Grandad's garden

I remember a time when this was a golden paradise, manicured, cared for and tended.

Halcyon days when I was young, carefree and you were strong and to be looked up to.

Yard after yard of luscious green lawns, to dance, to swat a ball on, to race up and down.

And behind the tall trees on the edge of your natural kingdom, the secret passage that was formed by those kind trees which sisterly glee did share.

Oh those beautiful hydrangeas, reminiscent of bridesmaids, past,present and future.

Those ruby red Camelias who dropped onto the ground leaving a red carpet of gentility.

The apple trees a-plenty who held small red treats which would be devoured, 5, 10 at a time on a car journey back home, like sweets.

Memories abound.
The warm times, summer days, long and languorous.

And the grass-snake, beheaded,forlorn,who we found and displayed proudly.

Those affectionate honeybees who dashed here and there, not too busy to buzz a friendly hallo in our ears.
Afternoons spent in freedom.

The best games of Hide-and-seek. Half an acre of camouflage to deceive and conceal from a searching sibling.


Cups of tea and Ribena, "Warm, not hot!" and dinner eaten on round tin cat trays.

Brie cheese and pinecones collected for a wood burning fire.
The out of tune chime of a mantlepiece clock.

You are long gone and the glory days of this garden, a long distant but oh, so treasured memory.
This place so different, lonely somewhat without your tending hand.

Overgrown, a forlorn jungle?


No, vehmently no.
Beauty remains.

For your voice is in the rustle of the leaves.
Your hand is in those brilliant Camelias, heavenly and proud all over the garden that have fought age-bound neglect.
Your steadfastness is in the tall, proud secoia tree which towers above all other foliage in the garden.

Your love is in the many, many memories of past times.
I may not be able to see you, or even this place for much time longer.

You may be gone but in this place, you will remain, in my heart.
This place, my once-paradise, my land of dreams which you gave me, by your tender green hands.

Yes, I still I love this place. Though you are gone.

It's been just over a year since he died. I miss him greatly.

xx

April Scavenger Hunt

Coudl it be, could it be? Could it be, could it be? 
Could it be I have completed the Scavenger Hunt by the end of the month!?!?!
Yes, it could, oh frabjous day, Callooh Callay (she chortled in her joy)

Here was the list for April
April's List

Upside down

Here's the totem from the One World Garden at Hylands House park. This garden was built in celebration of a Scouts and Guides event there some years ago. Why upside you say?

Why come closer and see the merry frog who doth repose upside down in comparison to his animal companions..



Clouds

Oh, we could have gone SO many places with this (if you are a contributer to my weekly 'What is it?' posts, you may know I have no shortage of novelty cloud photos). Instead, I was delighted by the sight of the clouds behind the magnolia in my Grandad's front garden.

Chair

Back in Hylands house park with CBC. I deviously headed him towards the kids' playground remembering there was a storytelling chair there.  I was really suffering from wanderlust and definite 'being at home' ennu the day we went here, I absolutely did not want to be inside so CBC was dragged out on an expedition.

Something sweet

The 1st of April, I met my friend M for dinner in town.  We went to a new ice-cream parlour in town and had desserts each.  This was M's sundae. Mine was even bigger and more sickly but it didn't look half as photogenic.

Growth

The corkscrew hazel in my Grandad's garden has experienced many years of unhampered growth. I'd not come across/noticed it before but was fascinated and took many photos.

Glass

I peeked in the window at high-class perfume and toiletries vendor, Penhaligon's in Covent Garden, London, to spy the window display of chemistry flasks!

Bedroom

There is no way you're seeing a photo of my bedrooms (aka MESS/BOMB SITE/EMBARRASSING HEAP) so instead, I am showing you a view of my bedroom in Sussex where I stayed.  This little nook held my comfy single bed, with a wonderful view I could just access whilst lying in bed reading a book.  The rest of the room held a large space with a sofa, art desk, bookcases and windows on three sides! Delightful.

Rain


I missed the rain, any time it rained in this very unshowery April. So, I'm cheating and using a photo from my honeymoon in Switzerland.

Egg

I thought I'd try to be alternative with this one rather than the obvious easter egg or nest and eggs (though we were given fresh bantum eggs which would have been nice to photograph now I think of it!) and spied this Egg-shaped beauty chair at Bluewater shopping centre when meeting my dad for lunch.

Fresh

Ah, the BEAUTIFUL sight of fresh curly-kale, still on the plant. We then picked some and cooked it for lunch with pasta and goats cheese. Isn't it attractive!

Feet

I spied this dog  and his fluffy feet when we went to go and clean the narrowboat in Godalming,Surrey with my friends during the holiday.


Whatever you want

Since it is 'whatever you want', what I want is a few photos, so here we are!


What works of art these Irregular Choice shoes are. Sufficed to say, horrendously uncomfortable. I don't care what Schuh says, a size 41 is NOT a UK size 8! That is a 42! All of these pinched my feet.


I spied a little 7-spot lady bird. Someone suggested I should log this on some wildlife website to say it was in my garden but I can't remember who told me and what website it was. Can anyone help? (Louise??)
And finally, check out the tame heron.  He was about 2 metres away from me at Lakeside Shopping centre.  "What," you ask, "is he staring so fixedly at?"

That would be a large portion of KFC. He eyeballed that unfortunate guy for a good five minutes in hope of a chip or two, no doubt. My Dad and I found the audacity of this winged fellow amazing. When he finally flew off, a few people had to duck!

So that was my Scavenger Hunt. If you'd like to join in, and let me tell you, it is really good fun, taking the photos, deviously thinking of creative ideas, ostensibly leading your husband over to explore when knowing full well you have a target in mind, and finally, viewing and comparing the ingenuity of your fellow scavengers, do go and visit Jill at Made with Love who hosts this fun and creative hunt every month.


xxx

Sunflower, sunflower growing tall

When I think of sunflowers, inexplicably, I think of my beloved older sister. I can only attribute it to my Mum baking and icing her an incredible (purple and orange) sunflower cake for her birthday when we were young. My Mum used to bake the most incredible cakes, but I'm sure you guessed that after seeing my wedding cake masterpiece she made (which you can see here in my wedding reception post).

As usual, I have digressed and rambled away from the main point. THAT being, that it was my sister's birthday 2 weeks ago and I wanted to make her a card and for that strange reason, the idea of a quilled sunflower came into my head.  I searched the shed for my quilling tool and some A4 brown and orange paper which I cut into strips using the manual papershredder.

I must recommend quilling, it really is a lovely form of card and paper crafting. Very therapeutic and you can sit and coil papers around the 2-pronged quilling fork whilst watching TV or chatting rather like one would knit.  You can use quilling sizing tools (basically looks like a stencil or different sized circles) to regulate the size of all your coils but I am lazy and just use my eye-judgement. It can also look very effective through the combination of a coils and not too much skill!  I also like to make up some generic coloured coils and keep them in and old pill pot in case I want to make a quick card.

The difference between the different coils in the card are that the brown ones are coiled and then glued (you stick a cocktail stick into your glue and dab over the end which secures to the coil) or the orange ones are coiled and then you release it and catch it/stop it when it has uncoiled/loosened to a size you want. Then you dab the glue on the cocktail stick again.

I cut a circle of brown paper in order to centre the sunflower and give it a background and then used a hexagonal formation or coils to ensure uniformity.  To make the orange petals, once you've made the loose coil and glued it, you pinch the ends between your fingers and I twisted the outward ones slightly.
It looked a bit bare so I stuck some of the strips and then punched a few butterflies from my wedding butterfly punch.

What do you think?

Linking to Creative Mondays
and Pink Elephant Challenge this week where Anything goes!

Kill the moon?

Image borrowed from www.fashionofdoctorwho.tumblr 
That's Clara in it on the left. A random ASOS model is on the right.

Almost Tuesday so that can only mean a weekly dose of Doctor Who fangirling over here.
This was a totally last minute thought so forgive me if you feel it is rather too tenuous!
One of the most interesting, yet  frankly unbelieveable/ludicrous, episodes of Series Nine of Doctor Who was Kill the Moon in which Clara and the Doctor, plus irritating teen Courtney headed off to the moon which ended up covered in germs (large spidery things) that were there because they could sense something was moving under the surface which then turned out that that the Moon was in fact the egg of a large flying creature. See what I mean? Daft! However, the character development of Clara and the first proper full blown argument between Clara and the Doctor was a positive.

At the time, I KNEW I'd seen Clara's dress on Asos before watching. In fact, I had a voucher and considered buying it (yes, I am that sad) but then decided I didn't like it that much- it was more money than I wanted to spend, it was fairly generic floral shirt dress, largely shapeless, not my most favourite shades and in my much-maligned viscose  rather than a cotton, thus left a lot to be desired , so I left it.

Fast forward to today, as a fan of a shirt dress, I decided to wear this Cath Kidston shirt dress, bought a good 3 years ago (and spookily, last worn  here pretty much exactly this time of year).  It doesn't look very Cath, does it?  It reminds me of the Ceilia Birtwell prints for Uniqlo actually.  It was obviously one of her less memorable or popular prints. It reminded me of that pictured ASOS dress, so I teamed it with a yellow belt and Clarks lace up shoes.

I did feel it lacked a little colour so I DID wear it with a red cardie- it then picks out the red in the print.  Didn't bother to iron it though. Sorry about that. Not really sorry. (Sorry Julia, I know you like ironing!x)



Since it is TARDIS Tuesday, I thought I'd share this BRILLIANT Youtube video I found yesterday by accident. Do watch it for the year brilliance of the pianist and the clever Doctor Who costume changes!  TARDIS blue grand piano? Yes please! I would also like to get hold of the sheet music for this so I can learn it! My husband did a brilliant arrangement of Doctor Who for his Training Strings ensemble at school.



Hope all is well and please do go and say Hi to Maricel at TARDIS Tuesday AND if you want to watch Kill the Moon and see the Moon baby, watch here on Youtube



And today,I chose DOCTOR WHO rather than British Blue!
xxx

Hilarious afternoon today in which I taught Year 3 to dance the Scottish ceilidh dance, 'Dashing white sergeant'- totally hilarious- totally last minute since I had to cover a country dance lesson and the Sick teacher had her plans with her at home.  I had a thoroughly good time as did the kids!

SIA-Serendiptiously Snowdrops

This painting is Snowdrops by Katherine Cameron c.1900

I've been rather rubbish and missed Style imitating art for a few weeks- just kept forgetting about it but last week, I remembered on the Sunday and realised that an outfit I'd worn and taken a photo of the previous Sunday seemed to suit the colours and mood of the painting. This skirt was one of my other Post-Lent charity shop purchases. It is a Primark skirt but was brand new in the C.S and I really liked it.  The colours of the skirt and the top seemed to suit the painting as did the time of day and the background. The sleeves of the top reminded me of fallen leaves. I think I'm talking rubbish and clutching at straws here but you know...


Hope all is well with you. We've had a weekend of visiting people and it has been very nice but exhausting and we've got out of bed VERY late each day. Today, we had a rehearsal for a concert in July with the lady who introduced CBC and I, I always think of when we got together when I go there and smile.  We've named our new ensemble Harewood consort as that is the name of a woods near where she lives and because of all her rabbits!   I had a headache but managed to get through that and play on.  Thank the Lord for a bank holiday weekend next week and exciting because I have a first blogger meetup with one of my oldest blog friends and another pretty long-term lovely blog friend! Hurrah

xxx

What is it? #30

Greetings kind travellers in this blogosphere!  How are you? Well, I hope.

We have the 30th post of What is it?
I bring you an ambiguous cloud to analyse. When I photographed the above image, I saw likenesses that weren't clouds in them. But what do you see?  Please do leave a comment in the comments box, it would be wonderful to see if your mind is like mine, or crazier?!?!!

As to last episode's star, what was it?


Can you see it yet??? Ok, I'll help a bit...

Now can you see it?

So, let's add some detail...

JAWS!!!!!!!

(and down the bottom right a bit higher than the grass, there is an eye with a shut eye-lid, just randomly sitting there by itself.

What did the delectable commenters have to say about it?

12 comments:

1. 
   Michelle Outside London10:19 pm

   I'm new to this game so I see the giant wormy things from the film Tremors. Yep. Not sorry.
   I also saw the Wicked Witch though so perhaps we're on the same page?
   M x

   ReplyDelete
2. 
   RedSetter11:55 pm

   I spy.....big shark!
   
   Didn't see the witch in the last one till I read your bit then I totally saw it! How suggestible am I?

   ReplyDelete
3. 
   Julia1:15 am

   Seeing things in clouds is so much fun... In the middle of cloud photo I see a giant swordfish with it's snout open. In the lower cloud I see a folk angel in the air with it's long wings along side it's body, floating in the opposite direction of the swordfish.
   Have a fun week Kezzie. Your posts are always refreshing.
   Hugs,
   JB

   ReplyDelete
4. 
   Shamu Boo3:41 am

   The top bits look like the SHIELD Helicarrier going toe-to-toe with a Kree warship and the bottom part is a toucan bird.

   ReplyDelete
5. 
   Melanie4:44 am

   The cloud on the bottom right, a crocodile with dog eyes and ears, of course! The big snout is pointing to the left.

   ReplyDelete
6. 
   bevchen7:51 am

   The bottom cloud looks like a bird with a long beak. Maybe a pelican? In the middle one I see a face on the right-hand side. It looks like the old lady tree from Pochahontas (the Disney film).

   ReplyDelete
7. 
   Gary7:54 am

   There's an elephant on the left hand side of the bottom cloud, and the middle cloud looks like an alligator's mouth.

   ReplyDelete
8. 
   thrift deluxe7:54 am

   A shark and a T Rex for me this week!

   ReplyDelete
9. 
   Denise Sabs6:38 pm

   I saw 3 parts, I mean, 3 clouds :) The first part, higher, is nothing much than a cloud :) The second part is a shark :) And the third, at the bottom, is a wicked cunning biscuit laughing, planning to do something mischievous :) I guess I see too much!
   DenisesPlanet.com

   ReplyDelete
10. 
    Down by the sea8:56 pm

    I can see a dolphin in the first one and waves crashing on the beach in the second - I have spent too long by the sea! I'm sure you will love Totnes and there are some lovely places on the coast too. You can also take a boat trip along the river to Dartmouth. Sarah x

    ReplyDelete
11. 
    Pink Haired Princess6:02 pm

    Definitely a snarling shark in the centre with his mouth open, but the bottom clouds have the most wonderful little troll face to the top right, so cute!

    ReplyDelete
12. 
    Fundy Blue6:21 pm

    I'm brain dead this morning! Too many little sleep nights! LOL!

    ReplyDelete

Oooh, lots of shark references and alligator, pelican, long nosed/beaked creatures, so we were thinking similarly. Always fun when that happens.

Do have a go at this week's one!!!

xxx