#SilentSunday 15/04/12

More adventures in black and white...

Some time back I did a Gallery post on the theme of Black & White. I said then how much I love black and white photographs, how the absence of colour just emphasises the detail within the picture, forcing you to look at the image in a different way.

You may think that autumn, with all it's fiery glory would not be the best time to focus on black and white. I mean surely all that fabulous colour in the trees against crisp blue skies wold make for such stunning images why would you want to drain the colour away?

When we went for a stroll along the canal at my mums the other week I flicked the B&W button, took the colour away and let the shapes, the patterns, the light and the shadows speak for themselves...

 

A Birthday Tea

This week my little man celebrates his 3rd birthday.

Now I could go on about how the time has flown and how he is growing up so fast etc etc.
But I won't.

Instead, here are some pictures from his birthday tea with family and friends in Nanny and Grampy's garden.
Enjoy! 



Opening pressies - OMG it's a picture with me in it! I am so sorry...



Getting the hang of this 'unwrapping' thing now...



See, Paige - this is how it's done...

Off for a wander around Nanny's garden

Cake!!!!

fun and frolics in the garden

A friendly, completely non-competitive (honest, guv) game
of footie - AKA Boys will be boys

more ball games

Time to go home now. Thank you for coming to my party!





If you want me, I'll be in the garden...

You may remember I blogged a few weeks back about having had enough of Winter.
Well, it would seem someone up there was listening (or it's just the natural turn of the seasons... take your pick ;) ) and today was the first day this year I have been able to properly spend in the garden.
Today we were tidying, pruning, moving things around, weeding and giving the lawn it's first mow of the season. It's lovely to see everything growing again. It's also nice to be able to stand in the bottom border and not lose my shoes in the sticky clay mud!

Tomorrow (perhaps as you are reading this even...) I shall be sitting here, enjoying the sunshine, drinking my coffee and dreaming of summer..

Dear Winter, Enough already!

Is it just me that is getting tired of the cold, grey, dreary weather? No I thought not...

I know, I know it's February, it's what the weather does in February (at least we go the snow all over and done earlier this winter!) but I HATE being cooped up indoors and so does Riley. He is a little braver than I, donning wellies and raincoat to go out and jump in 'Big Muddy Puddles' but he rarely lasts more than 15 minutes before coming back in for a hot chocolate and a 'bitbit'! 

Sadly our back garden is a: tiny, b: on a slope and c: northwest facing. What this means is that it gets no sunshine for the best part of four months over winter so it becomes a soggy, slippery mess, with the far end becoming almost 'bog' like. The clay soil clumps together in a sticky mass so even if I felt like going out and doing something it would be very difficult.

Now we are nearing the end of February though, and there is light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. The grey and dreary days are occasionally punctuated with short periods of intense sunshine as the clouds part, hinting at the promise of spring soon to come...

Whilst some people count the 1st March as the first day of Spring, I prefer to go with the Spring Equinox which falls on the 20th March this year - I guess it's the pagan in me :) On this day the hours of daylight and night are the same and from here until the Summer Solstice (21st June) the light reigns supreme as the sun grows stronger.

Most importantly, as the days lengthen, my little piece of England begins to feel warmth for the first time in months, the sticky mud starts to dry out a bit and the first green shoots begin to tentatively show their faces.

Honeysuckle - always the first to wake from the winter slumber...

Cleared away the dead foliage to reveal new green leaves of my Lemon Balm

Spring bulbs breaking through the wet clay soil.

One little patch must get a little more sun than the rest as the mini daffodil buds are eagerly bending their heads towards the warmth and light...

...and some clearly just couldn't hold back any longer!

What a welcome burst of sunshine :)

Spring is very nearly properly here at last!

Baby it's cold out there...

In fact cold is an understatement - someone told me it was -13 in the Forest today (7th December)! Most of last weeks snow had melted away by Sunday to be replaced by the most incredible 'frosting' I have ever seen :)

Jack has certainly been busy painting pretty pictures on our conservatory windows...

 

...not to mention my herbs.

Freeze dried sage? It looks so brittle it would just crumble between your fingers.

So me and the little man wrapped ourselves up nice and warm and ventured out into the chilly morning. The sun was actually shining when we set off but had disappeared behind a bank of cloud by the time we reached the end of the road. We are pretty exposed up here at one of the highest points of the Forest and the grey skies leant a certain bleakness to the view.

It's almost as if all the colour has been bleached out of the landscape...

...only the occasional flash of green leaf clinging on to the otherwise skeletal hedgerows.

But the cold wasn't going to stop Riley smiling...

...he loves the way the frosty grass crunches under his feet!

He also loved seeing the horses in their winter coats :)



But it's not all black, white and grey...

The bright scarlet berries look so pretty nestled among the shiny dark green holly leaves.

The extreme cold, frost and snow have been inconvenient for many people with some areas getting it much,much worse than we have, but it's unusual for us to experience it this side of Christmas. And, lets be honest, it makes snuggling up at home with the mulled wine, mince pies, pretty lights and colours of our decorations all the more appealing.

Stay warm people :)



Showcase Sunday - Feyth Crafts

Every now and then I stumble across a shop on Folksy that makes me stop and go 'Wow!' It might be something bright and colourful or beautifully simple, sometimes it's the uniqueness or sheer craftsmanship that catches my eye and that is what makes sites like Folksy so special.

The other day, whilst refreshing the home page over and over in the vain hope that I might spot one of my items there a beautiful face beamed up at me and I fell in love - head over heels. I truly hope my OH won't get jealous when he reads this but I must confess Mr Dimbleby stole my heart from the very first moment I laid eyes on him...

Mr Dimbleby

I simply had to see more so I clicked on the image and went to the shop of his creator Traci Howard,  Feyth Crafts and found a whole collection of fabulous fantasy creatures.

Now I have a life long obsession the artwork of Arthur Rackham whose illustrations filled a childhood copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales that I loved. (If you are not familiar with his work you could start here) His art is not your typical cute fluffy fairytale artwork we are used to seeing in kids books these days but quite dark and gloomy and at times even creepy - look closely at the twisted branches of his trees and you will see faces, old, wizened and utterly fascinating to me when I was 7 and still now 30 years on... At around the same time (when I was 6 or 7) my dad took me to see the amazing Jim Henson movie The Dark Crystal a fantasy collaboration with the artist Brian Froud (you may also recognise his style in another Jim Henson movie Labyrinth ) whose fairies, goblins and other fantasy creatures have captured my imagination ever since.



Nerval


So you see Mr Dimbleby and his associates (including Nerval here) immediately resonated with me - it was like discovering a physical manifestation of all my childhood fantasies. Here were the tiny, wizened Little People and Tree People I had always been looking for whenever we went for a walk in the woods or set up a den behind the garden shed...


Sleeping Elf








So why not let a little magic into your life and add introduce a Twog to your garden :)




Twog




 Exquisite is not a word I bandy about unnecessarily but I think it perfectly sums up Traci's work!
For more Twogs, Dragons and other fantasy creatures please visit Traci Howard's lovely shop Feyth Crafts or her website feythcrafts.com 

Wordless Wednesday...

Wordless Wednesday. Ripples...

An Autumn Walk Round Newent Lake.

Don't you just love this time of year? The weather today is horrendous - torrential rain, gusty winds that rattle our letter box and make the poor fir tree in our back garden sway alarmingly. It's proper 'staying-in-under-the-duvet-watching-tv' weather. Yesterday, however, was gorgeous.

Me and the little man went into Newent with Daddy and ran a few errands while he opened up the bike shop. Then, finding ourselves with some time on our hands we decided to get a bag of duck food from the local green grocers (30p!!) and go for a walk around Newent Lake, a tranquil spot just a stones throw from the Old Shambles Village .

The ducks formed and orderly queue...

...but quickly got stuck in!

It was warm in the sunshine but there was a definite autumn nip in the air and the signs of the changing season were everywhere. Fallen leaves, changing colours, berries and nuts and busy squirrels preparing for winter scarcity.

The water was very still and perfectly reflected the trees and sky...

In fact it was so still I had trouble working out which way up was the right way with this picture!

Riley loves the water and always stops at the bridges to gaze at the water running beneath...

How lucky we are to have such a beautiful place to visit so close by :)

Edited 28th May 2011

Whilst blog hopping (as you do) I stumbled across this lovely idea at The Boy and Me . An opportunity to show off a previous post that didn't do as well as you'd hoped, didn't get the views you would have liked and give it a second chance. This post was first published in October 2010 before I got involved in the mummy blogging community and Twitter. I chose this one mainly because I just love the photos so much. Hope you enjoy it this time round too :)