Floral Inspiration

It is amazing how in just a few weeks our gardens and the countryside have blossomed into beautiful palettes of colour. My next door neighbours have the most amazing country borders full of foxgloves,delphiniums, aquilegia and sweet william, my garden is not quite so wonderful but I use theirs to provide me with enthusiasm and inspiration. Taking this inspiration the theme for flower club this week was a summer basket, which Margaret our teacher thinks we should all enter into the local Country Show competition in September. I think we will need another one or two of the white wine spritzers we had last night to convince ourselves we are worthy of entering a competition but once we had all finished our creations and our spritzers! we did feel slightly more confident about the whole concept.

I had a theory that if I tidied and beautified my working space it would help with my creativity and production, so I set to work to do this and was very pleased with my definite floral themed working area.

I have since made some of these oilcloth holdalls, that I discovered whilst trying to come up with a lunch bag design. My initial one had some definite design flaws and so whilst I was waiting to buy the extra bits in order to rectify these flaws I put all my sewing bits and bobs related to the project inside the said failed bag. Hey presto! this has now become an incredibly handy tidyall for my sewing room. Thus I digressed from lunch bags and moved onto reversible oilcloth holdalls and set my imagination going as to what they could be used for around the home, below are some of my ideas. As you can see the little pencil pot looks great with the twig pencils that we sell at TreeHouseBlue, they really jazz up any workspace and are so great to hold. I think I will take these up to the shop next week and see whether Susie and Sam like them.

I have become stuck on my lunch bag design and so am now thinking along the lines of painting overalls! In between though I have had to make a white pair of trousers for Toby , as it will be his first Whitsun festival on Friday. I realised I may have made them a little wide in the leg , when Toby burst into an Elvis impression the minute he tried them on!! He seemed happy enough with them despite this, I now have visions of him at school amidst a very reverent and beautiful assembly becoming the king!

Looking out the window I see that my plan at the start of the Spring to make my veg plot equally inspiring and chintzy is coming together a little slower. The sweetpeas in the flour tin are doing great, I think what would help the effect along even more would be the really gorgeous windbreak and matching deckchair!! as featured in this months Country living. The screening we put up to hide nextdoors rubbish and discourage rabbits from entering my plot has not faired at all well through the Winter, maybe the solution would be to use the windbreak to add colour to the garden through the Summer but it can be safely put away for the Winter months and brought out again the next year. Equally my deckchairs are a disgrace, I have attempted to cover them in a different fabric and for now I think that will have to be my solution but really the whole effect would be completed by some new ones to match. Maybe my husband would like one for Fathers Day, what better way to relax, than in the garden, in a deckchair with a good book!

To bring things back around to flowers and Spring, I have taken a photo of our current nature table, every family who goes to a Steiner Waldorf school will have a nature table somewhere in their house. It helps to demonstrate to the children the Seasons and the rhythm that the year brings as well as allowing them space to put any of the treasures they have found whilst out and about. Some of them can be incredibly beautiful and elaborate with lots of handmade as well as bought items to help set the scene for the time of year. Our table tends to be busy with all 3 children contributing. Soon the whitsun doves will appear and some of the other items will go.

Sending the children to The Steiner school means that they are aware of events in the calendar such as Whitsun but at the same time are aware of the slightly more commercial events such as fathers day also which are just as important in a child's life.

Jam and Jerusalem!

Every time I attend one of our village hall committee meetings, I have to giggle to myself. The whole scenario is like something from an episode of Jam and Jerusalem. I live in a lovely village with a pond, pub, village green and beautiful church. Additionally we have a Village Memorial Hall which from the outside appears to be an old scout hut, but once inside you realise it really is a quaint old village hall with ancient china kept in an antique wall cupboard in a kitchen shared with mice and ivy that has grown through the wall into the kitchen!

We are trying desperately hard to raise £100,000 in order to rebuild the Hall in the same position and also enlarge it. Thus every other month or so we meet to discuss how we are going to do this, where we can go to get grants and at what stage the planning permission and build are at. The committee consists of the 'ladies', of which I am one, whom bake the cakes and organise social events to help raise money, and then there are the big guys who ask for considerably larger amounts of money from various organisations and draw up plans etc. for the build. The captain at the helm is the owner of the villages' beautiful mansion house, who seems to have contacts all over the place and tries his darnedest to keep everyone happy but in the process upsets many!!

Invariably the meetings start off following a true agenda but soon somewhere along the line comments about various inhabitants of the village are made and so a true picture of life at Beech Hill starts to unfold. I joined the committee when we first moved to the village to meet local people and become part of the village and this portal has proved the best way to do this and more! I would thoroughly recommend anyone wishing to embark in village life to attend a meeting of their local village hall or parish councillors. Beware though because once you are drawn in, your life will never be the same, needless to say you will almost certainly need to acquire a mothers manager. The beautiful chintzy diary we stock that not only gives you room to write in all these new meetings and events, it also has a brilliant pocket in which to store all the necessary bits of paper that come along with it.

I will endeavour to keep you updated of the events that occur in the meetings and impart any juicy gossip I am privy to hearing!

The farrier visited us this week, which I know Moon and Sunbeam appreciated because their hooves were looking a little long in the tooth. They have now had their french manicure and look so much better for it. Next month we have a visit from the equine dentist booked in, which I am not looking forward to, Moon does not do dentists, much like Molly and so sedation is a necessary element of this process. Hmm maybe this should be the approach to use for Molly!!

I myself visited the dentist today and managed to get away with a quick check up and no work required. Two hours later I receive a call from the school to say can I come and collect Toby he is unwell and has a toothache!! Once I had collected Toby I realised he really was not at all well, he was feverish and in alot of pain, so off we go back to the dentist!!!! It transpires that our poor little man has in fact got an abscess on his tooth and will require antibiotic treatment, apparently the next line of treatment is tooth extraction but our wonderful dentist does not believe in children undergoing this procedure for baby teeth and instead made a deal with Toby saying that if it became infected again we would have to take it out but in the meantime he can do the best he can to wobble it and lose the tooth by himself. Thank goodness!

Toby thinks the problem started at the weekend when he had a toffee bon bon as a treat, my new tactic will be to buy goodies that are not only soft but also organic, such as the moreish motezumas chocolate bars we sell at the shop and then we can indulge in a little bit of pleasure for alot less pain!

Moving on from chocolate to chocolate puddles! we took shadow for a walk at the weekend to the Englefield Estates woods, it was lovely and as you can see from the pictures the chosen activity for the walk was' who could find the deepest chocolatey puddle'. I wonder!!!!