon (and also a spatula) for her to use when she helps to cook.  Her pleasure when she squeezed the package and guessed that her dada had given her a spoon of her very own was so sweet!

 

 We had a lovely little family lunch to celebrate Kitten's and Oscar's birthdays on Sunday - it was beautifully relaxed and fun.  It was so nice to do something special for this wonderful man and adorable daughter of mine, and to share it with our fantastic family.

 

 

 We are so thankful for the gift that Kitten is to our whole family - with her sweet temper, kindness, helpfulness and cheerfulness.  She is light and love personified.  She is so funny and entertaining, keeps us all laughing and giggling.  She believes mermaids are real and likes nail varnish, sums and learning to read.  She lives to craft and draw, and everything she makes she immediately wants to give away.  That beautiful heart of hers is her best feature.

 

 

 It was such a delight to be marking these special days with the family as usual, and to be together: eating pasta, sipping wine, inhaling desserts, laughing together.  Nothing matches in our house as we never have enough matching crockery, cutlery, napkins or glasses.  The extended table barely fits in the dining room, the children have to sit at a little kiddy table, and always at least one adult ends up sitting at the corner on a low folding chair with their chin practically on the table  - but none of that matters as glasses are filled, plates heaped and the conversation and teasing and laughing begins.

 

 

So happy we have our girl.  I can't believe she is six.