Cows Cobwebs and Canals

We are waking up to misty mornings that turn either into a warm sunny day or wet and wild.
I have been busy clearing my herb bed ready for a new start next year. It is amazing how mint can take over a plot.

Transport from a former age.

An old bus

Interesting vans.

Vans for the memory

Amusements of a bygone age.

Helter skelter and swing boats

I love this old shop sign.

Look at the artwork

Old cast iron chimney pots.

A amazing collection of old iron 

Roses and castles are traditional decorations for narrowboats.

Simplistic design

A pretty cottage alongside the canal.

A lovely garden

Banbury Cross made famous by the nursery rhyme.

If you look carefully you can just see the hobby horses

Cows and calves.

There are many young calves in the fields

Who says cows are not curious.

Moo, what's going on here

Gloucester Old Spot pigs are interesting to watch.

Grunt, grunt

With the cold weather the trees are starting to turn.

Shades of autumn

My latest creation based on Klimt's Woman in a Golden Dress.

Smile please

Wedding Wonders

Again this week we have had rain and some cold nights down to 7C. I have discovered a rabbit in the garden. Despite surrounding the garden with rabbit wire it tunnelled in under the bent wire on the field gate. It is now munching away on my bedding plants in bunny Utopia. I am not a happy bunny. Watch out bunny.

Luckily I had only planted out a few of these bedding plants

These are the flowers I did for a friend's wedding. Using the church window ledges was a new technique and a challenge for me.The bride and her mother were very happy with the final result. I was able to use foliage from the Artful Garden and my home garden.

A display in the church entrance

White, pink roses and stocks, a lovely perfume

I decorated the altar vases with lace

Bracken, ivy, euphorbia just some of the foliage I used

The display compliments the window

The May blossom is just coming into flower such an intense perfume of sunny days and cloudless skies.

Will May flowers bring forth sun not showers?

Cow parsley is now in flower on the verges.

Cow parsley heads nod in the breeze

The dandelions have turned to seed.

Yellow dandelion buttons

Feathery dandelion clocks. Blow the seed heads away to see what time it is.

One o'clock, two o' clock three o' clock four?

The broom is a bright acid yellow splash in the verge.

Yellow beads

Beautiful water buttercups such a rich golden yellow.

Golden stars

Deep maroon cosmos.

Feathery foliage and red jewels

This rhododendron is just smothered with blooms.

Pink personified

Delicate orange welsh poppies.

Fragile and dainty

The farmers are ploughing their fields. 

Plough a straight furrow

This tree trunk looks like a gnarled giant's hand.

Witches fingers 

Look at the variety of edible fungus for sale at the greengrocers.

They look like sea creatures

Home grown rhubarb.

Delicious

I have emptied my plant pots and put the bulbs to dry in the greenhouse. I have labelled the different varieties hoping the labels stay in place for next year's planting.

Daffodil and tulip bulbs

A pottery lady has appeared in the Artful Garden.

It's frightfully cold out here and I've got rather a stiff neck 

At dusk a lone swallow sits on my washing line and chatters like static to it's friends.

Chit, chit, click, click

Flower Power

What could be more pleasurable than planting out bedding plants in sunshine accompanied by bird song and the heady perfume of May blossom.

The flower border I created last year

A view of the border from the opposite end

The May blossom this year is superb, the country lanes are white corridors and the verges all have dainty white cow parsley fronds that blow in the wind.

Bountiful may blossom

Hawthorn trees bedecked in may blossom

Cow parsley also known as kesh.
 

Danity clusters of white flowers

All that remains of the dandelions that a few weeks ago dominated the verges are the dandelion clocks.

Translucent globes. Blow the dandelion clock. The number of blows to disperse the seed heeds is the time of day

There is a saying 'oak before ash you're in for a splash ash before oak you're in for a soak'. This year the oak tree has come into leaf first so that means we should get very little rain.

A majestic mature oak tree

Classic leaf shapes

The ash tree is just coming into leaf.

Ash leaf buds bursting

Lilacs are bursting into flower and have a gentle perfume. They come in different colours from dark purple to lilac and white.

Lilac coloured lilac

Star shaped florets

Dark purple lilac

I have some pretty aquilegias in my garden that vary in shape and size.

 A fairy bonnet with lovely colour blends 

Spiky purple flowers

The intense red of this poppy is stunning. Look at the detail in the flowers construction.

Poppy power. The poppy flower closes up at night 

The alliums are just coming into flower.

A purple drumstick

I had afternoon tea at the Inn on the Lake on lake Ullswater. This summerhouse is used for wedding photographs.

A summer house with a view to die for

A classic photograph.

The hotel jetty on lake Ullswater

A view of the fells next to the lake.

Looking from the lake towards the fells

Farmers have started to sow maize which they plant under plastic. The mirror fields are now back in view.

Rippling mirrors in the landscape

Crazie Maisie has returned from the health farm. I think she has more curves than she did previously, maybe she ate too many cakes.

Do you not wish you had a figure like mine?

This is the  first wall mounted head that I have made. I have mounted on the wall at my house.

Egyptian man