Into the home stretch on the eve of July...

And Life is colour and Warmth and Light
And a striving evermore for these;
And he is dead who will not fight;
and who dies fighting has increase.

Julian Grenfell (1888-1915)

And one more...

the last of our cocoons hatched this morning and we were treated to our own up-close nature display. It had only just emerged...

then seconds later...

after this it rested for about half an hour then flew away!

Lots of butterflies of different sorts today, including this good sport who stayed long enough for me to grab my camera!

Mainly white: butterflies!!

We did it!! Friday morning at school I was greeted by a butterfly home full of flutterings, then this morning the chrysalises revealed their emerging treasures to the Smalls. Much excitement v. early.

They were extremely difficult to photograph being so slim that I couldn't get the camera to focus on them. They made it easier when they crawled on to the Smalls as they stretched their wings for their first flight.

What an amazing moment to share.

They are as suspected cabbage (large) white pieris brassicae. They flew a little and landed right back where they had hatched from their eggs. Poor old nasturtium.

More new life - this old world velvety rose appeared on the bush that I thought wasn't going to flower this year. Its scent is what I would call 'real rose'!

Progress continues on the lopi:

stash of colour for winter

Boy oh boy what a crazy interval.

Reports done, 2 corrections - not bad really. My treat was some yarn and pattern book from Stash, which is now shaping up to be Hun from Lopi 28. At first it felt very scratchy to me, never having used pure wool before. However, it is softening and holds onto itself really well in the colourwork areas. I have changed the colour since I need to take some of the colour from the summer with me into winter!

The seeds the Smalls planted are now beginning to flower, so to catch up: a rainbow from the garden to look back on in the cold grey days of winter:

I am also struggling with light-itis! Having moved from the flat to a south facing house in an area devoid of light pollution I am acclimatising to vitamin d overload. The blackout linings have gone up on the Smalls windows as well as blinds and curtains. This was our garden at 10pm last night!!This is about as dark as it gets at the moment. No wonder I don't hear the birds so much, they must be exhausted - just as they sing themselves to sleep they are singing themselves awake again!!

BTW the caterpillars have all survived and are now chrysalises, hopefully we will have butterflies before the end of term.

Silver and gold!

the thunder went crash...
the lightning went flash...
the rain went splash...
and the modem went BANG!

Installed new modem and am now done in. Just printing off reports... but the modem was essential repairs since I had to place my wool order as my prize for being a good girl and meeting the report deadline of tomorrow morning!

Day 9

I think today's post is going to have to be green, judging by our fun today.

Before it got tooo hot we adventured south from home. We orienteered our way along new footpaths to us, and going by the grasses height at the end of the walk, a not very frequented path. Medium Small as can be seen is correctly dressed for a walk, in posh dress and pink handbag as well as 'princess hair' (I did win the battle with trainers and suncream though- as is evident I lost to everything else including a hat that would mess up the hair). What great views. I think Littlest Small mainly saw this. The half-way point took us to a (cunningly plotted) ice-cream stop and we walked back a little along what a few years ago was a hell-fast death-trap road. Ambivalent feelings as we strode along here eating ice-creams when the memory of years' previous hideous accidents is still on the tarmac and in my mind's eye.

We walked past a fantastic farm still equipped with barn-owl homely buildings. I was intrigued by these roof tiles. I've never seen tiles laid in diamonds.

We also discovered what my weed/flower will look like in a week or so:

My Dad has looked it up. It is Salsify. Related to the commonly know Jack-to-bed-by-noon (which is exactly what it does). Apparently you can eat the tubers as a veg. Can't see the Smalls taking to that. Apparently they can taste like oysters. Never tasted those either so don't need to try it to compare!!

...and finally, what do you do when it's bathtime and you've had a fabulous day that you don't wish to end, and the sun still feels like it is at noon, so it reeeeaaally can't be bedtime?

Why, "hide" in the garden in (momentarily clean) pillowcases and pretend you are baby hedgehogs!!?! I'm going to try this on our report deadline with the Head to see if it works for me too!

Pink!

I know it's not in the rainbow, but technically it's not a school night either. However, I've had enough of school work for one evening.

Oh, and some pink yarn that was in the sale bin at the newsagents. See, it spoke to my internal colour card, the reduction sign spoke to my account-keeping brain, and they just slipped along with the original milk-only purchase!! I think yarn is devising guerilla tactics round here.