Category: Garden

Birds · Books · Dogs · Garden · Happy · Trees · walking

A Spring in My Step

sareenmclay3 Comments

I had a hair appointment on my birthday! It felt like a fantastic present particularly now after this latest lockdown. My hair was the longest it’s been in twenty years. It was definitely time for a chop.

Perhaps I was thinking about hairstyles as I looked out my window this morning? A bit of a wind today and the Laurel bush is waving like a shaggy monster from The Muppet Show. The breeze is rippling through the bronze tint on the Beech hedge and the bobbed Kilmarnock Willow is showing off streaks of green through it’s mane.

Green tinted Kilmarnock Willow

Each year I have the discussion about when the leaves will appear on the trees. I always think Spring comes earlier than it actually ever does – perhaps too optimistic? So I look out of my window to check what’s happening in the garden and every morning I try to read a poem. ‘A Child’s Song in Spring’ by Edith Nesbit summed up exactly what I was thinking one day.

Signs of Spring are coming and a blue tit is nesting in the bird box hopefully kept warm by our dog, Molly. Having brushed Molly, we put the fur from the brush into an old bird feeder and recently spotted the birds collecting it to line their nests. In no time at all the feeder was empty. Molly is one very well groomed dog these days!

Well groomed Molly keeping me company as I write this,

I recently downloaded an App: Merlin, which is helping me to identify the birds I see in the garden and out and about. I love the way their calls and songs are available to listen to as well. To top it all I was totally delighted to receive a pair of binoculars for my Birthday. I had a sudden flashback to childhood and trying to use my parents’ binoculars and now at last, I have my own! So with the App and the binoculars, I’m pretty sure the pair of birds who scurry around our garden are dunnocks.

So with my newly cropped hair, my binoculars in hand, I’m off for a walk with a spring in my step. Here’s to life as a twitcher!

I’m reading ‘Golden Hill’ by Francis Spufford and ‘Flight’ by Vanessa Harbour. Still reading Muriel Spark’s autobiography.

Picture Book Review

Head over to my Picture Book Review Pages for great recommendations.

Latest Review – ‘I Don’t Like Books. Never. Ever. The End’ by Emma Perry and Sharon Davey.

Books · Flowers · Garden · Happy · Latin names · Tea

Kaleidoscopes

sareenmclayLeave a comment

I took a long hard look at my website recently, wondering if now was the time to make dramatic changes. Is it too muddled, are there too many themes I wondered? After all, there’s this blog; Picture Book Reviews, Gardening, Latin names for flowers and Cup of Tea Books. Quite a variety. But no, not at this time. This is me. This is who I am. A person of many interests and this Blog brings me joy and time for reflection and the opportunity to merge these interests. I hope it will bring you a moment or two of calm too.

Thank you for reading and wishing you a safe, healthy and very Happy New Year!

I am reading Americanah by Chimomanda Ngozi Adichie and Friend Me! by Sheila M. Averbuch

bees · Flowers · Garden · Wildflowers · wildlife
sareenmclay2 Comments

There are leaves scattered on the grass. September is a time of change. It is a time when people leave and scatter. This is a natural process, one I, as others do, have to learn to live with. Change can be a forward movement, exciting, often nerve wracking but energising too.

We’re in the middle of a ‘tropical plume’ as the radio DJ called it – very warm this week but today there’s a smirr of rain. It does bring out the shades of green in the garden. After seven years it’s a much more mature garden.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is thumb_img_4878_1024.jpg
Comfrey – Symphytum officinale

The sunflower peeps over the fence, hopefully making our neighbours smile. Usually I plant the seeds in the vegetable bed so we see the sunflower’s bright, cheery faces too.

This year our small vegetable plot has really been taken over by the giant muppet-like monster that is the comfrey. I am totally taken with it – the bees have loved it. Apparently after a bee has drunk the nectar, the flower produces new nectar in two minutes. I’ve used the torn up comfrey leaves as slow releasing feed, ripped up on the base of the tomatoes plants and in the bottom of planting holes and, as the plant itself likes to do, I’ve spread the message far and wide!

Good Earth Dahlia

A giant pompom dahlia flower is bobbing its head at me from over in the corner, chatting to the enormous daisies which were a gift from a friend. The garden has a wild, overgrown look at the moment but I much prefer the soft lines of this to one that is too clipped and severe. It reminds me of the Oscar Wilde fairytale of the Selfish Giant.

Are there any particular flowers you love in your garden?

I am reading ‘The Salt Path’ by Raynor Winn and the poems of Emily Dickinson.

bees · butterflies · Garden · Latin names

Our Natural Time and Tide

sareenmclayLeave a comment

September the start of the new academic year but the end of the summer, the seasons sweep me along, caught in the rise and fall of the tide of time. I am excited, new beginnings, time to tidy the garden after the fullness of summer, time to pare down, to cut back and move on. Time to let go but also to plan.

Taking the time to watch the bees and butterflies.

I’ve learned of the importance of the change of seasons on physical health, to me it has an immense bearing on mental health too. We move, behave, react to the natural rhythms of the seasons, the tides of the year.

 

Yesterday I watched the swallows balancing on the line, today I’ll search for the glistening September spider webs.

 

It is a beautiful morning. thumb_IMG_4692_1024The honeysuckle (Lonicera Caprifolium) has grown over the fence and this year we could smell the delicate fragrance drifting on the summer evenings as we passed through the gate.

Now small perfect cherry-red berries have emerged, plump and juicy, a feast for the birds. Sunshine illuminates it on the morning side; the east. The west will have to wait for later in the day to feel the full glow of the light. To sit at the kitchen table and look out of the window at greenery has been my aim since we moved here, it’s getting there.

 

A garden, like everything else, takes time.

 

thumb_IMG_4696_1024
This sunflower grew in the pot with the cordon pear tree – a lovely surprise!

I am reading Guardians of the Wild Unicorns by Lindsay Littleson and Swimming with Seals by Victoria Whitworth.

Birds · Garden · wildlife

Wonderful Wildlife!

sareenmclayLeave a comment

Tadpoles! We have tadpoles in our wee wildlife pond! I think there’s a newt and many minibeasts we’ve yet to name.

Watching the birds visiting the pond has helped us enormously in this life of lockdown.

I’d have never believed how useful the steps of the pond are. They’ve had the tiny feet of bluetits, robins and blackbirds stepping down them like the owl hopped down the books in Bagpuss. Two dunnocks tailed each other along the pond edge darting back and forth.

As I write a pigeon is emerging from the long grass beside the pond, waddling about, ducking its head watching, watching before dipping in.

And we try to count the tadpoles; twelve, thirteen? Who knows?

 

One visitor to the garden I’m afraid I don’t welcome quite so much are snails. I’ve supplied them with too many tasty dinners! That doesn’t stop me admiring their beautiful shells or their ability to travel and sneak into my little polytunnel and greenhouse.

I’ve just finished reading the book ‘All the Light We Cannot See’ by Anthony Doerr. It opened my eyes to the scientific beauty of snails but still …

Couldn’t resist including this poem here.

Old Shellover

by Walter de la Mare
” COME ! ” said Old Shellover.
” What?” says Creep.
” The horny old Gardener’s fast asleep;
The fat cock Thrush
To his nest has gone;
And the dew shines bright
In the rising Moon;
Old Sallie Worm from her hole doth peep:
Come!” said Old Shellover.
” Ay!” said Creep.
I am reading ‘Seal Morning’ by Rowena Farre.
Flowers · Garden · Seasons

Let Spring Bring Hope and Peace

sareenmclay2 Comments

Nothing is so beautiful as spring – Gerard Manley Hopkins

Birds are singing. Landing on the fencepost they pause, check all is clear, dart to the feeder and back to the post in the blink of an eye. A robin, blue tits, chaffinches. Magpies launch themselves at the fat ball holder, blackbirds peck at fallen seeds. Two pigeons, one fat, one thin, drink from the pond.

Flowers are opening, welcoming the sun. Crocuses, hellebores, cowslip, primroses. The tulips are appearing, still wrapped up tightly.

thumb_IMG_3495_1024
Primula vulgaris in the garden

Glossy green leaves of the Laurel gleam in the shining sunlight.

The first giant bumblebee of the year buzzes past my ear.

Frog spawn wobbles in the pond and we stop to watch two woodpeckers on our walk.

Spring is here. The seasons roll on.

Wishing you all good health and peace.

 

thumb_IMG_3444_1024
Spying a heron when out for a walk.

 

 

I am reading ‘The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland’ by Catherine M.Valentine