The recent rain (three afternoons of thunderstorms, two accompanied by deluges, breaking the heat) has turned the first of the paths through the woods into a broom jungle, the sheer weight of all the water pushing down the whips and closing off the way forward. We picked our way through yesterday, and pruned a few lost branches today.
Auri loves the broom. Whenever we go for a walk, she presents Elfi and me with handfuls of the petals.
Resurfacing after a mad two months, half of which hasn’t been spent at home. Catching up with messages and somehow wondering how Elfi is six months already this week.
Current status: the house is a mess, the garden’s a jungle, and the children are feral.
We are just catching our breath from a busy last fortnight, just in time to rush into another busy month.
Last week, we were all up at Stempster. Euan spent a happy two or three days (mostly) in the Wild Wood, taking down fifty-two and a half trees (the half being some serious surgery to a victim of lightning). Auri spent many a delighted hour on the swing and generally wreaking havoc outside, Elfi was her usual cheerful self, and Scapa got in some much-loved beach walks.
There are several photographs to share, which I suspect will crop up at odd times over the coming few days. But enough of us. How are you all?!
Despite the fact there was snow yesterday, and an almost-frost on the ground this morning, I really do feel like Spring has Sprung. It’s here, I know it. Even the chill of the shade today couldn’t overpower the warmth of the sun.
Auri absolutely loves jigsaws. At bedtime, she will often decide to take a block puzzle or jigsaw puzzle to bed with her. One night, she must have completed the same jigsaw at least seven times before falling asleep, the wooden pieces dotted around her.
This afternoon, I watched her complete another favourite jigsaw, and I noticed that when she picks up a piece which doesn’t fit, she physically shrugs, palms upwards, and shakes her head, before returning it to the pile and choosing another piece. “No, not that one” she’ll sometimes whisper under her breath. Or, increasingly, “Oh, biscuits!”
Well, spring has sprung. I had grand plans* to manage to do a handful of Things every day of this delicious season. Needless to say, the first hurdle was not cleared yesterday. Them’s the family breaks.
But it was a glorious day first thing for those precious moments when the rest of the house was peacefully sleeping. Then the fog rolled in, and then came the rain. Am I the only one who finds fog beautiful? At least, the fog that we get here, rolling in from the woods. People often (rightly) talk about delicate, gentle mist – but surely fog is just mist which has properly committed to the task in hand, and gone that step further?
*Not grand at all. Modest plans, hardly-anything-really plans. But, nevertheless, plans that my wonderful, marvellous little family still managed to send flying sidewards.
For World Book Day this year, Auri decided to go to nursery dressed as a pirate (wearing one of her current favourite outfits). Last year, they all went in their pyjamas with their favourite books. The year before, she went in a dressing gown, as Arthur Dent from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I’m not sure she really understood at that point, but Euan had that planned for nearly a year.
It has now been announced that Euan has been awarded one of the fellowships attached to the Future of UK Treescapes programme, focussing on the wych elm and Dutch Elm Disease.
The Wych Elm is the only native elm species in the UK and, much like the English Elm or clone of the Field elm, millions of trees have been infected and killed by Dutch elm disease (DED) leaving eerie standing skeletons across the landscape. However, even in the most infected areas, individual trees still survive, indicating that resilience to DED exists.
Future of UK Treescapes Fellowship: Dr Euan Bowditch
Dr Euan Bowditch is in the media again talking about elms. This happens a lot. You can read his Press and Journal article here.
Featured image taken from article.
I am resurfacing from a busy few days, including hosting a party for about eighteen children to celebrate Auri’s fourth birthday. Well, I say hosting – Euan actually organised the whole thing. Apart from a few on-the-day things, my sole contribution was sorting the party bags. Even at the party, I mostly looked after Elfi who, mercifully, slept peacefully until the cake was brought out (and even then fed quietly without fuss).
And don’t even ask me how Auri is four already.
Auri is an avid reader. She loves being read to, and she loves reading on her own. Almost every night without fail, you can guarantee she’ll get out of bed after we’ve wished her goodnight to keep choosing more and more books. By this time, Euan will already have read her several stories (every night when I’m feeding Elfi, I hear Auri make promises that the next book will be the last one, only for cries of “but only one mooooooooore!” when that book is finished).
When we kitted out her room with new furniture a year or two ago, I made sure that Auri could access her books easily, as that was one thing that was always so important to me growing up. Of course, it does mean that occasionally you enter the bedroom – at any time of day – to find an avalanche of stories has descended upon the carpet.