small summery things

Strictly speaking it is still Spring (my favourite season) but with the weather as it has been over the last week, it has felt like Summer. Spring has moved on from the early, damp dark days of spiky new shoots and marvellous earthy smells. The landscape is filled with every colour of green there ever was, and the hedgerows are bursting with flowers. I would fill the house with jugs full of cow parsley in a heartbeat! There is a special magic about the english summer. To me, it's an intoxicatingly heady brew *sigh*

Stonehenge and Golden Cap on Mid summer's day

fetes

elderflower cordial

the big fat velvety bottoms of bumble bees

the dawn chorus

bluebells

Dreadzone

the sound of leather on willow and the polite applause of the village cricket match (even though the actual game itself  is Satan's work.....)

being able to wear flip-flops and no coat every day

blissfully long, light evenings

eating sun-warmed strawberries

beach huts

hearing the sound of the swallows as they swoop and loop in the sky

feeling a breeze on your skin

my babies in their sunhats splashing about in our backyard riviera paddling pool

PIMMS!!!! 

girl friends

I have the most spectacular group of female friends. Between them, the intelligence and talent is incredible. They are all wonderfully generous, kind and thoughtful. I love each of them infinitely. They are magnificent women. This post is about some of the special little things I especially adore about them as individuals. These little personal endearments make me smile.

When we say goodbye, she signs off with 'Turrah!'

Her delicious accent, which she tells me is the posh one from where she comes from.

Her presents to me and my family are so carefully thought out, and are more often than not made by her.

The fact that I have known her for longer than I haven't, and that she is prepared to be as silly as I am.

She is the big sister I never had and is a dead ringer for Liza Minelli.

Can make me laugh at myself when I am being an idiot.

Gave me calm, patient advice that allowed me to succeed at something I had such a wretched time at first time round.

She finds our biscuit crumbs hilarious.

She has an excellent laugh.

Gives lovely hugs, has great perspective on life, and will not take any bullshit.


LADIES, I SALUTE YOU!

saturday afternoon

Dancing with Ruby in the kitchen to ' Stand down Margaret' by The Beat

Horrible Histories

The graphics on  the newly pimped Tesco value range

Potting lupin, delphinium, geranium, rhodedendron and fuschia in the garden

Large pot of earl grey and one of my favourite cups

Baking millionaire's shortbread whilst listening to possibly the best sunny day album ever

wild flowers

I have a wonderful nature book called 'Collins Complete British Wildlife Photoguide'. I look at it all the time, and not just when I want to identify a bird or butterfly or flower I've found outside. The girls love the book too. Some of the names are spectacular! They sound like names in a Dickens book, or a sinister medical condition, or some kind of medieval insult. They make me smile. This is a list of my favourite wildflower names.

bastard balm

bloody cranesbill

blue fleabane

bog asphodel

butterbur

bog pimpernel

cloudberry

columbine

common cleavers

common fumitory

creeping cinquefoil

creeping jenny

devil's-bit scabious

enchanter's nightshade

eyebright

fairy flax

fat hen

feverfew

good king henry

hairy tare

hogweed

hounds tongue

ivy leaved toadflax

kidney vetch

lady's bedstraw

lady's mantle

lords-and-ladies

lousewort

maiden pink

melancholy thistle

navelwort

pignut

sea rocket

selfheal

shepherd's purse

slender hare's-ear

smooth cat's-ear

snakeshead fritilary

sneezewort

starry saxifrage

sticky mouse-ear

stinking hellebore

sun spurge

thrift

tormentil

viper's bugloss