It was very early in the morning when I was awakened from my sleep by my twins. Lightsabers swooshed and made battle noises around me. My son Theo was dressed as an X Wing fighter pilot from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. His twin sister Luce was Rey, the heroine in this same sequel. They had brought me breakfast on a…
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My June garden is filled with roses – and raindrops. They’re climbing up frames, across a pergola and hugging every part of our wood deck. The non stop rain is getting too much for them. Every day I’m filling more vases with roses which means the inside of the house smells as sweet as the outdoors. But, like the English novelist…
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Near us is my favourite path through the woods which leads to the den my children built. It’s a place for knightly adventures and nature hunts. Animal trails criss-cross the path, many leading down to the stream nearby. Often I head there for a walk just as the sun begins shining through the high tree tops. Since my mother arrived for a…
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Since the start of June I’ve noticed in passing foxgloves waving their fairy fingers or witch’s gloves – some of their other common names – by the sides of roads, cottage front gardens or along banks across the Sussex countryside. But it was a wild orchid which lured me off a woodlands path into their midst. Foxgloves had filled an area in the…
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My eight-year-old daughter no longer wanted her doll’s house but refused to give it away. She then came up with the brilliant idea that it would be perfect as a bug hotel with a new basement flat for hedgehogs. Even for a doll’s house bug hotel ‘location, location, location’ is important. We needed somewhere that the hotel for bugs would be…
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Elderflowers, elderflowers everywhere! The perfumed scent of elderflowers has been following me in the early mornings signalling the start of the summer season. In the woods and along the hedgerows by our house the tiny clusters of flowers have finally been opening up. I watched and waited for them in May but they’re finally flowering this June in our area…
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