May...or may not!

 Well April was dry...and now May is wet, windy and cold.

But even so the hidden garden at The Potters House Penketh is blooming.

The cherry tree has excelled itself with blossom...the hope is ripe cherries in June...as long as those pesky birds don't pinch the lot.

Although I curse the ever expanding plot of bluebells in June when the leaves turn slimey after the bells have seeded......nevertheless in May when they glow in the evening golden hour...I'm always glad that they are still there. 

Forgetmenots and bluebells...they grow themselves.

And that's a good thing...as I'm not the world's greatest seed sower.

Carole Klein may say.."Just throw them in...they want to grow"...I must be buying the wrong seed packets!

However I must have done something right as the Japanese chocolate vine has also rambled into an even more wonderful concoction of twisting stems and branches over the wood shed...I suspect it is even responsible for holding that old structure together!

I'm not sure if this is Walt..(wall brown) or Woody..(wood brown)...but I love how they dance together in May. 

Almost always seen in pairs...may be just brown but oh how they can dance.

"Let nothing trouble you...Let nothing scare you...All things pass"!...St. Teresa of Avila

Song for Spring

Song for Spring

Praise be to the swallows

Who dared to venture north this week

Praise be to those fellows.

Praise be to the sun

All glorious in the shadows it throws

Praise be to the sharp sun.

Praise be to the green grass

Softening the verges with the red bilberry

Praise be for the petrichor.

Praise be to the coal black ravens

Nesting high in the tallest beech trees

Praise be for cawing birds.

Praise be for the seasons

Catching us unawares each year

Praise be for the northern spring.

...there is time to enjoy and time to reflect...

Extra Special Workshop

It's that time of year again when the local school takes over the studio and garden for an end of term workshop with the "little ones".
Hand-in-hand a class of four and five year olds come marching up the alleyway and into the garden accompanied by excited mums, grandmums and their teachers. We love it! What an age to be!
They split into two lots and half go into the studio with the potter and helpers, and the rest go off with their art folders looking for interesting things to draw.
The potter always has some fun questions for them...."Name 10 garden birds?"...Answer..."sparrow, robin, thrush and George!"...."George?" ..."yes one of the baby ducklings is called George"..."Well that makes sense doesn't it."


"Let's make some fish".

They'll be fired and glazed and returned to be "oohed" and "aahed" over by parents and grandparents in September.

How clever is that!

Meawhile out in the garden....

there are butterflies to look for... and draw...

...a cat to be drawn and stroked ....[or avoided, depending on how you do it!]

...a labyrinth to walk...
...as one little boy said, "We found a maze"...and I said, "Amazing!"

...while another informed me that he had.....
" found a wood with a secret seat in it!"

Then after squash and biscuits and a spot of picnic lunch on the grass....
...and many trips to the loo....
....off they go 'til next year and another lot come laughing down the alleyway.

A Poem for Thursday.

Above the grassy labyrinth

Wood browns flirt and flutter in pairs

Catching rays of gold

On mottled wings.

So new life emerges

Playful coquettish

To fly and suck

On summer's nectars.

The struggle from

The winter's binding

Strengthening flight

And damp moss perfumes

Dappled sunlight.

While blackbirds claim

Old Territories and sing.