I don’t know if you can tell from the photograph but this is a very unhappy trailer wheel. We wrestled with it yesterday to no avail so it’s staying behind. Big Dreamer is a bit of a Houdini when it comes to packing cars and he’s managed to get everything in. We’re just hoping Little Owl doesn’t need a wee until our designated stop because once she’s in, she’s in.
Just So Festival here we come!
Big Dreamer’s parents have an incredible garden. My eyes were nearly popping out with envy when we visited them last week. On arriving home, by contrast, our plot looked pretty wretched. It’s not for want of trying but I think our relative inexperience and the harsh conditions mean creating a garden here is an uphill struggle. For every plant that survives several haven’t. Nevertheless, although our garden doesn’t compare with a lot of other gardens I’m really pleased with where we’ve got too. We’re rarely without colour somewhere.
Since moving here I’ve been quick to snap up those gardening articles that suggest solutions to problematic parts of the garden. You know the sort: ‘What to put in dry corners and beds’. So I thought I’d do a post about what has survived in our garden. This is the ‘What to put in your hillside, windblown, rainswept, dust-for-soil, near constant rain, occasionally turns into a water course, has been known to hit minus 20, rabbit-gnawed and holed, mole-undermined, slugged, mouse-nibbled, rat-trodden, weed infested garden.’Β I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t like all the plants I’m listing. If I had a garden that is everything ours isn’t I’d be a great deal more picky, but the point is these plants are not dead. So here we go:
Oh I forgot potatoes: everywhere, they grow everywhere! Especially in places we definitely didn’t plant a potato.
On Thursday Little Owl, Big Dreamer, and I are heading down to the Just So Festival near Stoke. I am going to be putting on some illustration workshops there. I’m so excited to be going. It’s a really fabulous event and is regularly recommended by the national newspapers as one of the top 5 children’s festivals to attend (if not the best).
I’ve been busy preparing for ages and this is one of the friends I’ll be taking along with me to help with the workshops (he’s a beetle by the way). I’ll be posting lots more about the festival as the week goes on so stay tuned. If you’re going to be at Just So I’m on in the Wild Things area at 4.30pm on the Friday, 12pm on the Saturday, and 1pm on the Sunday. Come and say hello!
Note: Some of the more beady-eyed among you might remember that I was going to be taking Firefly Magazine to Just So. Sadly, Firefly isn’t going to be making it past its first issue. It’s a bit of a sore subject and one I’m not ready to talk about here. Suffice to say, it’s one to chalk up to experience.
The Hogweed in the verges has now gone to seed and the Rosebay Willow herb is slowly dying back, leaving room for the bright yellow of Common Ragwort and the deep purple of Hardheads to festoon the road side. We passed this bounty of colour on our way to swimming this morning. At the pool Little Owl congratulated me on my cozzie, “Mum, I love your swimming costume. It’s so big!” Classic.
I had no idea Common Ragwort was so dangerous. It can poison livestock by causing liver failure. It seems to be particularly abundant this year (along with the Daddy-Long-Legs), which makes sense as decreases in populations are associated with dry summers and we all know how wet last year was. On the plus side, Common Ragwort is friend to over 200 species of invertebrates and the most commonly visited flower by butterflies.
From insects to birds: this week’s bird is the Long-tailed Tit. I’m still doing well with the Wren and the Robin, but I haven’t been able to pick out a Dunnock’s song yet. It would help if I was starting this in spring when the song birds are at their most tuneful. I have seen a Dunnock however. Finally I’m able to account for a large proportion of the SBBs (Small Brown Birds) we get in our garden, so I think it’s just a matter of time before I start to tune in. Simon Barnes’ description of the Dunnock’s song as a “burble” is a helpful one to keep in mind and the clip of it does remind me of a babbling stream.
Simon Barnes talks about the importance of understanding birds in their time and place. He says, “In order to recognise and begin to understand the birds, you need to recognise and understand the times and the places. And that works the other way round as well, creating a rather pleasing virtuous circle, in which each visit to a place adds to your understanding of its birds, and each acknowledgement of a bird adds to your understanding of its place.” I love that. I feel like understanding “the times and the places” of birds might help me to understand my own “times and places” too. Because, we’re all out of sync as human beings aren’t we? We expect to have what we want when we want it. And now we’re having to re-learn (or at least I am) the simple joy to be found in the natural ebb and flow of the “times and the places”. I could go off on quite a tangent here but instead I’ve put up a quote from The Magic Apple Tree by Susan Hill. It’s always comforting to find someone else (especially one so eloquent) who feels the same as you. It helps to feel you’re not entirely mad.
Anyway, Long-tailed Tits. I have a lovely memory of seeing Long-tailed Tits. I was looking out of my in-law’s kitchen window on to a frosty garden full of bare branches when suddenly a flock swarmed in and out again. Long-tailed Tits are tiny birds and they thrive in community. In winter, a time particularly hard on the littlest of birds, they huddle together to keep warm. There’s a brilliant picture of a crowd of Long-tailed Tits huddled together taken by a lady called Pippa Allen here. The rabble that I saw moved as one, so that they seemed more like a single creature. Here is the link for the song of the Long-tailed Tit.
Now back in Scotland we have returned to a garden that is bursting with produce. Today Little Owl and I have been picking broad beans, peas, gooseberries and the last of the blackcurrants. The pea pods we’ve missed and that have now gone over, will do for next year’s seeds. My friend across the valley is entering her raspberry jam in the village show and thinks I should enter my blackcurrant jam. I’ll have to see how brave I’m feeling on the day!
Little Owl and I walked in to the village this morning and a sunflower in one of the gardens is so tall that, having outgrown its stake, a nearby lamp post is being used as a support. On our walk we saw a rowan tree covered in red berries. It seemed early to me but no, apparently they do fruit from August onwards. It reminded me of Wise Owl’s Story by Alison Uttley so we read it for Little Owl’s bed time story. Although written back in the 1930s the books have hardly dated at all and I just love Margaret Tempest’s illustrations. In the story Wise Owl’s tree is blown over in a storm and his friends set out to find him a new tree. Instead of searching like the others, Squirrel gets side-tracked by making a necklace of rowan berries. It turns out well in the end because Little Grey Rabbit finds the perfect tree. This illustration from the book, is one of my favourite illustrations. Wise Owl is cosily settled in his new home and here he is, looking out at the sunset from his new front door.
It is with great relief that Little Owl and I have headed down to Yorkshire this week to visit family and friends. We are literally being eaten alive by midges on the farm (me especially). The wet, warm weather is perfect for them. Even the brilliant Skin So Soft has not been keeping them at bay. I intend to deploy Jungle Formula Insect Repellent when we return. It amuses me that the Edinburgh Festival is held in August, possibly the worst month for weather in the Scottish calendar. It is always wet, muggy and full of midges. It’s as if the Scots have got together to play a giant prank on the English by seeing how many they can get to visit, when every other tourist is staying well away. And of course, as well as fleeing the midges, another great reason to head south is that today is Yorkshire Day. Watch this old Hale and Pace clip to get you in the mood!
How are you all getting on with your birds? I’m not doing well at all. I thought I’d got the robin down to a tee but since I’ve been learning the wren I think I was mostly hearing the wren in our garden when I thought it was the robin. Our bird for this week is a Dunnock. I’m ashamed to say I’d not heard of a Dunnock, otherwise known as a Hedge Sparrow. It is one of a contingent of SBBs (Small Brown Birds), as Big Dreamer and I call them, which seem indistinguishable to our untrained eyes. Simon Barnes calls its song a “rather flat little burble”. Apparently, despite their plainness, the private lives of Dunnocks are a hotbed of “infidelities and deceptions.” Who would have thought a bird soap opera was being played out right in front of our kitchen window?! Here is the link for the Dunnock’s song.
I very nearly entered an art competition recently. I know! I said I never would again, but this one was very tempting. It was a lovely brief: “Budding artists of all ages are being invited to illustrate a subject of their choosing from one of three categories: a representation of the Roxburghe Hotel; an iconic Scottish scene; or a UNESCO World Heritage Site.” It was also being judged by the super wonderful Jonathan Gibbs from the Illustration Department at Edinburgh College of Art and the talented ECA-alumnus Kevin Harman, amongst others. So, I made my illustration. It’s the one you can see here. It’s not an amazing illustration but I enjoyed making it. My chosen scene was Dunadd where the ancient kings of Dalriada (an early Scottish kingdom) were crowned by placing their foot in the carving of a footprint in the rock. It’s a magical place, very special. The BBC have a great clip about it HERE.
I started to get my entry ready to send off and gradually I was reminded why I don’t enter competitions. It went like this: email for Ts & Cs; Ts & Cs arrive but don’t give any information about how the art work should be submitted; email for information; email answered but obviously they don’t really know how they want the art work submitted; printing, ensuring safe arrival and return of artwork looking increasingly expensive (needing to cover all bases due to organiser’s lack of direction) (boo); email refers me to Facebook page for any further queries (not on Facebook, never going to be on Facebook).
So you see, I could spend ages sorting all this out for a competition that might raise my profile if I win OR I could use the same amount of time sending out promotional material to get illustration work OR (even better) I could use the same amount of time drawing. After all, the best bit about entering the competition was creating the illustration and that was already long past. And in the end I just don’t get why it’s so hard to have the Ts & Cs up on the website in the first place, and to have them say clearly whether they want original artwork or not, how work will be returned (even if it’s a copy of the original it’s still not cheap to produce and will need returning), and whether a fee is payable for safe return of work. Argh! Rant over.
So, apparently the competition deadline has been extended although you wouldn’t know that from the website so if you’d like to enter do follow this link and good luck to you!
And have you noticed how many Daddy-Long-Legs there are about at the moment? Just loads!
Our bedroom window opens up like a door and this week I’ve been enjoying sitting in my pyjamas, watching the valley as dusk falls. It’s been so still. I can hear the caws of the rooks in the trees behind our house as they settle down to roost. The undergrowth rustles in the wood at the bottom of the garden as some small mammal forages about. A robin has obliged my attempts to learn his song by vocally clearing his throat at every opportunity.
The thunderstorm that threatened arrived. It was thrilling to sit at the open window as the rain came down in sheets and lightening caused a shadow of the house to flash out across the garden. It wasn’t the blustery rain of a winter storm but the solid fresh torrent of a summer downpour. We thought Little Owl slept through it but the next morning she remarked on the sky “rumbling” in the night, so obviously not! Following this we’ve had the odd shower interspersed with sunny spells. The garden is looking decidedly perkier.
This week’s bird from Simon Barnes’ Birdwatching With Your Eyes Closed is the wren. Simon describes the key characteristics of a wren’s song as coming from low down (about knee high) and loud. Here’s the link for the wren’s song. I think I’m going to find it hard to tell it apart from the robin. Apparently it’s the trill that gives it away. Somewhere else I read that they also make a clicking noise, like two pebbles being knocked together. I’ve definitely heard that around our garden and wondered what it was. Something I’ve been trying to find out for ages is the origin of the term ‘jenny wren’, but I can’t find anything. A Northern Irish friend of mine had never heard the phrase. Any ideas?
Photo taken by Edward McMaihin
Some exciting news from me is that my work is now being stocked at theΒ Summerhall Arts CentreΒ in Edinburgh. Summerhall used to be the old Edinburgh University veterinary college. I researched myΒ sheep bookΒ in the library there! This year it re-opened as an arts venue. It’s a wonderful place and so much more than an arts centre really. I love their open-hearted, can-do attitude to the space. They’ve got all sorts of things going on, from theatre and gallery spaces to studios and workshops to a brewery! The cafe in particular is divine and well worth a visit on its own.
Tomorrow the weather is supposed to turn wet and thundery here so Little Owl and I have been busy harvesting all we can before we are forced indoors. We collected elderflowers from the lane up the hill for elderflower syrup. Little Owl had been concentrating so hard on snipping off some low-hanging florets that when a sheep baa-ed loudly from the field on the other side of the bush she sat down hard in surprise. She glared meaningfully in its direction as she dusted herself off.
We picked black currants from the bushes in the garden for jam. Picking for jam from these bushes feels momentous because we planted them when we moved here (not much more than sticks with a few leaves really) and this year has been the first crop big enough to make anything from. Then we picked peas from the tubs outside the house and they all went in Little Owl’s tummy! It’s been such a golden few weeks. It’s lovely to think of spreading that jam on toast in the darkest depths of winter as a reminder of these mellow days.
The verges around us are over-flowing with the frothy flowers of hogweed and meadowsweet. A multitude of insects busily attend them. Little Owl and I head down to the river again in the hot afternoon for some paddling. It’s becoming a bit of a ritual. Whoever thought I’d be saying that about a Scottish summer?! One of the cattlemen leans heavily on our fence, moping his brow. He’s never known a summer like it.
I’ve finally had chance to pick up Simon Barnes’ Birdwatching With Your Eyes Closed and I’m determined to give it my full attention. My plan is to learn a bird a week by listening to a clip of relevant birdsound in the morning and evening. We’ll see how it goes! First up is the robin. Simon describes the song of the robin as a “gentle, pretty, rather thin sort of sound.” If you’d like to join me on this educational adventure then do! I’ll post up whichever bird it is for the week and provide a link to its call. You can hear the song of a robin here.
Data from Goodreads
