Weekly update

 

June Lovely June
    Now beautifies the ground
     The song of the cuckoo
        In the green woods resounds.

I can’t believe we are already in mid-June! June is my favourite month –  and not just because it is my birthday month 😉 We are at the peak of the year with the Summer Solstice (longest day) tomorrow on the 21st June. I love the long days; they feel so full of potential and the light and warmth brings people out of their homes and out of themselves. All around us in nature and in the garden there has been so much growth in the last couple of weeks. But at this time of year, I also find myself struggling to focus, to get things done. This is one of the challenges for me at this time of year. I feel all over the place… I think they call it ‘Midsummer madness’ 😉 Being born on Midsummer’s eve, it’s not surprising I’m a bit susceptible to a bit of that!!

Anyway, the time is whizzing away and it’s less than a month until we take our big trip to the States. We are getting excited, but still have much to arrange beforehand and lots to do in the next month as the school year draws to an end. Hopefully I will regain some focus soon!!!

Some sad news:

Our dear hen Delilah, who had been sick for over a week died on Friday night. She became weaker day by day and couldn’t even find the energy to eat her favourite foods. At the end she could no longer stand or hold herself up, so we had to prop her up against cushions so she could be upright. It was such a sad sight. We gave her all the love and care we could and put her out on the lawn every day in the guinea pig enclosure to nibble on the grass and for some fresh air.

We separated her from the other hens permanently once we saw that they were being unkind to her because of her weakness; pecking her and I even saw one hen stand on her to get past. It was awful to see so I removed her immediately. It certainly showed “survival of the fittest” in action 😦 I continued to give her water by pipette, but sadly she didn’t make it. We wonder if the fact that she started laying eggs again was too much for her system after her previous shock? We shall never know…

My daughters were saddened but also relieved for her as she was clearly dying for several days. My eldest who is so scared of death, took Delilah’s death better than we expected as she could see what a release it was for her and how that is the natural course of things sometimes.

On Saturday, we buried her under our little cherry tree. My daughters collected flowers to put in with her and my husband covered her in pretty crepe paper. My eldest also quickly decorated a stone to be laid on top (to stop animals digging her up). It was a very sweet send off and of course I hummed a little of the Tom Jones song “Delilah” 🙂

I had a dream that night that she was happy. I expect she is now  🙂

Onto other news. My eldest daughter left for her class camp yesterday.

They are away for four days and three nights camping, with lots of walking planned and a whole day of kayaking, canoeing and raft building. My husband is joining them this evening to cook the evening meal and stay over and I will join them tomorrow for a long walk – looking at local geography – and ending with a cream tea.  I am looking forward to it.  I have never been able to join my eldest daughter’s class on their trips due to my youngest only going Kindergarten half days. As she now does two longer school days, I can sneak off for the day and join my eldest – hurrah!

I managed to finish my daughter’s sweater/cardigan  in primrose yellow. I did a lot of knitting in the days leading up to the camp 🙂

I don’t have a photo of her wearing it yet, but will share it when I do. It was a lovely knit and the yarn from Yarn stories is gorgeously soft, I will definitely be treating myself to some more. I made a few mistakes in my hurry to get it done, but my daughter is very pleased with how it looks and that’s all that counts, right?

I have almost finished the Geranium dress for my eldest. I just need to sew the buttons on and attach the pockets. I promised her it would be done by the time she returns from camp, so I have a couple of nights to finish it in (the days are accounted for). Hopefully my youngest will go to bed earlier than last night. It is so hot, she can’t settle. I fell asleep with her at 9.30pm and didn’t wake up til 4am! I guess I am still recovering from a couple of week of broken sleep with the girls having nightmares and then having worms (they wake up screaming around 11pm-1am without fail…I hear some children don’t seem to be that bothered, but my children are so in tune with their bodies, it really disturbs them). Fingers crossed!

We enjoyed a peaceful Father’s Day on Sunday. We didn’t really do much. Once again, as on Mother’s Day, we had to go out on an errand to get some bedding for the animals, so we combined that with lunch out and a few games of cards. We are really enjoying playing rat-a-tat-cat . It is quite competitive and lots of fun! We are all good loosers, thank goodness!

The girls made Daddy some paper bunting and some paper flowers. They found the idea in one of the spring editions of the lovely magazine LandLove.

And that’s my news for the last week. I will be back with more soon 🙂

Happy Summer Solstice!

 

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