Mists and mellow (also more creepy-crawlies)

One day last week we woke to mist and an awful lot of very visible spiders' webs. The kids were delighted! As was I actually - it all looked absolutely magical. There's something very calming about walking in fog. We've done a lot of walking recently because there's some fairly epic digging-up-of-the-roads-to-lay-cables going on in our area with four-way temporary traffic lights and other such joys, so going on foot is working out as less stressful. Fortunately my occasionally charming offspring are proving quite accepting of this.

Other mornings have been damp but mild. This year the local council* planted long thin patches of wildflower seeds (possibly an oxymoron there, but I'm sure you know what I mean) here and there and the result was long strips of flowers by the roads, looking absolutely gorgeous.

There weren't many patches that I saw, but maybe there'll be more next year (and with self-seeding perhaps this year's patches will be bigger next year) and it's a good start.

Sorry about the wonkiness of the picture but I was distracted by unexpectedly wet feet - it had rained in the night, and I was wearing trainers. I always forget that the ventilation mesh bit on top of my trainers lets water in. You'd think I'd learn, but there you go.

Meanwhile (actually on a completely different day, so not 'meanwhile' at all) my sunflowers continue to attract the bees - buff tail bumblebee also approves, so I think we can label the sunflowers a success.

They also attracted this... thing: 

I don't know what it is, and it's not exactly a vision of loveliness, but it's oddly fascinating to look at. Anyone got any idea?  Update: I put the pic on Facebook and my very knowledgeable friend Wendy found out that it's a yellow dung fly (scathophaga stercoraria).  I've probably seen them loads of times before but never up close like that.



* Presumably - I remember reading of a plan to grow some pollinator-friendly plants at the roadsides, so this would seem to be it.

creepy-crawlies (nice ones)

I'll start with a poppy which has suddenly flowered and is providing the only splash of red in our garden. They're not lasting long as the slightest puff of a breeze seems to de-petal them, but they are gorgeous.

I'll follow the poppy with something which should be red but isn't:

This appeared on my arm while I was driving back from the school this afternoon - it wandered up and down my arm and then onto my hand, but as I was driving I couldn't take more than a very quick glance and think 'ooh that's tickly' and 'funny, it looks like a ladybird'. When we got home the Boy retrieved my camera from my bag and I got this one decent picture before it flew away. Actually I got a picture of it opening its wing cases just prior to flying away but unfortunately it's blurred. Then we googled images of ladybirds, and apparently it's a larch ladybird, something I'd never heard of before. I knew there were other ladybirds than the usual seven-spot ones, but I'd no idea there were plain brown ones. Nice to learn something new!

Meanwhile the sunflowers are finally flowering and proving popular with carder bumble bees and hoverflies. When I started getting interested in bee-friendly gardening I looked at some websites that suggested that sunflowers are popular with bees and some that said the conplete opposite, so I'm glad to find out that they're popular with at least some bees.

Last day of the summer holidays

I usually try to something fun and interesting on the last day of the school holidays, but we've done so many fun and interesting things this year that we had a lazy last day instead. Miss M was happy spending most of the day playing with her best friend over the road and the Boy was happy just pottering around, bouncing on the trampoline or playing on the Wii (actually alternating between them).   This afternoon the Boy and I decided to go for a walk and see what stage the brambles are at. The answer is, developing and green (bottom left of the photo). The bees were loving the flowers though.

 We found some nice raspberries too.

And also, by careful listening and even more careful looking, a grasshopper. Actually several grasshoppers but this was the one that was most willing to be photographed. I do also have several pictures of empty leaves, vacated a nano-second previously.

This evening has been spent watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 2) and sewing name labels onto school clothes. I'm pretty useless at proper sewing but I find small amounts of hand-sewing quite therapeutic. Most years I sew a couple of labels on, then resort to biro on the washing instruction tags for the rest, lazy as I am. But this year I've done loads! Yay me :-D.

Why don't my clothes have cute flower buttons on them?

The ceiling saga

 Last month we had a leak in the teeniest little pipe under the floor in the bathroom, right over the kitchen inconveniently enough. It turns out it was the most awkward pesky place to get to and half the kitchen ceiling had to come down to get at it. The actual leak was quickly fixed but the kitchen did not look good. Also we found out that it used to be a not particularly nice shade of green - and I love green, so that's saying something.

But a month later and the ceiling is back where it should be, the cabinets that had to be taken down are back up, I've repainted the kitchen, got a new clock as the old one was a bit rubbish and running slow, and the small cat has found a new place to perch.

All the fun and games coincided with the last few weeks of term and we had workmen in plastering and putting the ceiling back up on the first Friday and Monday of the summer holidays. It's all been just a little stressful. So I treated myself to some colourful sock wool that I have been pining over for a while. It's Trailing Clouds' Primary/Secondary (as in primary and secondary colours) and it is self-striping loveliness in a skein. 

I have other things to finish before I cast on but I'm so looking forward to having bright stripey feet in the winter!

But enough of the w-word, it has been warm and sunny here and I've been chasing bees around the garden, trying to get a photo.

Here's one headbutting a lupin. Whee! *thump*

I think this is a carder bumblebee, very ginger thorax. They move surprisingly quickly, I always think, and I have umpteen fuzzy pictures of a ginger blur and as many closeups of a bit of flower that the bee has just left. Exit bee, stage right.

The dyer's chamomile is just starting to flower now and the garden looks very happy in the sunshine.

things wot we 'ave been doin'

The trouble with having a little unintentional blogging break is that I find I have loads I want to talk about but I'm too overwhelmed by it to be bothered - besides which it is the school Easter break so I'm either rather busy staving off bickerfests or trying to prevent the kids from spending all day playing Minecraft or watching back-to-back episodes of Lazytown. I appreciate musclebound Icelandic men as much as the next woman but there are limits.

The first week of the holiday was great because we tootled up to the Highlands to see my mum and dad for a few days. The weather was lovely and Cairngorms National Park is pretty wonderful at any time of the year:

We were all impressed by this caterpillar.

Since we got back I've done a bit of dyeing, with daffodil heads this time, resulting
in this:

 Ah, yet another yellow! Nice one this time



And I've ripped back the green shawl I'd just started knitting because something had gone not-quite-right and it was bugging me:

So I've started again and now it's going better. She says cautiously.

And I thought I'd show you my little knitted bee.

He brightens up my spotty bag beautifully. I knitted him because Miss Mouse's class recently did a bee topic at school and we-the-parents were all invited in at the end of term to see some of the stuff they'd been doing. I'd offered the bee to Miss M to take in if she wanted but she declined - however she was delighted when I arrived with the bee on my handbag. I think it'll stay there, it makes me smile :-).

Following the crafty theme, I've also become hooked on the Great British Sewing Bee, despite (or perhaps because of?) being completely inept at sewing myself.  I do like watching competent people being competent.

And now, for Mrs Micawber, some of my egg-hunt clues. Apologies for terrible poetry!

'Finding eggs is hard, you'll agree/The next egg is with things that help Mama see' - the egg was hidden on my bedside table behind my contact lens solutions.

'The next egg is hidden from sight/ In a place that might be home to a knight' - in the Boy's old toy castle.

'Magical transport that comes when it's bidden/Is the place to find an egg hat is hidden'  - behind Miss M's Lego Knight Bus. This one had them stumped and I had to give them some fairly unsubtle hints in the end.

'The next egg is the cutest by far/ Find it where the small people are' - in Miss M's doll's house. I'd put gem stickers  and googly eyes on the foil for that egg to make it the 'cutest by far'.

And so on!

haha! havedunnit! the bee photo

I've spent all summer trying to get a photo of a bee. The hoverflies have co-operated beautifully, but the bees have just been too quick for me. You think they're slow moving but before you can get the camera to focus they're away. But yesterday morning I finally managed it - several pictures in fact. The bees were contentedly buzzing around the last remaining lupins and with the weather being bright but cool (it's been perfect autumn weather for the last few days) perhaps they were a bit dozy. They were certainly less camera-shy.

Achievement unlocked!

A pot full of yellow

 Dyer's chamomile (anthemis tinctoria), mostly leaves and stems with a few flowers chucked in too.

 After simmering for a bit.

And drying on the washing-line in the sunshine - sunshine! Woohoo!

There was actual laundry drying on the line too, and it mostly dried! It was quite breezy as well as sunny, so a great drying day.  It's a bit of a sad thing to get excited about but we've had very few decent drying days this year and I love the smell of line-dried washing.

And I wasn't the only one enjoying the sunshine:

Basking bee.

(Mum, this is a picture I took while we were on the 'phone).

All this was possible because My Beloved took the kids out for a bit. I love them to bits, but oh my, peace and quiet....  Bliss.