Grey June days

It been one of those cold grey English weekend here at the summerhouse, to be more precise it's been freezing proper woolly jumpers and warm socks cold,  with a cold wind blowing straight off the sea, not like June at all. I feel sorry for my Geranium's which were planted out the other day in the Summerhouse window boxes they look like they are shivering in the wind. On a postive note windy days mean I get to see the newly renovated windmill working, which always cheers me heart. Hopefully it's just my little corner of the world that been like this and you've all been enjoying more seasonable weather.

I've been having a very quiet weekend, as my sister is having a significant birthday later on this week so I've been resting up, trying to find some energy for the celebrations.  Above is a picture of our Horse chestnut tree, full of blossom, I love it so this time of year. I took these pictures earlier in the week.

It's such a gorgeous colour, hopefully some of the blossom will survive these Easterly winds.

Here is a painting I did last year of the tree in bloom, it's a water colour and ink, which is  how I mostly like to paint.

I'm not that great at it but when I'm well enough, painting is something that I do enjoy doing and I think that's all that counts really as long as you enjoy what you do.  I'm hoping to do a few more mini postcard watercolours for my Alice in Wonderland craft club project in the next couple of weeks.  You can read more about it 'here'.  I'd love to have the energy to be able to paint on a larger scale again, but for now I happy to be able to paint the postcard with my field paints set, it great as I can paint on this smaller scale from my comfy bed.

We have lots of wildlife that visits the garden here at the Summerhouse, which we love to encourage. I took this quick snap the other day, of Terry our local Squirrel raiding the bird feeding station. I think he lives in the nearby Church yard, where there are lots of squirrels including a family of albino Squirrels I've never seen them but 'P' has when going to the village shops.

There also used to be a three legged hedgehog who lived under the Summerhouse, we named him/her gimpy as he walked with a limp he was around for years living in the safety of the garden, we used to  feed him on cat food to help supplement his diet and one year  there were baby hedgehogs, three tiny ones who used to follow the Mama hedgehog around the garden at dusk,  so sweet we used to sit out and watch them on a summer evening.  We also have bats who swoop over and around the garden of an evening which are great to watch.

So sometime it gets a bit Beatrix Potter around these parts (I used to love those books as a child although I think my favourite books were 'Brambly hedge' do you remember them? ) any road I think the wildlife round here knows a organic gardener when they see one. As once when we had vegetables growing, I was doing a bit of weeding a tiny mouse ran out from the hedge had nibble on one of the radishes that were growing, and ran back again, only to do it all over again, while I stood and watched 'I was like 'excuse me I'm right here watching'.  I didn't mind though they have to eat too.

One day I'll have to tell you all about the baby Starlin 'P' hand reared too.

So as  you can see this cold weather has cut short Dylan Summerhouse siestas he's back in the house again, trying to convince us to put the Central heating back on. Here he is in the hall, radiator hogging.

 I've spent most of the weekend hunkered down on the sofa under a blanket, I've nearly finished a couple more bunting pennants, (these ones for the Summerhouse) I'll tell you about them another day when I made a few more.  Above is the Rose I was making in the garden the other day remember 'here' I can share it now as the friend who I made it for came round for a cuppa yesterday. I made the Rose using one of Lucy's wonderful Attic24 tutorials that you can find 'here'

I  also finally finished writing my first song of the year, over the weekend. Do not fear it's not taken me the full six months. In fact it probably only took me about couple of hours over this week. I'm counting it as a win though as it's the first time since Christmas that I've been able to play guitar again and therefore write due to a bad back.  Hopefully things are starting to improve a bit, so I think I'll be able to try playing for about 10 minutes each day again on my pacing program, which will be good as I've not  picked either the guitar or the mandolin up for months.  Then hopefully I can build my strength up to be able to do some recording on the 8 track.

The other crafty thing I've been up to this weekend is to finish making these tiny hatpins for another craft club make, I made them with some charms, beads and buttons, and painted cocktail sticks (mine is a strange life indeed !!)  but more on all that another day,

I hope you had a lovely weekend what ever you got up to.

Happy Crafting

Clare xx