Catching up

We're well past Là Fhèill Brìghde and Là na Caillich but neither went unnoticed for us here. Although given the weather it seems the Cailleach didn't go to her rest without a fight this year...

Since near the end of last year I've been struggling a lot more with chronic pain issues and I'm awaiting the results of another MRI to see if scar tissue from my previous surgery is the problem, or if the disc has just gone caput again (or maybe something else is up...) and will be attending a group physio session, that's intended to help me live within my limitations a little better, in the coming weeks.  All of this – and being busy with other work and some ongoing projects – means I haven't been up to much here on the blog, and celebrations have been scaled back to just about the bare bones lately. As I've written about before, when it comes to being somewhat challenged in the mobility area, it generally means that my devotions are dictated by how much I can handle at the time. I do, but I only do if I can, and as much as I can. And I'm OK with that.

So Là Fhèill Brìghde was pretty low key, although Rosie joined in with enthusiasm and gusto because this is her favourite time of year. I bought a new doll-making kit for us to make our dealbh Brìde with, and invited the kids to join in. Tom wasn't so keen – he's less interested in crafting than Rosie is – so it was just me and Rosie this year. As usual we made a few dollies and picked the one we thought worked best, and this is what we ended up with:

We feasted and sained, and lit some candles for Brìde to put in the window. I offered the honours to the kids, if one of them wanted to the lighting, but they both wanted to do it so we ended up deciding they should do a candle each; they lit, and I said the prayer, then went to invite Brìde in. Rosie was very excited to put our dealbh Brìde to bed, and Tom joined in by arranging a cow next to her.

Then we picked out a few pieces to put out for Brìde to bless on her nighttime rounds – this is serious business for Rosie, because she's taken the idea to heart. Ever since we left her favourite blanket out for Brìde to bless, she's insisted on having it on her bed every night so "Brìde will keep the bad dreams away." The blanket must go under the duvet so it's touching her directly; this is important. So important, in fact, that she didn't want to let go of the blanket for even one night, and even though I told her it's traditional so Brìde can bless it again. In the end we left out a different blanket instead.

The weather was pretty nasty so I put them in the shed, which I left propped open a little, so they'd stay put, but as it happened Mr Seren's plaid ended up on the opposite side of the garden by morning. It was only thanks to the fence post that it didn't get blown away entirely, and Mr Seren was pretty bemused to find his plaid flapping around. I guess it was a good job it wasn't his underwear...

A little later on in the month we went on a big long walk up to the forest I took a walk to last year at Là Fhèill Brìghde. This time I took the kids as well as the dogs and we got there right at the golden hour:

It's been a pretty mild winter but spring seems to have got off to a slow start in spite of the fact that a lot of trees started blossoming even before Hogmanay. Nature seems a little confused lately, and we didn't see many signs of spring on our walk. Plenty of mud, though:

For Là na Caillich we had a pretty vicious storm so we had to hold off on our usual a visit to the beach for the few days, but we got there in the end and made our offerings to the Cailleach and the Cailleachan. Now I'm just waiting for a bit of a dry spell so I can get out in the garden and start tidying things up (though I might have to get a gardener in this year, just to keep on top of the lawn). It's been such a wet winter that the lawn is more bog than anything at the moment and it's going to need resowing in places. Some of the plants I put in around the new pond are going to have to be replaced, too, because they just weren't able to cope with all the rain – I was worried that might happen. I have a gooseberry bush to put in, though, which I'm pretty pleased about (we'll hopefully be able to pick them for Lùnastal, as is traditional, though I'm not anticipating a crop for a while yet), but so far that's it. I haven't thought about what else I'm going to put in but I'm thinking about expanding the containers – bigger ones so I can maybe put a small fruit tree in, too.

So spring is officially here and a quarter of the year is gone already. Hopefully next week I'll be going to Edinburgh to see the Celts exhibition (again).

And finally, the pond

Ever since we visited my sister during the Easter holidays earlier this year, and Rosie spent the best part of a weekend making a whole fishing village for the wee pond in my sister's garden, Rosie's been obsessed with the idea of having one in our garden. A Big One. I quite liked the idea myself – if not for quite the same reasons as Rosie (it's not like I need much of an excuse to find a home for yet more fish) – and it also presented the opportunity to a) tidy up the garden and utilise an otherwise neglected and ugly space, and b) have a rethink about how I use my devotional space outside.

Our garden's layout is kind of awkward – you step out onto a flat patio with some decking and then the lawn is on a terrace about two metres above it, which is accessed by some steps. The lawn itself is mostly on a slope, and the flower bed is wedged up in the top right-hand corner at the back. When we moved in I extended the flower bed a little and put in the rowan and some fruit bushes, along with bits and pieces to create a wee shrine space. There's a tiny pond (or puddle...) and a cairn, and the plants I put in were intended to have some kind of seasonal link, or else were significant to me in some way – plants that remind me of some of my ancestors (those I knew before they died, like grandparents), and some juniper, which I can use for saining. Like so:

As you can see, I'm not the greatest of gardeners. In my enthusiasm to fill up space as quickly as possible I've over planted, and I feel so bad at the thought of thinning the bulbs out (I've nowhere else to put them and gardening shouldn't involve having to kill pretty things!!) they're taking over... It's all thriving, at least, I suppose. Though I'm going to have to thin the bulbs out this year, for sure.

Given the flower bed's situation – right up the top of a hill – it's a wee bit exposed to the neighbours and so the lack of privacy doesn't really encourage me to use it as an active shrine. The ground gets boggy in bad weather, too, which makes getting up there more of an adventure than I'd like. Over the years I've maintained it as much as I can with a view to creating a wildlife-friendly space, with the process of gardening itself being a kind of devotional act of sorts, in memory of my granddad (gardening was his passion). But while I make almost all of my offerings outside, I've always gravitated towards using the patio area, which is more private, instead of using the shrine for that kind of thing, which is what I'd originally intended.

So in committing to getting a pond, the obvious place to put it was just off to one side of the patio, where we have some ugly gravel going from the paving slabs to the fence (I presume it was put in as a moisture trap, so it's probably not something we should take out completely). The previous owners had tried to cover it up with some decking surrounding a gas-powered barbecue, but we didn't use that (too expensive) and the decking was rather worse for wear now, so something needed to be done with it sooner or later.

The soil isn't very deep round here so digging a hole for the pond wasn't going to give us much to work with, and let's face it, Mr Seren – who has a tendency to hiss dramatically at the sun before running back indoors – was never going to commit to digging it himself and it would be way too much for me to do. So instead we chose a raised pond – not the best solution, because I don't think it will be as wildlife friendly, for one, but it's better than nothing. Removing some of the gravel to get down to a flat, smooth surface took a few days or so (which I did myself, so I did it in short bursts, not wanting to over do it), and then it took a few trips to the DIY store to get enough sand to make a safe, flat base to put the pond on. All in all, the pond is about 700 litres (around 150 gallons) when full, but Mr Seren's worried about the mess that would make if it burst, so we're playing it safe, for now, and it's about two thirds full at the moment.

A trip to the garden centre procured some planters and plants to go in. As I did with the flower bed before, I wanted to put in plants that are significant in some way (and will encourage bees etc), but I was less successful in getting the specific ones I wanted this time around; I think it's not the best time of year to start off planting for a lot of the kind of plants that I'm after. I couldn't find any wild primroses for sale, or any wildflowers like cowslips and so on – which are past flowering now – and it's not really the best time to try and sow my own... I've made do with some blue primroses, and bought a couple of poppies (in memory of my granddad), a foxglove (for the spirits), some lavender and rosemary (because I like smelly plants), along with some daisies, an anemone, an astilbe, and... more. I put in some evergreens to give a bit of greenery in the winter, and I managed to find some juniper, too – a common juniper this time. When I got it, I decided to take a walk along the coastal path from the garden centre to the nearest village where I could get the bus home, and I made some cow friends along the way. I took some photos on my phone after the came over to say hello, but I don't have a cable to put them onto my computer... They were more keen on trying to eat the juniper poking out of my bag than saying hello to me, to be honest, but they deigned to allow a quick tickle seeing as it brought the nommy closer to them, and that kept me happy, at least. I'm sure they'll thank me for not giving them an upset stomach in the end, as I'm sure something like juniper would if they tried to eat it...

I also got a rush for the pond, along with another oxygenating plant (a marestail, I think), and some spearwort (sadly already almost completely eaten by a voracious and surprisingly waterproof snail, but there do seem to be some new shoots coming up so I'm hopeful it will pull through). Today we got a waterlily and some fish, and I've moved the more established rushes from the "puddle" as well, to make sure the fish have enough shade and plenty of nooks and crannies to lurk around if they want to. I'll get a replacement for the puddle, but the rushes in there had long overgrown the space anyway, and they were a little worse for wear after Oscar decided their only purpose was for him to rip out of the water and tear around the garden with them.

Bad Dog, Oscar.

Once things are more established, we'll get some pond snails, too, to help keep on top of the algae, although after a couple of weeks now we already have a few water beetles that have moved in and it will be interesting to see what else we might get. Beyond flies and midgies... The local fish shop tends to recommend waiting at least a month before introducing algae eaters, so we should be able to get them in a few weeks. It would be nice to have some frogs, too, so I need to think of a way to allow them to get in and out easily; I'm not sure about piling up stones to allow access, in case they rip the liner, but I'll need to figure that out somehow, and make a nice shallow area to encourage frogspawn/tadpoles eventuall, as well. For now, though, this is what we have:

We got three fish, by the way. One shubunkin, one Sarasa comet, and one yellow (or buttercup) goldfish, mainly to help keep on top of the fly/midgie larvae. And because I like goldfish (I already have 11 fish – three fancy fish, two platys, and five cloud minnows – in two tanks, so Mr Seren is breathing a resigned sigh about the pond at this point). So far only the shubunkin, which Tom chose, has a name, Max the Mutant, because it's mostly blue and white but has one red eye so it's rather distinctive looking. Rosie chose the comet, which is unofficially dubbed "Ghost" at the moment, because it's completely white, but as yet the yellow goldfish remains nameless. She's quite friendly with Ghost, though. Maybe I'll call her Whoopi.

It's all a work in progress, really, but the poppies, lavender and daisy-type plant are already flowering, and the digitalis is just about to. Before we got the pond we also bought a picnic table, so I've moved it beside it all for a comfy spot to sit while I might enjoy the view. It's midgie season right now so the usual times I might want to sit out are right when the midgies are wanting their dinner, but once the weather cools down that shouldn't be a problem.

A while ago I added some links to the Crafts section of the Gaol Naofa library of the website, with ideas for things to do to help make a wildlife-friendly environment for your bioregion. I've been meaning to trawl for more to link and ideas to add (if you have any, please share!), but things like bug hotels and bird baths would be a perfect addition to the space (or up in the flower bed), and the summer holidays is a perfect time to get a project with the kids going. I'm going to look through those and see about what I can do on the cheap, and I'd like to get a bird table, or something, so I can use it for somewhere to put offerings out of the dog's way, and maybe add some more decorations to give some interest once the summer plants start to die back – I couldn't find anything sufficiently tasteful at the garden centre, but Mr Seren thinks that in the absence of an exact replica of the Brigid statue from the well at Kildare (Rosie wishes), we should maybe try to find a peeing Sheela-na-gig water feature... It's kind of tempting, I have to be honest, though I doubt such a thing exists.

For now, until I can get somewhere to allow offerings to be safely made at this spot (I usually put them up on a part of the wall, which terraces the lawn off from the patio, on the other side of the garden where the dogs can't get at them), I can still make libations as I sit. Not pouring them into the pond, obviously. Eventually we'll add some more pots and containers around the pond, too, but for now I want to see how what we've already got will do against the slugs and snails, and what might need repotting next year. I think there'll be a fairly high attrition rate, to be honest, but we'll figure things out, I'm sure. As it is, it's a start, and that in itself provides a focus for me to keep at it and tend to it. Rosie's still figuring out how to make a fish-friendly, but decorative "boat," meanwhile... Priorities, right?

Stuff and things in the garden

As Bealltainn approaches I've had a mind to get the house and garden ready. For once, I'd like to be on top of things instead of having to do a mad dash at the last minute. Seeing as the garden's been somewhat neglected in recent years there's been a fair bit to do...

Oscar, Exhibit A:

Is something of a digger. So in spite of my initial plans to plant some vegetables this year it seemed a little pointless seeing as the remainder of the grow bags I've been using are now in something of a state -- age and Oscar combined have had their way. So instead I've decided to recycle the remainder of the compost and try to condition the soil in the flowerbeds a little, and try to save the few strawberry plants that have miraculously clung onto life after Oscar rehomed them on the ground. I managed to mow the lawn without breaking myself as well, which is no mean feat for me.

Things are a little overgrown in the flowerbed so I've tried to tidy things up a little without overdoing it. Which mainly involves throwing compost over the weeds and pretending it's all neat and tidy now... But the raspberries, blueberries and blackcurrants seem to be springing to life again without my help, and while the primroses seem to have suffered somewhat, the cowslips are blooming:

The rowan might be blooming in time for Bealltainn this year:

After a trip down to England to visit my sister and her family, Rosie's decided we need a pond like they have (but BIGGER), so instead of replacing the veg containers we might concentrate on that instead -- a raised pond (we don't have the soil depth to dig a proper one, and I don't envisage Mr Seren going outside for any length of time to dig one anyway. The sun. It burns the precious...). There's a rush plant that needs rehoming, and we could put some other plants in as well, with some sturdier pots planted with some bee-friendly plants to give some foliage around it, perhaps. Hopefully it will give a nice outdoor space for devotional work, too, although Rosie's already had the idea that instead of a pond, per se, maybe we could just recreate the whole of the well at Kildare in our garden...

Or something like it.

Umm. No. Much as I'd love that, it's a little beyond our budget.

But after discussing things with the kids, we've decided we want to put in a new tree as well. A fruit tree, like a plum tree. When I was a kid, I grew up in a house with a pretty big garden that had been part of an orchard before the houses were built there and we had a champagne apple tree, two Victoria plums, a yellow plum (that I can't remember the name of) tree, and a damson tree (or bush?). Every autumn we'd fill up bags and bags with the plums from the tree and we'd end up giving them away because we had more than we knew what to do with. Sometimes people would come into the garden at night to steal them... But I miss having that (the fruit, not so much the thieves), and the kids like the idea of free fruit. So why not.

So big plans are ahead, tidying the garden has been continuing apace. And it was all going so well until Exhibit A decided to join us on a walkies when he wasn't invited -- I was supposed to be taking Tom to Judo and Oscar shot out of the house as we were about to go. After running half way up the road and having a sniff around inside someone's garage (the owner was very understanding, thankfully), we managed to corner him and grab him by the collar, and I had to carry the wee sod back home. My back is none too happy about this, although on the upside I have some lovely drugs making me feel extremely relaxed right now. On the downside, I was supposed to be doing my civic part in a few weeks time by serving jury duty and I'm having to excuse myself now.

So it seems that Bealltainn will probably be a simple affair for us again this year. I was planning on doing a roast lamb with some bannocks and a bit of veg and we were going to churn some butter, make some decorations and rowan charms, sain the house, maybe get a tree in time to plant it. The minions kids will be able to help a bit more now so we'll see just how much we get done.

Lùnastal and Vikings (Yarr)

I haven't updated much recently so there's a bit of catching up to do...

Lùnastal was celebrated, and it was kind of an odd affair in some ways. We celebrated on time, getting the house in order and having a festive meal, making the bonnach Lùnastain:

Saining the house and playing some games, offering to Taillte and Lugh. All the usual stuff we do for Lùnastal.

It kind of snuck up on me, but now I'm more experienced I don't tend to take as much time planning and generally flapping and flailing about making sure everything's ready as I used to when I was just starting out. But over all the festival seemed more drawn out than usual. It's not unusual that we might take a few days to celebrate a festival, so we can fit everything in and get it all done without overdoing it, but this year Lùnastal was more drawn out than ever. I'd had an idea that we'd have a family celebration and then carry on with the festivities at my great-niece's first birthday party, which would involve lots of games and things for the kids to do that tie in with the festive theme, and that's what happened there (the kids had a great time at the party, in spite of the slightly disturbing giant Peppa Pig who came in with the birthday cake...). But although everything was successful and our offerings and songs seemed to be well received, there was a feeling that things weren't finished.

Usually, given the fact that it's a festival of first fruits, I like to incorporate that into the festivities and make it the major focus, and I never really felt much of a connection to Lùnastal until we moved here, to where we live now, and I was able to start a vegetable patch and put in some fruit bushes. Harvesting our own fruits and veg helped reinforce the significance of the festival, and bring it closer to home. But this year, I didn't have anything to harvest from the garden, really. The long winter and late spring we had seems to have put paid to any blueberries this year, and I decided against growing any vegetables because I had to admit to myself that I just can't manage it - there was too much work needed with replacing the containers and compost I've been using for the veg, and it was pointless trying to fudge it and do it anyway because the containers were clearly going to fall apart as soon as I touched them. I just decided to accept that we'd have to make do with a festive feast made with seasonal foods - the first new potatoes of the season, and that kind of thing - from the supermarket instead.

It's been a really warm and sunny summer this year, though, and that means the blackberries have been exceptionally early and there are tons of them, too, extra fat and juicy. I had an idea that the brambles were going to ripening earlier rather than later, but hadn't quite anticipated that they'd be ripe and ready well before the end of August. Usually they don't ripen until mid-September, but this year they ended up ripening by mid-August. So a couple of weeks after our Lùnastal festivities began, we were able to finish things off with the harvesting of our first lot of autumn fruits, which the kids insisted had to become a blackberry and apple crumble:

And if I do say so myself, it's the best one I've ever done. It didn't last long...

Harvesting the berries gave a sense of closure and the sense of rounding things off that had been otherwise lacking, and with hindsight I kind of wish I'd waited a few weeks and celebrated a little later. In between the start and finish, things just felt a bit up in the air. The kids had fun, though, and the heavily laden bramble bushes are just about the best thing ever as far as Rosie's concerned, especially. Free food. To her mind, it should be autumn all year round.

So that's Lùnastal all caught up. Then came a local festival at the end of August, celebrating the final defeat of the Vikings in Scotland (the decisive battle happening just down the road from us, where the festival takes place). So I dragged the kids along and they had fun at the fair, both of them choosing a bow and arrow set as a prize for Hook a Duck, having a run around one of those haunted houses and so on, and then we went to watch the re-enactors demonstrating some Viking "battle" tactics and fighting techniques. I think it's fair to use the term "technique" loosely there...

There were all kinds of stalls, too, and the kids got to stroke some owls at one of them:

Including Hedwig, I think?

And then we went to the Viking village, where the re-enactors do a bit of living history, demonstrating how they lived, slept, ate in those days, and so on. Rosie was fascinated by the wolf and fox skins on the bed:

And was torn between being sad at the fact that the animals were dead, and loving how soft and snuggly they feel. Check out the very authentic Viking wall hanging at the back there...

The kids also had the chance to have a go at some archery again:

Tom's enthusiasm makes up for his lack of expertise, I'm sure. He thought the target on the left was hilarious (it's a naked dude covering his "winky" with his axe. I've no idea where Tom got "winky" from...):

It was a good afternoon out and we brought Mr Seren some fudge back with us (he was working).

Now, as the autumn's well and truly under way, thoughts are inevitably turning to Là Fhèill Mìcheil and then Samhainn, which I might waffle on about in another post. Hopefully soon we'll have some more videos to post as well.

Doin' stuff with the kids

I mentioned in my last post that it's now the summer holidays for the kids – six loooong glorious weeks of freedom!

They're of an age where they're more than happy to make their own entertainment for the most part now and many of Tom's friends like to come round and hog the Playstation or iPad call on them so I will at least be able to grab the occasional bit of peace and quiet. Plus they're due to go off on a wee holiday with their Nana at some point and before that we'll be dog sitting for my sister- and brother-in-law so there will be plenty of things to do.

The past few years we've had a wee informal sort of celebration that kind of ties in with the Midsummer festivities, and this year was no different (although involving less cake than usual). One day a few weeks ago when Rosie was off school with a rotten cold we made some salt dough and cut out some shapes and made a wee hobhouse for the kids' bedroom, which we finally got round to painting and decorating just in time for school finishing.

I made a hobhouse not long after we moved into where we live just now, on the suggestion of Judith (whose book I just reviewed), after experiencing some of the usual odd-things-going-missing-testing-and-feeling-out sort of stuff that can come with settling into sharing a space with new spirits:

The hobhouse lives on my shrine-shelf and seems to keep the wee spirit happy. I give the occasional dab of milk to him but I don't pay too much attention; he prefers to just get on with things. But the hobhouse has been much admired by Rosie who's wanted to make one for herself for a while now, and with plenty of salt dough to go around I figured we could make one together. Rosie painted most of it herself but – ever the perfectionist – began to get frustrated with splodges, so I helped out with the fiddly bits. She's of the mind that painting over splodges is wrong because even if they're hidden, she'll still know they're there. It's hard being a Rosie sometimes.

So in spite of a few splodges, we ended up with this:

(The roof sagged as the dough dried – Rosie wants to write a note to whoever might move in to say sorry about that. We did what we could). It's currently living on the kids' bookshelf in their bedroom, and I've suggested that Rosie could put some other bits and pieces with it – some shells and stones and other kinds of things she likes to pick up when we're out and about, like I have. I'm running out of space on my shrine to take anymore, anyway...

The shapes we cut out have been painted and varnished with a protective coating which I'm hoping will help protect them from the weather. After the kids' finished school on Wednesday we all went out to the garden and hung them up on the rowan:

Tom wasn't particularly interested in the decorating process, but he did decide to blow bubbles (with a tub he got as a gift from his teacher...not just random bubbles) in support as I tied them on to the branches. And so begins our holidays.

Bluebells!

They're out late this year, but they're none the worse for it. The woods round here are awash in a sea of bluebells, waving gently in the breeze and basking in the sun as it shines patchily through the thickening canopy of leaves.

It will totally piss it down tomorrow, no doubt, but for now I'm enjoying being lulled into a false sense of security as far as warm and summery goes.

The downside, of course, is the midgies. But I can deal with that. Out in the garden we're starting to get the first few shoots of carrots and a single, brave leek. The suspect onions have miraculously sprouted, while the sprouts – donated by my neighbour last year – have gone to seed, more's the pity. The peas are looking good, though, and there may or not be a courgette growing. I'm not sure; it could be a weed but we're going with it right now.

Since Bealltainn, it finally feels like the long winter is over and it feels like that in more ways than one, I guess; I'm nearly weaned off my pain medication completely and it really feels like a mental fog has been lifted. I'm feeling almost energetic...

Tastefulness...

So this is happening on my rowan tree:

And some other rowans in the village, too. While the horse chestnuts and some other trees are already putting on their autumnal suits, the rowans can't decide on whether or not it's spring or autumn. It's not something I've ever seen before, though I'm sure it's not uncommon, and as far as the trees go it's only rowans that seem to be flowering again. The weather has been all over the place - further up north the first frosts have already been and gone, while here we're still basking in warm sunshine one minute, only to find howling winds and droves of rain hurling themselves our way the next. No wonder the plants are confused! The blackberries are starting to ripen but the main crop is still a week or two away, I think, unless we get more sunshine.

I've had to neglect the garden this year and things are pretty overgrown in the flower beds at the moment but I'm enjoying the wildness of it all, at least, and the bees certainly are too. This is the time where I should be cutting back all of the bulbs and so on that have finished flowering before they sow yet more bulbs to overcrowd the beds even further, but in the absence of being able to get my hands dirty right now, I'm trying to get out there and tend to things in my own way. I don't want to neglect my space completely, so instead of digging and pruning, decorating it is...

The rowan - which I planted four years ago now - has matured a little (after recovering well from getting Mungo'd in its first year - the dog managed to snap it in half in a manic frolicking session that ruined most of the plants. Sod) and the branches are thick enough to tolerate some things hanging from it. I think it will need a while yet before I can hang anything heavy, like a bird feeder, but some light decorations will do and I always intended to turn it into a clootie tree of sorts. So the first thing I've put on it are some 'wind-chimes', though I'm not sure bamboo can qualify as a "chime" per se:

I bought one of those do-it-yourself kits from the kids section of the local craft shop, and my capable assistant, Rosie, helped with the painting, with blues and reds for health and protection. A while before I'd found some tiny wee key charms with triskeles on them that I couldn't resist, so on they went too:

I was supposed to have gone back to my hometown for a visit last month but I just couldn't manage the journey at the time and in the end I had to cancel, so my wonderful friends posted me the belated birthday present they'd been holding onto - a paint your own birdhouse (thank you so much!). It was a lovely surprise and Rosie helped with painting that too (one of Tom's friends has decided to basically adopt us these days, so as usual they were busy playing together while Rosie and I were hard at work). With starting school last month Rosie's needed a little more quality time lately as she settles in to her new routine and she loves to do anything creative, especially if it provides an opportunity to do something good for the garden too. So the arrival of another wee project for us was great, and will make a great addition to the tasteful aesthetic I'm going for...

I've yet to find a home for the bird house, I'm still deciding on whether or not I should try putting in on the fence or maybe donate it to one of the trees in the field behind us, but it's finished now. I told Rosie that rowan berries can be dried and worn as a necklace (traditionally for protection, as with amber) and she's quite keen on the idea; I'm not sure making her a necklace is practical, but maybe drying the berries to make a garland for her room is something we could make a project of. I made the kids a rowan charm a while ago but their room is in need of redecorating, so it might be nice to add something new once it's done.

Onions! Onions everywhere!

Over the past month or so I've been kind of neglecting the garden a little; bad Seren. There's not much I can do about that, though, I'm just haven't been physically up to it.

Even so, I hadn't anticipated the onions being ready so soon. I tried planting bulbs this year, instead of growing from seed like previous years and I have to say things turned out very well. A little too well perhaps:

That's just the first batch I pulled...There weren't quite as many in the second batch but there are still more than enough! Although I spaced the planting every couple of weeks to make sure I staggered the harvesting, because I left them in too long (some have gone to seed) they're pretty much all ready right now. Some of the bulbs that were crowded or took longer to shoot are still in, and there's still a good harvest to come. But right now I have an embarrassment of onions sat in my fridge and I don't really know what the hell to do with them. They seem to be keeping well so far so there isn't too much of a rush to use them up, but I'm keeping an eye on them just in case. I don't want them to go to waste.

The strawberries are ripening as well, coming through in dribs and drabs. They're so much tastier than the ones in the shops, tart and full of flavour. We've had some blackcurrants and peas too:

Peas! The blackcurrant will take a few more seasons before we get much of a crop, I think. With only a few blackcurrants amongst the strawberries I decided to make:

Ice lollies! Yeah, I'm not sure even Tom has any idea what Rosie's on either. I swear it's nothing I put into lollies.

Wildflowers again

Taking a break from the articles for a wee while, and back to the wildflowers...

Thinking about my ignorance of all things wildflower, I realised that during my childhood there weren't really any. They certainly weren't common, because fields and grass verges were heavily sprayed with pesticides and weed killers. Local councils made sure roadsides were neatly manicured and green, and fields were carefully maintained so weeds and wildflowers wouldn't compete with the crops.

As I got older, I remember a big fuss being made about the decline of wildflowers and practices changed, and the wildflowers came back. I remember noticing poppies growing along the roadsides as I got older; plants like cow parsley began spreading along the edges of the fields at the bottom of the garden (I grew up in a semi-rural village; I could go through a gap in the hedge at the bottom of my garden and walk through miles and miles of fields). So I suppose it's not surprising that I don't know much about wildflowers, and it makes me think how lucky my kids are, that their world is a much more colourful one than I grew up in. They're growing up in a more rural, isolated area than I did.

The weather has stayed quite warm and sunny - slightly cloudier and windier now, but the cool breeze offers some welcome relief from the heat. The other day I took Rosie and the dogs out to the woods we went to a couple of weeks back, to see the bluebells. There are still some bluebells around but they're well past their best now. A lot of the bluebell carpets are being crowded out by the bracken, which are still busy unfurling:

While elsewhere the woodland floor is being taken over by a sea of pinks and yellows. Mostly red campion:

Mixed in with different kinds of buttercups and yellow pimpernels:

Around the edges of the woods are a few white campions:

Pink purslane:

And some beautiful, deep purple columbines:

Near the woods there's a meadow that's prone to getting a bit boggy when it rains. There's a goal post at one end of the meadow (which happens to be right near our back fence) and a lot of the locals complain that the meadow itself isn't maintained properly. The ground is too soft for football practice so I don't see the point in the grass being regularly cut, anyway, and if it was then these would get mown up:

A kind of marsh orchid, although I'm not sure which. They're quite tiny, but beautiful, though. There are also some tiny, tiny blue flowers, which were too small for me to get a photo of with the lens I have for my camera, but I think they're forget-me-nots. There are also cuckoo flowers lurking close the edge of the meadow:

And I think these are bugles:

The hawthorns are in full bloom now as well:

As are the rhododendrons, which have turned the hills behind us purple:

It's amazing what you find when you look for it.

Out in the sunshine

Here in sunny Scotland we're currently basking in glorious sunshine. Glorious, glorious sunshine and temperatures edging towards the mid-20s (or mid-70s, if you prefer). For us here it's an all too rare occasion, although as much as the kids are enjoying unfettered access to the garden and beyond, getting them to sleep is a different matter altogether...

In spite of the lack of sleep we've been making the most of it with plenty of trips to the beach to let the kids and dogs cool off (I've even had a paddle in the waters myself, which considering how bloody Baltic the water is says a lot, I think). And of course, this burst of warm weather is good for the garden, too:

So much of what I've planted outside has some sort of significance to it, some reason and purpose. Poppies for my Poppy (my granddad, the gardener), next to the small cairn to the ancestors I made with the rocks I dug up in the first couple of years as I tried to condition the soil:

Home of slugs (and other fun things, I'm sure).

The rowan, planted for protection, is in full and glorious flower too, covered in cloud-like blobs:

Hopefully they will turn into lots of bright red berries come the autumn.

Then there's blueberry bush, which I will harvest around Lùnastal, now flowering as well:

I'm not sure there will be so many berries this year, while there's plenty of new growth at the tips of the bush I think the late cold snaps we had just as the bush was coming into leaf have done for some parts of it. Still, I'm glad it survived. Thanks to the storms we lost one raspberry bush, but the other - I think the golden raspberry I planted last year - will be flowering soon, and the blackcurrant I put in last year is dotted with tiny currants. The rushes, planted for Manannán, are...doing whatever they do (they're not flowers, really...). All in all everything is thriving, which is good. Kind of:

This is the devotional space I maintain in the garden, with the poppy (behind which is the cairn), and the 'pond' with the rushes at the front there, some juniper to the right (for protection), some trailing ivy (also having protective qualities), the blueberry bush right near the gnome (Wilf), and the rowan just in the background there. Things are a leeeettle crowded.

As I've said before, I would describe myself as an optimistic gardener, in the sense of "shove it in and hope for the best." The hoping has certainly helped, it seems...The woody thing poking out behind the juniper bush, between the rushes and the gnome (Wilf) is the insect house I posted a picture of a few months ago:

It's now almost completely subsumed by ivy and a strawberry plant, while I've no idea what's happened to the primroses and the cowslip is still lurking in a small gap...Now probably isn't the best time for pruning, while everything is growing at full tilt, but I think it needs to be done at some point, at least.

Seeing as I've planted most of the things in the garden, though, I have at least a vague sort of idea of what they are. As I tend to them and get my hands dirty, I put a little bit of myself into it all and in a way their roots become my roots. I realised, though, as I'm getting more mobile again and wandering down to the beach of an afternoon, that I can't say I know what all of the flowers and plants are that are growing wild. It's not something I ever learned as a kid, and I think it's important to know these things, to understand the place I live in. So I've resolved to get more educated on that; it's probably going to be a little hit and miss since at the moment I only have the internet as my guide, but so far I've found (prefacing all of these with "I think"):

Bloody cranesbill. The next one, according to my searches:

Is blue wooly speedwell. I think the grass is suffering from weedkiller here; the company employed to look after the public areas in the village has used it liberally this year to stop the grass from spilling out onto the pavements (easier and quicker than having to tidy things up manually), or from growing too close to trees and hedges, to cut down on the need for strimming. Lots of plants have become casualties to this and I for one am not best pleased about it. Grr.

Anyway. In amongst the rocks at the beach there's thrift:

Which is beautiful (and Rosie's favourite). The next one I've yet to identify, mainly because I didn't get a decent picture and I don't think the flowers are fully out yet:

Any ideas from the more educated are welcome! And last but not least:

A wee thrift flower nestling in the corner with some moss on a rock. I love moss.

Hopefully I'll be able to take more photos and keep on educating myself throughout the summer. It's something Rosie's interested in so we can make a project of it. Unfortunately there are no robots or spaceships involved, but I'm sure Tom will enjoy it too.