hurray for sunshine

The clocks went forward the other day... and suddenly it feels like summer is here... I left work in the day light and walked home in the daylight, little pink flowers on the trees and a bee! So this is what it's like to be alive :)

I'm off to visit a friend in Glasgow this weekend, anticipating cups of tea and cake in cafes, walking in the park (in the daylight!) a bit of nice tasty food and a good old natter.

Enjoy your weekend!

in charge...

Hurray! I'm free for a whole week! No work for me, my parents have gone on holiday for the week and I'm looking after their house and all the animals. What joy.Let me introduce you...

This is Poppy, she is my favourite dog in all the world.

Marble, 19 and still going strong!

Early & Lucy, looking a bit muddy but enjoying their hay.

Saracen (named after my mums favourite gladiator from Gladiators)

And also various chickos wandering about the place (But seen as there's 18 of them I won't tell you all the names today, here is Ducky, he's the Daddy.)

Im so looking forward to my week of peace and quiet, good company (see above!) long walks and lots of time for making things. I've been waiting for this week for months, a chance to catch up on all the things I pick up when I get in from work but have to put down to make tea or sleep; all the things I wish I could be doing when at work staring at a spreadsheet; all the things I want to do but haven't got space in my little house. I'm sure the time's going to fly by, but hey!


I just got back from a little walk with Poppy, it's really windy, and it's great to get some air in my lungs. Some air that hasn't come out the exhaust pipe of a bus. I remember how much I love the countryside, and specifically this little bit of the countryside, where I grew up, and my dad grew up and his dad grew up. I feel like I belong here, the trees and the river and the steep hills. I suppose I was lucky to have all this to play in as a child. I used to spend hours making treasue from sticks and grass, drawing maps and making dens, secret places. I suppose it's made me what I am today.

hmmm...

And there's nothing like a big hill to clear the cobwebs away!


The rock I am on top of here is called sluring rock (well, by me anyway), one side is slanted with a handy groove for climbing, but the other is a long sheer drop. When I was little my parents used to use this as an incentive to get me up the hill; if I walked all the way without complaining then I would be allowd to climb sluring rock, and what a treat, you feel like you're on top of the world.

Well here goes...

I just got in from a cold windy walk, and I'm sat at my dining room table looking at this...


My first daffodil of spring! Hurray for spring! (If you're wondering why its here and not in the ground it's because it snapped in the wind... you can't win em all) I'm really looking forward to spring now, it gets to about this time of year and I've just about forgotton that it CAN be light in the evenings and I don't have to always wear 3 t-shirts, a jumper, coat, hat & scarf if I want to leave the house!

The daffodil is in a bottle I found when pullng up some weeds. Years ago the place I was digging was an old mill damn, it's been full of brambles since the mill fell down a century ago, and the ground had just been turned over to make a paddock. This must heve unearthed the bottle, I'm amazed it wasn't crushed under all the diggers, but it survived, semi burried, for me to discover. It's a Codd bottle, it has a marble as a stopper which is then pushed out and held in the specially shaped neck so the pop can be drunk.


Apparently (according to my aunty who is an expert in these things...) they're quite rare; kids would smash the necks to get at the marbles. What makes it more special to me too is that it has the name of the place I grew up written on the bottom: James Simpson, Hebden Bridge.


I love to think about how it got to be where it was, who threw it there that 100 years ago? Someone who worked in the mill? What would they think now to the industrial smoke filled place they worked becoming a field full of flowers... I love that their rubbish is my treasure, and it makes me think, one day will someone find MY old rubbish and wonder the same thing...