Perpetual journal - May.

 Here are my pages in my perpetual journal for May. There isn't a huge amount because I have been making the concertina book as well but there is something on the pages. Away for a while now.

Wild flowers in the Field Book - finished!

 Finished the wild flower side of the Field Book. Cow parsley, cowslip, speedwell, ribwort plantain,

 vetch, pineapple mayweed ( a type of Chamomile) daisy,

 buttercup, dandelion,

red clover. There are many more but that is all the space I had!
We had a wonderful day out yesterday at Slimbridge WWT. We saw kingfishers fishing. No pictures because my camera doesn't do zoom close up but very exciting because we had really good sightings. They are nesting in a bank opposite to the kingfisher hide. The picture below is from Zeiss hide - there are avocets in the water there but you will have to take my word for it.  We also saw a spoonbill and heard a cuckoo. My cup overfloweth.

Wild flowers of the field margins.

 I thought you might like to see the field margin where these wild flowers are growing. What a perfect time of year!

 Cow parsley, cowslip,ribwort plantain, vetch and mayweed.

Field book- artists book.

 Back to the field book and the other side of the concertina. For pictures of the Winter side click on the label below. I made a pouch to keep the book in. It will have to be expensive so nice to have a bag to keep it in and for traveling to exhibitions.

 On the other side of the book I am drawing the wild flowers found in the margins of The Enormous Field. This is where the wildlife is found.Although I did see a Muntjac deer go into the oilseed rape yesterday. Good cover until it is cut. The larks must be nesting in there too.

 I started with cow parsley that is a wonderful margin plant. It leaves a lacy edge to all our lanes and no wonder it is also called Queen Anne's Lace.

Yesterday I drew cowslips. Quite a few about now but they must have been more numerous when country people made cowslip wine. I guess this side is Spring because I am drawing what is growing now. Perhaps I can follow that with a second book of Summer and Autumn in the Enormous Field.

veg garden update 2.

 Leeks and Curly Kale in. There is an odd lettuce in the courgette patch and the path has more weeds. The next stage is to transfer onto another fabric and pad the raised beds. That will have to wait until I finish sorting and packing the work for Quenington. I have to finish the back of the Field Book too. Deadlines to meet (but just as well or nothing would get finished)

miniature veg garden in stitch-update.

Now there is a courgette patch and some beetroot in the latest veg garden. The weeds keep growing around the path and one of the courgettes has been left too long and grown into a marrow- that always happens in our garden!
 Click on the label miniature gardens if you want to see the other ones I made in 2013 and 2014.

Miniature vegetable garden in stitch.

Trying out my new camera that I had for my birthday. I have got the date stamp on it so will have to change that! Anyway I am making a miniature veg garden for an exhibition at the Guild Gallery in August called Grow your Own. First came the cabbages now I am planting carrots. It is fun to make something quite bonkers for a change.I intend to work the embroidery and then make a raised bed.

This is one I made a few years back complete with trellis so you get the idea.

Hand stitched cards.

 I have made a few field cards to sell at the exhibition. Little patchwork textures.

Today is my 65th birthday. I can get a bus pass and at some point during the next year a pension. Slowing down and always more tired it shouldn't come as a surprise but I always ask myself How did that happen?

A walk in the lanes and across the fields.

 A bit under the weather this week so I am taking you for a walk around my lanes and footpaths. ( on antibiotics so hopefully will feel better soon, after the sickness wears off!)

 Lane edged with dry stone walls.

Across the field. Oil seed rape field - a streak of yellow.

There is an apple tree in blossom along this wooded path- someones discarded apple core from years ago? Full of bees.

 Dandelions in abundance.

 Cowslips - more rare.

 The first May blossom ( hawthorn)

And on the first of May the bluebells at their most wow factor at Westonbirt.