The March of Summer

The builders are working next door (and in a terraced house 'next door' is very close) so I've been escaping as much as possible. Yesterday I decided to leave the brick dust and blaring radio and headed off to Arger Fen, my favourite local wood.

Despite it being the school holidays there was hardly anyone about (they all probably knew it was about to rain, I clearly didn't!).

There were lots of wild flowers about: thistles, hawkweed, rosebay willow herb and greater stitchwort amongst others.

But there were also signs that summer is moving ever onward: teasels, blackberries (quite a few of which came home with me), elder berries, rose hips and sloes.

I walked to the large pond

(not actually a part of Arger Fen reserve but very beautiful) where I sat and watched dragonflies darting and swallows flying high.  This is when the heavens opened and I got very wet as I was a good way away from cover and by the time I got back to cover it had stopped raining!

If you want to see where I escaped to last week hop over to Celia's blog to read about our day out in London.

Bluebells and Buttons (or cuckoos and clocks!)

The bluebells are late this year but definitely worth waiting for.  Earlier this week I was working from home and needed to get out, clear my head, and get away from the computer screen for a while so I took myself off to our local bluebell wood, Arger Fen.  This was what greeted me - a sea of blue!

They are so dainty as they hang their heads.

I sat and wallowed in them, listening to chiffchaffs and my first cuckoo.  The video clip below has the cuckoo singing (although if you're reading this on an iPad you sadly won't be able to see it).

Today though I've been creating with buttons. Ever since I saw this button clock on pinterest I've wanted to make one.  Initially I planned to go and buy a rainbow assortment of buttons to make one like that one but I changed my mind, deciding that a: I'm not really a plastic button, rainbow type of girl, and b: I have hundreds of buttons here!

So after some sorting, some careful measuring and some sewing I made this more muted one.

I had some problems stopping the mechanism from pulling the fabric back which made the hands catch the buttons, but a bit of ribbon and some drawing pins did the trick!

I'm really pleased I opted for the more muted colours, using a mixture of old and new buttons, as it looks just perfect on my dining room mantlepiece.

(Although I have just realised that one of the buttons I've used is the spare one from the coat I bought last November so I'll just have to hope I don't lose one from it!)