May Chat

Fledglings

With much flutter and cheep this morning whilst I was washing, the Great Tit nestlings in our bathroom vent pipe burst out into the open world today. The starling chicks in the roof gully nest fledged on the 17th.

Syrup tins

I'm not sure I really know what patriotism is, so I guess I'm not much of a patriot. Neither am I a monarchist. But these syrup tins from Our Lizzie's Jubilee Year make me smile. Maybe it has something to do with the childhood memory of drizzling syrup onto porridge.

Quilting

I finished a seaside themed quilt for my elder grandson.

Paid a visit to Edinburgh

Princes Street Gardens in May, and Edinburgh Castle

As well as meeting Honourable Second Daughter (who will henceforth be known as the Springboard Diver until further notice) for wandering around Edinburgh, eating lunch near Tollcross, and visiting the Grassmarket shop Fabhatrix, I met some friends at the National Gallery for tea. The cakes and sandwiches are beautifully laid out and the tea itself is delicious. The Scots know how to do tea!

We ate the flowers as well.

Garden News

One sunny but not too hot day (max temp 19.3°C in the shade) when I decided to cut some grass and rushes that have been waiting a long time except it has been too cold, I and my scythe had to beat a hasty retreat from our front bank. Starting at the top of the bank I was working my way downhill when a tiny bird silently flew out from a tussock of grass near my feet. I lifted some grass and there was a robin's nest with five or six eggs. I moved away sharpish! Since then we have seen robins flying to and from the thick tussock of grass that shelters it. Mowing in that area will have to be on hold now until the chicks have fledged.

That same day I saw our first swift of the year, the ash tree buds burst, and I saw a butterfly – an orange tip – for the first time this year. Bumble bees were out in force too. Summer had definitely arrived... until the next day ;-)

The view up the hill from the landing window,  7 May 2013

And down the hill towards the loch, hazy and shimmering (7 May)

Dignity in Dying
I found myself thinking one painful day this month that maybe it was time to give up hammering a splitting wedge into a hunk of tree trunk, and maybe it was time to stop breaking dead wood by stamping on lengths set at an angle against a rock, or by breaking them across my knee, but it's amazing what a full daily dose of co-codamol and some amitriptyline, followed in the evening by some whisky and cocoa nibs, will do for your resolve. So I contemplated my log basketful of broken dead ivy and my split spruce kindling with a sense of undefeated satisfaction, and I remembered my miner grandfather's motto of "Never say die" when faced with life's challenges.

And yet, alongside that, runs my full support for Dignity in Dying – for what is sometimes called assisted suicide – when suffering overpowers the resolve to live. It is a disgrace that current UK law does not allow people the human right to choose when to end their own suffering and to get help, if they need it, from their nearest and dearest. "To condemn a person to live in intolerable pain and suffering is inhumane and should have no place in a civilised society." Prof. Roy Bailey 


What I have to deal with is nothing compared to, say, the locked-in syndrome that Tony Nicklinson had to live with and was forced to endure when he had truly had enough, but I think it helps me to understand the problem that many people, including our law-makers, apparently cannot understand. I think a change of attitude is beginning though.

Garden progress

Primroses on the NE bank early May 2009

The same area of the bank (+ a bit to the right) in early May 2013
I refrain from mowing until the flowers have set seed
Love primroses :-). You can see more here: http://bit.ly/10VbhUV

Toadlet Riding

Got the trot right

And relax

@Fascinatingpics:
I think this is one of my favourite colour combinations.
And this one has a certain glory!

After Woolwich

I was very pleased to read this article by Tarek Fatah, It's Time to Fight the Doctrine of Jihad
And this by Nick Cohen, Damn life-denying ideologies
And this by Azeem Ibrahim, The changing nature of terror

Zooming in on Primroses and Plum Blossom

On the NE bank

With Lesser Celandines

Under a box-leaved contoneaster, growing out of a dry-stone wall

In a partly shaded corner of the terrace (under the same cotoneaster)

I don't know where the pink ones came from!

Plum Blossom
There is not very much this year after two very bountiful years

April pics from my garden

honeysuckle, rowan, sorrel, and cowberry growing on an old wild cherry stump

wild cherry blossom – Prunus avium

Cowberry fowers – Vaccinium vitis-idaea

young bracken

Roseroot (Rhodiola rosea) and "London Pride" (Saxifraga x urbium)

"English" Bluebell – Endymion non-scriptus / Hyacinthoides non-scripta

Primrose (Primula vulgaris) growing on a dry stone wall

Hito Hude Gake for a friend

I was invited to help a scouting friend celebrate his 60th birthday. I thought I would give him a Hito Hude Gake (HHG) temari that I made. This design represents an unbroken path around the 'globe', the temari ball, from pole to pole. "HHG takes its name from one stroke in brush painting - the brush is placed on the paper and not lifted until the entire design or calligraphy character is completed."

Hito Hude Gake temari

If you start at the purple star (the north pole, as it were, which in this photograph is on the lower left 'side') and then follow the purple path, it leads you in a globe-encompassing, wandering helix down to the 'south' pole. The south pole star is the off-white colour and the path from it leads back to the north pole. The design is done in two colours to show the path more clearly. If you could work with a long enough thread, you could complete the whole path unbroken there and back. More info here at Temarikai

In my mind there is something like that in scouting – how it and guiding have spread around the globe and how we are all connected.

So, wishing a Happy Birthday to the Welsh Dragon Scout!

Strobe disco lights and excessive noise don't agree with me though. Humdinger of a headache kept me awake most of the night. No it wasn't alcohol; I was driving. I wonder how my arrows will fly today?

Jacaranda Walnut

Jacaranda and walnut are the woods that my new bow handle is going to be made from, plus some carbon fibre. We visited Border Bows at Gordon in Berwickshire on the second of the month. Young Sid gave us a tour of the workshop where about half a dozen people were working, each on a specialised aspect of the hand-made bow-making process. He and Old Sid (can I say that? ;-)) gave us brainloads of technical information while we tried to look intelligent. Well, I did: Toad probably understood the technicalities a great deal better than me because he has spent time studying them and I haven't. I'm a practical archer – a learner by doing – more than a theoretical one. Toad loves theory and soaks it up like a sponge.

           We took the motorway route on the way, and it was interesting to see that new-ploughed soil in the western part of the journey had shiny bits but soil in the east did not. Eastwards was redder. Eastwards was also sheepier, the best bit of sheepiness being a small flock of red sheep near Uphall. Yes. Red. Entirely! It was as if the shepherd had gone a bit wild with the spray can of branding dye and coloured in the whole sheep, as small children do with paint on sheets of paper. Eastwards was also snowier, though not as snowy as Kintyre.

           Setting off homewards via Tweeddale, we came into Kelso at about ten to five and then to Caroline's Coffee Shop on the Horsemarket. There was only one customer still there; the proprietors were clearly cleaning up for the night, but they welcomed us in and provided hot soup, omelette and salad and tea. Brilliant minestrone soup – it even warmed my feet which had become very cold. So if you're in Kelso, I recommend a visit to Caroline's Coffee Shop.

           The limbs of my new bow will be Hex6H, for any archery techies out there. And they will be short, as opposed to extra-short as was first suggested by the Sids, to accommodate my increased draw length. I'm keeping to a 23-inch riser (handle) for the sake of lightness. I will be able to increase the poundage of my draw a little, should I wish to in due course, by winding the limbs fully in.

My current bow: "Blubo" (photo taken last summer, as you can see from the grass!)

As we came onto the rough track that leads up to our house, we spotted our first hedgehog of the year. Just as well we spotted it and stopped because it was right in the tyre tracks. I jumped out to shoo it somewhere safe but it went of its own accord into the scrubby grasses at the side. I then walked up the rest of the way, glad to stretch my legs for a few minutes.



Later that week, I had lunch with a Kintyre couple, whose names for the purposes of this blog are Mr and Mrs Soop. We all had fish and chips. There were no mushy peas, at which we expressed such outrage that the waiter (who had a foreign accent; that is significant, as you'll see) went and told the chef we wanted the garden peas mashed up. The waiter came back and told us the chef would mash the peas but we assured him that REALLY it was allright. So my plate had mashed garden peas and their two plates had unmashed garden peas. Naturally we fought over the mashed ones ;-)

I hope that waiter will get used to Scottish gran humour before too long! Poor man. He can't have been there long. The hotel gate keeper was very jocular in the usual west of Scotland style that leaves a wide grin on your face.

And we came out to glorious spring sunshine.

Lady Barebow and her pal, "Soop" (a true lady)

A "Scrappy" for Soop – wall-hanging or table runner

Our first properly open daffodil showed its face on the first of April. As well as that there was a primrose, a lesser celandine, a couple of periwinkle flowers, and the flowering currant. Sometimes I think of months in colours. April, when the sun shines, is fairly yellow. When the sun doesn't shine, a misty grey.


This is a nice story from Colorado: Gorilla cardiology in Denver

April snow

That rain we had yesterday is new snow on the hills.

Three roe deer in the garden this morning when I got up – a buck, a doe and a last year's youngun – scratching at mosses, stretching their necks to reach open buds of honeysuckle and spiraea. I can see where they have chewed a bit of the yew tree too.

Temari Doodles