Spring Flowers, Sunshine and a Love of Learning

March 18, 2025 sareenmclay

A quote I read recently by the late Stephen Hawking made me stop and think. Then it sent me on a spiral of thoughts.

I wondered if there is a word for a collector of quotes? So, off I headed, straight to you know where to look it up and yes, apparently I am a ‘quodophile’. There you go then, who knew. Another label to my box.

Perhaps not a box, perhaps I am, as we most probably all are, a whole index card system of labels. I can’t after all complain, as I love to learn the collective nouns for animals and birds, or the Latin names for Flowers, Plants and Trees or to discover the names of butterflies, damselflies, anything really. A name is a starting point for discovery.

I digress.

The quote from Stephen Hawking was about intelligence being the ability to adapt to change.

Change is difficult, it is exciting, it is opening a new file in your life.

As I thought about the quote, more and more, I decided I would add an extra part, for myself.

Intelligence is also the ability to create a routine thereby when changes come, you have the energy and the reserves to deal with it, knowing there is a safety net already in existence.

Spring is a time of change. The lighter days bring us hope and energy. We wait in anticipation for the first signs of flowers peeping through the dark earth like little bursts of sunshine.

Often when I am considering what to write for a blog post, coincidences occur. Such as the primroses popping up in our garden just as I have been delving into The Brief Life of Flowers by Fiona Stafford to you guessed it, learn more about flowers.

Now, here is a book for those who love to learn. One which is filled with so many information trails I have to stop and search for them. For a knowledge collector like me, a book like this is heaven.

There I was scurrying off to look up John Clare’s poem, ‘Primroses’, and John William Inchbold’s, ‘A Study in March’.

Then off I went down another rabbit hole to research women who were botanical painters.

The primroses in our garden have been returning year on year. Time and again I have split them. What began as two plants have given me many, many more. Now, all around the garden, there are bursts of small yellow flowers contrasting with the size of their large, floppy green leaves.

Is it with a gardener’s eye I look at them now? Noticing not only their beauty, but when they appear, which plants are flowering and which ones will need dividing. For of course, is that not the role of a gardener, to be constantly thinking to the future. There, another label for me, a gardener. Definitely a label I would pin to my lapel with pride.

Thoughts of the future have also drawn me to the past. It was after all, on a trip to our local garden centre with my parents that I bought the original primroses. There are many plants in our garden that were gifted to us by my parents; sedum (Hylotelephium), anemones, a tiny lilac tree. On occasion I will find myself talking to these plants, memories drifting back of my parents’ visits and although I know I have adapted as best I can for the moment, to the changes that have taken place in our lives, as I see their flowers emerge, the routine of the garden is of great comfort to me.

Being perhaps foolhardy, I have sown some seeds, teasel and sweet peas. Very early for here but, the sun is shining and there they were. Fingers crossed!

One final note:

A lovely friend sent me this article by Susie Dent. As a logophile, I love learning new words (okay, I know, I have already said, I love learning full stop) so this made my day to learn that I am a librocubicularist – I thought perhaps I was just lazy! Yet another label, and I am okay with that.

So, there we go, some random thoughts on learning and springtime. Wishing you all much joy as the spring flowers appear.

Do you have a favourite word or springtime flower?

I am reading: (so many books, you wouldn’t believe it – and yes there is a TBR pile on the bedside table!)

Wind Swept: Why Women Walk by Annabel Abbs

The Wonder by Diana Evans

The Book of Tree Poems, an anthology edited by Ana Sampson

In The Hedgerow by Nathalie Tordjman, illustrated by Sylvaine Perol

It would be lovely if you would like to pop over to www.mybookcorner.co.uk where you can read my reviews of books for children. There is the opportunity to sign up for the newsletter there as well, providing you with great recommendations sent straight to your inbox.

Birds · Holidays · Lighthouses · Nature · Photography · Resolutions · Seasons · walking · wildlife

Of Stonehaven, Sculptures, Stories, Snow, Squirrels, Surprises, Sunrises and …

January 24, 2025 sareenmclay

What a way to start the New Year.

New year, new me? Well, perhaps not, but my family and I certainly started 2025 with a new experience!

This was the year. We had talked about it so many times but now, here we were in Stonehaven, on Hogmanay, to watch the fireball swingers at midnight.

My jaw actually dropped as I watched the fifty swingers marching by. Each had a ball weighing between 3 and 5 kg. As they swung it up and around their heads, the flames licked the air sending sparks scattering. The crowd cheered, whistled and clapped. The swingers shouted ‘Happy New Year’ to hearty replies. Any thoughts of the cold, or why we had ventured out into a winter’s night disappeared as we were caught up in the display.

To the skirl of the pipes, the fireballs lit up the street and we could feel the warmth from them as they passed us by.

According to the Stonehaven Fireballs Association, the ‘idea behind the ceremony is to burn off the bad spirits left from the old years so that the spirits of the New Year can come in clean and fresh.’ In years gone by it was also a way to burn old fishing gear so perhaps it was an early way to get some spring cleaning in too!

In an amazing atmosphere, the finale was a superb firework display. Amidst a sea of upturned faces, bobbing pom pom hats, phones held aloft, I joined in with the oohs, aahs and cheers. I kept my phone firmly in my pocket; it’s not often I go to see a fireworks display, and I wanted to enjoy every minute.

Thank you to the Stonehaven Fireballs Association, the police, council, ambulance crews and all the many volunteers and others, without whom this event would not be possible.

Our New Year’s Day walk was a bit different. Along the Stonehaven seafront, we joined dog walkers, families and those clutching coffee cups against the newly arrived freezing temperatures. The slate grey sea hurtled towards us, waves crashing in before thundering off as they receded through the piles of pebbles on the beach. We stopped to watch three majestic shags, or were they cormorants I always have to check, dipping into the icy sea.

Author in front of a lighthouse sculpture. Two sculptures, one a boat and the other a metal love heart with thistles inside and two fish on the top.

And, yet another highlight, I saw my first lighthouse of the year. The sculptures along the bay have been placed there by Stonehaven’s mystery sculptor.

We returned home just in time, as snowflakes began to fall and for nearly a fortnight we lived in a snow covered world.

So it was perfect timing to discover I had a story, ‘Helping Hyacinths’, published in The People’s Friend special winter, cosy fiction magazine!

To the songs of robins, bluetits and blackbirds, I watched as our garden was filled with visitors. A lovely surprise was the woodpecker who became braver each day, hanging onto the fatballs for a good feed. Wood pigeons, chaffinches, great tits, blackbirds, magpies all popped in and, our day would not be complete without the three crows, not sitting on the walll, but strutting across the snow like mini sergeant majors. New to our garden, as far as I know, a volery of long-tailed tits descended, darted around the garden as if it was their playground and tucked into the food.

A thrush had a great feed on the holly berries, glad I hadn’t brought them inside for a Christmas display!

The chattering of the bluetits near the nest box alerted me to their presence there and I saw one disappearing inside so, fingers crossed!

A bluetit chick needs one hundred insects a day. So ten chicks will need one thousand per day and it takes them thirty days to fledge. That will mean thirty thousand insects. Hopefully our log piles and bug hotels will help!

Keeping the bird feeders filled, I also put out squirrel food as there is a resident couple of reds who live nearby and we had, on occasion, seen them darting along the fences. So to see this wee visitor was a real treat and he or she, seemed very happy feasting in the relative safety of the bird table. as I watched, the squirrel waved it’s tail at times, investigating further I discovered this is to warn off others from their patch.

Once or twice I saw a crow move towards the squirrel threateningly but, once the squirrel built their confidence up, they didn’t seem to hesitate in retaliating.

Today is the start of the yearly RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. I have my binoculars ready!

So, onwards into 2025. I am still to set my goals, perhaps it is more, SMART targets (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) I need to think of. Whatever they are, I have had a look back through some of my previous posts and this one ‘Balancing Life‘ and the five ways to better wellbeing, always resonates with me.

Listening as the Pink-footed geese fly by and watching a stunning sunrise to start the year.

Happy New Year, wishing you all a very happy and healthy 2025.

… Space!

I have just finished reading: Orbital by Samantha Harvey

I loved watching The New Year’s Day Concert From Vienna, available on BBC iPlayer – with a space themed film by Barbara Weissenbeck during the interval, it fitted in well with my reading.

bees · Books · butterflies · Flowers · Garden · Happy · Holidays · Inspiration · Latin names · Nature · Photography · Seasons · wildlife · Writing

Gardens, Photography, Reading, Writing and Learning- of course!

October 29, 2024October 29, 2024 sareenmclayLeave a comment

I began this post in the summer. For some reason, I couldn’t get my head around what the thread of it was until I realised, that was the point. This is about meandering.

In gardens that have been specially designed, the aim seems to be to have a winding path. One to deliberately make you slow down and take your time. Along the way, there will be side shoots, leading you to ‘moments of interest’ in the garden. At the end of the path there may be an area that was at first hidden from sight.

I confess to not knowing much about garden design, despite the many I have visited! One designer I have read and heard mention of over the years is Gertrude Jekyll. On a visit to the Holy Island (Lindisfarne) on the North East Coast of England, I was delighted to learn there was a garden she had designed. Oh, how beautiful it is too! Filled with an abundance of summer blooms in a riot of colour, it was an absolute treat to see. Fragrant sweet peas and roses, poppies, daisies and flowering Lamb’s Ears (Stachys Byzantina)amidst others.

Garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll at Lindesfarne (Holy Island).

A long time ago I planted Lamb’s Ears in my garden after admiring them in the walled garden at Drum Castle: the leaves are so soft to touch. So it is with gardens, each one I visit inspires me to do something more with my own. Returning home with renewed determination to try sweet peas again, I think of how amazing their perfume is and how they are so pretty in a posy.

I am a meandering sort of a person, I think. The years have taught me that I do get there, slowly, following paths I choose, often without a clear idea of how it will all turn out but willing to give it a try. Perhaps my way is like the butterflies and moths I enjoy spotting, flitting from one stem to the next but with an overall sense of purpose.

Often I am inspired by others who have followed their own paths. Watching the documentary on the writer Joan Didion, reading about the photographer Imogen Cunningham and Kate Bradbury’s ‘The Bumblebee Flies Anyway’ have set the tone for my summer.

Always one to enjoy a learning opportunity, the talk by Annie Ives on identifying bumble bees for the Scottish Wildlife Trust was right up my street.

Writing this blog has given me the perfect opportunity to use some of the photos of the natural world around us that I love to take. This love of photography combined with writing meant I very much enjoyed running a ‘Scrawl and Crawl’ workshop with SCBWI‘s Karen McDonald at the wonderful Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at Aberdeen Art Gallery. I am hoping the exercises we did will get me writing!

As ever, the garden provides me with so many opportunities to take photos, it is hard to resist! Here are a selection of September moments. Sunshine, spiders and sunflowers, a white-tailed bee on the Sedum (Hylotelephium) and stunning white anemones.

To see the wild flowers amongst the apples this summer was a delight.

I wondered whether to post this or not, time has run away with me but today, as I swept up piles of leaves to let the grass breathe I thought, why not. Perhaps this is a summer/autumn round up.

Leaving the leaves (!) on the flower beds with the aim that they will break down as a natural mulch, I gathered a couple of bags full to hopefully create leaf mould. Making sure there were holes in the bags, I poured in some water from the rainwater butt and am keeping my fingers crossed.

Outside, in the October sunshine, I heard the honks, quacks and barks of pink-footed geese flying in a ‘v’ formation overhead. As I swept the leaves, a beautiful light green frog moved to hide in between the cracks in the wall. So that was the end of my clearing up. I left the rest for the frogs.

The Fuchsia are still going strong but are there any ‘froggy friends’ lurking underneath the beech leaves?

I am reading:

‘Haddo Reimagined‘ by Rae Cowie and Susan Orr this is a wonderful collaboration between writer and photographer.

Do you have a book recommendation which would be perfect for this time of year?

Books · Inspiration · Knitting · Lighthouses · Seasons

Flashes of Light and Inspiration

November 17, 2023November 17, 2023 sareenmclay

It seems appropriate to be talking about light at this time of year, especially since the clocks have been turned back and, well, it has often been pretty dark and stormy.

This summer I was able to fulfil a wish I’d had for a long time, to visit the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses in Fraserburgh with family and friends.

I’ve long been fascinated by lighthouses, possibly as far back as when I was in primary school. I remember reading the story of the three lighthouse keepers who disappeared mysteriously from the Flannan Isles Lighthouse in December 1900. Years later I discovered there had been a poem written about the incident by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Flannan Isle.

I realise I am not alone in loving this link between poetry and lighthouses, after all, the author and poet Robert Louis Stevenson was a member of the famous Stevenson family who designed many of the lighthouses around our coasts. (There is a super book about this by Bella Bathurst, ‘The Lighthouse Stevensons’.)

The museum is housed beside the Kinnaird Head Castle lighthouse. It’s built right through the middle of a castle that is more than 450 years old. What a fabulous example of finding a new use for a building!

While at the museum we couldn’t help noticing these wonderful knitted yarn bombs and I loved the Bell Rock Flags, hand-embroidered altar cloths made by Jane Stevenson in 1820.

For a very calming moment, here’s a lovely video of lighthouses at night, I promise you, you’ll end up watching it more than once.

This is Book Week Scotland – here’s a couple of quick fun things to do!

Add your choice of book to their Book Week Scotland Map.

Fill in the quick quiz to find out how adventurous you are before reading the wonderful stories about adventure in the Book Week Scotland book.

When the sun is shining and the light is filtering through the trees, it’s a joy to walk through a forest filled with the beauty of autumn’s stunning colours.

Now, does this not just make you want to hug a tree!

If you’re feeling the cold, here’s a link to a post I did on Winter Warmers!

Recommend: Stargazing by Peter Hill

I am reading:

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Safon, it’s been on the tbr pile for a while!

DO/ HOPE/ Why you should never give up. Gail Muller

Hope · Nature · Seasons · Senses · Trees

Joy – that old Chestnut!

December 15, 2020 sareenmclay1 Comment

Wow, wow, wow! Joy! Outside my window trees are being planted. This has made my day!

My dog walk used to take me past a row of huge trees near my house. I loved watching the leaves appearing in spring; appreciated their shade in the summer, the gorgeous colours of autumn and their signal that winter had arrived. Listening to the birds singing would start me in the process of resetting myself so that when I arrived back home I was calmer, fresher and more relaxed than when I left. Then they were chopped down. The depth of emotions I felt surprised me. Feeling powerless and not knowing what else to do, I asked if I could have a section of one of the felled trees.

‘Here you go, no problem. It’s an old chestnut.’ And a log was heaved into the boot of my car. I had to wait for my sister to arrive to help me lift it out it was so heavy. After lying beside the car for a while it has found a home in our garden (thanks to my husband and a wheelbarrow!) – as a step so I can fill the bird feeder above it and, hopefully, a place for insects to hide underneath. Part of a very mini stumpery.

Perhaps a little good has come out of it?

Alongside the trees, there’s a beech hedge being planted. I have a little beech tree that grew, from a seed blown by the wind, in our raised vegetable bed. I did try to dig it out to move it to a better spot but it’s roots are pretty solid.

Like life, like fiction, putting down roots came up (down?) again as I read the latest Novel Points of View Blog about moving house. We’ve lived here in Aberdeen for seven years now, no I don’t have itchy feet but I am amazed. This is the longest we’ve stayed anywhere at all since we left home as teenagers. To be honest, I have my fingers tightly crossed we’ll be here a lot longer.

On a positive note and, I do love a coincidence, as I thought about writing this blog a friend told me about the River Dee Trust and their campaign to plant a million trees in the Cairngorms. To raise money for this they are selling beautiful buffs – they would make super presents and would be very light to post too – just thought I’d mention it!

Well, to finish with one more tree, Christmas trees!

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a safe and a Happy 2021!

I am reading my Secret Santa gift from a fellow bookworm; ‘Hawkfall’ by George MacKay Brown and ‘Beetle Boy’ by M G Leonard.

Flowers · Garden · Seasons

Let Spring Bring Hope and Peace

March 21, 2020 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.

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.

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

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Nothing is so beautiful as spring – Gerard Manley Hopkins

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