blow wind blow

and oh, did it blow...

we're in haworth today, on the yorkshire moors... my idea to come here, part of my overdose of english literature as a child

        

it isn't so much that i am a huge bronte fan, as a fan of the land she wrote about

and of course the yorkshire of james herriot's tales

yesterday we did a two mile hike through fields, hopping the stiles and walking along the stone fences - the land access laws help to make all that possible...

so much fun climbing over these...

                                     ...

streams and old stone bridges dotted he landscape

        

this was my favourite...

       

narrow pathways between stone walls

                                      

the reward for the effort was the view... the hills and dales

        

it was cloudy, windy, cold and I wouldn't have had it any other way...

        

the scene below summed it all up and if this is all i had seen, iit would have been enough...

        

it would have been more than enough... the moor, the heather, the stone cottages, the lonely trees and the howling wind... the sense of absolute aloneness... just as written, just as imagined, just as dreamed of...

{having a little trouble formatting posts on the mobile blogger platform - text and photos aren't quite as i would like- click on any picture to see a larger version... and the monica of the last post is monica of the white bench blog.... blogger won't let me provide a link but if you google her, you will find it and you will love her!}

come walk with me...

come walk with me, if you have some time...

 there's a lovely path we'll follow

it winds along, turning here and there...

but the grass is green and the way is clear

and we shall know no sorrow

through the gate and on we go

past clumps of scented frailties white

with stairs that beckon, do climb them well

to behold their charming vista view

and in green glory, may you find

a place where joy and peace reside

today I met with monica 

we met through blogging several years ago and today we met in person

what a delightful, kind and beautiful soul

she took me to see my very first english garden

bourton house, at bourton-on-the-hill, in the cotswolds

what an amazing day; what a kindred spirit!

we toured the garden, went to an arboretum for lunch and then shopped the charity  and antique shops in stowe-on-the-wold

treasures were found

{we agreed it was likely a good thing we don't live closer or we might be a very bad influence on each other!!!}

sharing our thoughts on living a creative life, our mutual need for solitude, what it means when you find the place where you truly belong, and the joy of following your dreams

she took me to my first english garden, and his alone has been a thing that has changed me... the contradiction of a well-laid out, organized space, with spaces large enough to allow a tangle of flowers and shrubs to provide a beautiful, pastoral view

order allows freedom - they can go hand-in-hand,  side-by-side

mutually compatible, ying and yang, curves and straight lines

i feel as though i am finding myself on this trip, to the place of my roots

I feel the land slowly moving to envelope me, covering my feet, as if pulling me down, taking root...

so much that is familiar to me, so much like going home

Monica

random beauty

so here we are...

and what a wonderful place to be

everything i expected and hoped for and then some

tower big ben

if you read my post announcing this trip then you would remember me mentioning big ben

it was a timex moment when we first laid eyes on it

ten minutes to two...

a short time later we heard it mark the time - so cool

we spent part of sunday evening attending an organ recital in westminster abbey

the walk out was as awe-inspiring as the music... so very old... so very beautiful

this gate in hyde park was striking in it's design

everywhere I cast my eyes there was something magical to see - it was like landing in my very own mary poppins movie...

hyde park was a little different than I expected - beautifully green, big trees, wilder areas

a park for people to be in, move through and enjoy

a place to sit

also on my list was trafalger square

to see lord nelson's lions of stone

dreams coming true

and finally, the street I lived on in london... if only for a short time, it was mine

"i remember", i said

"i remember" i said to the sea

far out, the swell of green

nearing it's destination, the tumult grew

heaving, thundering, crashing

the lightness of the sun one way

billowing dark clouds another

standing on the shores of normandy

echos on the wind

"i remember" i said to the river

  green and shining, always moving, never still

 to the grasses blowing and the poppies growing

in the fields of flanders

"i remember you" to the soldiers

who lay at my feet

 

the whispers of the trees

branches dancing in the wind

the cawing of the crows

told me they remembered too

 standing on the edge of the vimy memorial

the country lays at your feet

bending in gratefulness, remembering

 

chiseled in granite

unyielding stone

known and unknown

i remember you

 

A Tale of Two Kitties

This post could also be entitled

"He Always Gets What He Wants"....

Bozzy rules the roost at our house

he's the Big Kahuna

it's been that way from the beginning... likely because he was such a pathetic little mess when we adopted him - ears frozen and ready to fall off, ditto for the end of his tail

wheezing and grunting from frozen lungs

he's been molly-coddled back to health and then some...

he and Mistress Josy-phine have a special relationship

he always gets what he wants

she can have a little hissy fit if she likes

Bozzy has learned Josie always finds the best spots for perching

and watching the world go by

so he knows that when she's conspicuously absent, it must be because she is in a better place

case in point...

surveying the situation

mapping the route: north face, no ropes

 

punted

 and... done!

He'll sit there for a while, checking things out, until he's sure everyone who's anyone knows that he's The Boss and then he'll saunter off, in search of a person...

that's the natural order of things

I've gone back to the natural order of things too...

when I first started quilting I made doll quilts

little quilts in different patterns, learning about colour and cloth and pattern and design

some hand-pieced and hand quilted, others by machine

all teaching me something

I saved all the snippets and scraps in baggies, one for each one that I made and they are still that way, tucked away safely in a box and in my mind

Laura was little then and always going to birthday parties

 the doll quilts were perfect little birthday presents - they were chameleons; a doll quilt if appropriate, a place mat if not

Laura always chose which one to give

this week I made another one 

machine pieced, but I'm hand quilting it

silk batting

a dream to needle - I'll never use anything else for hand-quilting again

 and my brand new bunny scissors from The Raspberry Rabbits

Shell said in a recent post she contributes $ from purchases to a shelter for bunnies so I ordered these 

and are they a dream!

cute and sharp, made in Europe and beautifully pointy

I love lovely tools

Cabin Fever

 Yep, I've got it.

A full blown case of Cabin Fever...

There's various names for it all over, but in the Yukon that's what it's called.

During the Gold Rush of 1898 the Sourdoughs (they were the Southerners who came seeking the gold) weren't used to a Yukon winter, where the temperature can go to 40 below or more for weeks on end, and back then there was no entertainment, other than the dance halls... and if you were out on your claim, twenty or thirty miles out of town, looking at a dog team for transportation, well, by the end of February you had Cabin Fever.

You're restless, fidgety, cranky, and nothing can please you whatsoever, until you're ready to put your own self in the corner and come-out-when-you've-thought-about-it...

winter's gotta go and where the heck is Spring anyway????

a little retail therapy can sometimes help....

when we were in the city for one day of tests, we stopped off at the mall afterward to run a few errands...

Marc wanted coffee but I secretly wanted to to peruse the dish section at the Bay

so I fobbed him off with some excuse or other and a plan to meet at Starbucks when I was finished...

In my browsing I found this - a lovely, perfectly grey-blue cake pedestal with brown edges and a raised detail, the outward curves perfectly matching the shape of my every day dishes 

and it was 30% off!

as I came around the corner, headed straight for the checkout I came face to face with you know who...

busted!

"Whatta ya have there Missy" he says

so, clutching the box a little closer to me chest, I started with, 

"It's the perfect colour, and it will go perfectly with my dishes" and finished up with "and it's 30% off!"

  

he shook his head, looked it over and said,

"what will you do with it?"

and with wide-eyed seriousness I replied,

"put cupcakes on it"

a long pause, a little sigh and then....

"well, bring your treasure and let's get out of here then"

and so it followed me home