Passion Flower and Fairy Castles

Here are a couple of passion flower plants in bloom. Can you see why I've grown them myself now? Wonderously beautiful flowers. This specimen is in the Camillia House at the YSP.

Next up is the tree house/ fairy castle at the sculpture park. We had a fun trip there today with my brother. And my, it's so much busier than during the week, which gives the place a totally different atmosphere than usual. Hope you've all had a nice Sunday.

Feral Mother

I love the smell of my sons' head. It is intoxicating. It's amazing how his smell has chaged over time. I've been hanging out with a friend who has a six week old. Oh how precious! And what a sweet light smell she has.

I love being true to myself and my family. Following our natural state of being as a family has brought me so much fulfillment. Attachment style parenting is just so wonderful for us. And now I'm starting to see the fruitition of the extra time and energy of child led parenting. Oscar is slowly and carefully self weaning, as he grows away from me. Watching him and helping him to become his own person is so hard, but ultimately so rewarding. He's pretty much a toilet/ potty user full time now. He does have the occasional wet trousers, but generally he dashes to use the toilet if handy. I've not trained him at all. Just let him suss it out himself and helped him and reminded him where it goes. Elimination Communication turned into self controlled toilet using. He is learning to self settle himself to sleep. More and more he just wants me to lay next to him in bed while he cuddles and drops to sleep. Wow, and after the hours I've spent rocking and feeding him to sleep. So strange how some change just happens. One doesn't notice until something has stopped and slipped away.

I've lent my friend my Girosol wrap and given her a demo to help her to wear her little one. That wrap is just so soft and sturdy. Beautiful. Great craftsmanship. Oh how I hope to use it again in the future!

Samhain and Dias de los Muertos

This is the first year I've done a Day of the Dead table. I love it! I've used a lot of the Samhain flowers and decorations. Then I picked out photos of my loved ones and placed them around with my New Orleans voodoo dolls. These fellows are fairly simlar to the Mexican skulls that are used to celebrate the dead. I think the bright colours in their decoration are so right in celebrating the fantastic dead. Oscar helped carve the pumpkin, and we spent a long while playing at putting the eyes and mouth in and out. We did a happy side and a sad side, again celebrating both sides of life. One can't exist without the other.

So here are the final results. (Sorry not got a camera yet!) I'll be welcoming my loved ones back into my life for the night, remembering life with them.

A piece on the history of Samhain. We celebrated Samhain with pumpkin muffins and an evening out at the local ice cream parlour. It was lots of fun.

Dia de los Muertos

A lovely video on Dia de los Muertos and a great little film and another documentary.

Crushing Leaves

Well what an autumnal scorcher it was this morning! We had a great walk and cycle around a local park at Cannon Hall...just look at all those lovely crispy leaves.

The Deer Shelter

Yew columns

Hot House Flowers

Straw Man Skiing

Trained Pear Tree

Walled Garden

Cacti

Entrance to Fairyland

Park Life

Cannon Hall

New Hair

I decided to go for a more neat and groomed look for a change! I must admit that I love it :)

Samhain and Thinking of Death

I did a flower arrangement a while back when I visited my mothers' grave. I cut peonys, ferns and eucalyptus from the garden and did this for her. She died at 41 due to medical negligence. She is still much loved and missed. As a seven year old it was too much to deal with really. But I don't think I truely understood the loss until I became a mother. It's not often I've ever said this or allowed myself to feel this but... Mum, it was really hard without you and I ache in my heart for you still. I still miss you every day and hope you can sense how well your little girl grew up, even without you.

Samhain

I WILL get a new camera this weekend I promise! So sorry about the not brill photo quality.

These are pictures of my Samhain/ Halloween displays. I have bought dendrathemas, anthurium, hypericum, lillium, curled leaves and a mixture of ugly beautiful gourds. I used old wine bottles to arrange the flowers in and to repeat the theme in each room.

I absolutely love this time of year. It's so magical and colourful. I love the darkness drawing in and taking it's place as ruler for the next few months. I love cosying up inside and looking out of the cold glass of the windows onto twinkling lights in the distance. I've been thinking a lot about my loved ones in the summerlands who have passed over.

We've been watching Nightmare before Christmas and The Corpse Bride here. I love the celebration of the dead that Tim Burton addresses in these films. I will do another post this week showing my Voodoo Doll collection and talking about the Day Of The Dead.

Getting Fit

I'm on a major 'get fit' regime at the moment. Oz and I have been on a 5 mile (or so) walk/run today. We are lucky to live near to lots of bridal paths in the countryside. Oz has been walking a lot and nodding off in his pram on the way home. He won't go in his sling anymore, so the pram is a good solution so we can go on longer distances.
We split the walk in two today with a long play at a park. We were running around like hooligans. On the way back we made friends with a long legged cat. He walked with us for around 300 yards, before heading back towards his home. Oz loved him.

I will hopefully be moving in the near future so I'll have lots of decorating and home crafting to do. I'm very excited to have a room to use as a studio! My artwork has come to a standstill recently, as I just have no room to myself in this house. So I'm looking forward to a totally new beginning! I'm trying to focus on my blog novel and am trying to stay off the internet quite a bit. Just to get some balance back. Very apt seeing as we've just had the autumn equinox. I'm on a bit of a 'getting back to nature' vibe.

I'm starting to think about Samhain/ Halloween at the end of the month. It's time to think of casting away old habits and concentrating on bringing in the new. Time to reassess life and routine to see what's still working for our little family and what we've grown out off. How fabulous that it falls on a Saturday this year. I would like to make an outfit for Oz, but I'll probably end up buying one as they are so cheap in the shops. I'm disappointed not to have any pumpkins from the garden this year. They got savaged by mice I'm afraid. That reminds me, I really should get my carrots up!

International Babywearing Week

Cool Video for International Babywearing Week!

Pot Head

Just thought I'd share my lovely pots. I've filled them with hydrangeas, autumn pansies, cyclamens, Fatsia, Cordyline and Fan Palm. How cheerful.