Sometimes it feels like Big Dreamer and I are trapped in an episode of Fawlty Towers on a loop. We can’t seem to do any jobs around the house without them boomeranging right round and pinging us in the head again, sometimes multiple times. A “boomerang job” is now an official term in our house. The latest of these concerned the water butt.
Big Dreamer took Little Owl and Finch off to our local garden centre to buy a water butt. They proudly bought it home. A few weeks later Big Dreamer got round to setting it up as an off-shoot from one of our down pipes. Unfortunately when the rain poured so did the water butt. It had a leaky tap. By now the receipt for the butt was long gone and another few weeks passed before Big Dreamer had time to go back to the garden centre. Fortunately a kind lady at the check-out took pity on him and believed that he had bought the butt from them (sometimes it pays to shop local). However they didn’t have any of those sort of water butt any more, only bigger ones. That wasn’t a problem, except they didn’t have any stands for the bigger ones. Having sawn thorough the down pipe we needed a stand that would raise the butt up to the height of the broken one. Sigh. Big Dreamer thought we might be able to manage with the smaller stand so brought the bigger butt home, and got it all set up.
Weeks went by where we thought this butt must have a leaky tap too because it just wasn’t filling up no matter how much rain there was, but we couldn’t find any perceptible leak. That was when we realised that Finch kept turning the tap on and letting all the water out when we weren’t looking. Tap firmly closed we awaited the next downpour. It came this weekend. In the middle of the night the poor waterbutt, heavy from the deluge, overwhelmed the stand and with a huge crash toppled over, and…you guessed it…it now has a hole in it. So after all that, we are right back where we started; in need of a water butt. No hang on, not quite right back where we started, we’re also nursing beautiful purple bruises on our foreheads where that boomerang has well and truly got us. Please tell me this sort of thing happens to you too!
The riverbanks are full of red campion, white dead-nettle, cow parsley, and hawthorn blossom. I barely notice hawthorn all year then suddenly these columns of creamy froth appear like friendly flower aliens beamed down from outer space. No wonder the colloquial name for hawthorn is often the May tree. I have read that the saying “Ne’er cast a clout ‘til May is out” actually refers to the hawthorn flowering rather than the month, which makes a lot of sense as staying in your winter clothes until the end of May always seems particularly risk averse to me.
Did you have a lovely Easter? We did. Highlights for me were a meadow full of delicate white and purple fritillaries here in Devon, and banks of wood anemones like little white stars in a wooded glen in Yorkshire. I find the seasonal gradient across the country fascinating: up in Yorkshire we caught the end of the daffodils but down here the bluebells are now carrying the baton for spring.
Here’s a piece of work I did back in February for the Scottish Centre for Conflict Resolution (SCCR) for their annual conference called Transforming Conflict. This illustration was massively inspired by a wonderful piece of film created by Felipe Bustos Sierra at 
Do you remember me mentioning the Devon-based artist 
March has been all lion down our way (if you hold with the old saying that is). We’ve had endless grey skies and blustery winds. All my daffodils are bent at right angles. In the fields towards the mouth of the estuary wild geese graze contentedly, oblivious to the gusts. This morning I saw a heron stood stock still in the pools that have collected over the water meadows, his feathers being teased by the breeze.
I am now catching most of the dawn on my early morning bike rides. The sky ahead of me is full of radiant hues of pink, apricot and lilac. The bright Lenten moon sits on my shoulder. The air is full of the sound of bird song, and far above my head, a skein of geese rhythmically beat out the pace of their journey.
The morning Storm Doris blew in I’d put the washing on the line. I heard the news and promptly brought it back in again. Apart from being very windy we seemed to get off lightly. Although we did have a few a interesting things blow into our garden, including an empty bag of pig feed! I hope you were all ok.
Half term ambushed me from out of nowhere. I was merrily making my way through the term when it suddenly leapt out from nowhere and held me hostage. I was forced to bake heart-shaped biscuits, build extensive train set layouts, climb trees, make salt-dough candle holders, swing on swings, collect seaweed in jam jars, see-saw, laugh heartily, enthusiastically lose races, and create elaborate hairstyles. It was all very traumatic. Thank goodness I have been released from captivity. But I’d better be careful. You never know where the next school holiday is lurking, just waiting to leap out and grab you!
