Too far gone

I think not posting anything since July qualifies me as a terrible blogger. I could go back and re-cap everything since then, but really I think it's too far gone. So instead, I shall start again with the best of intentions and see how far I get this time.

It's been warm. Really warm. Like wearing t-shirts in October warm. Which is wonderful, if slightly confusing. We finally reached the end of bee-keeping season and the girls are settling down for the winter, which means we get weekends to go off and explore and DO STUFF. Mostly, this has been going for walks, seeing lots of amazing things, and generally having a wonderful time.

The honeybees are making the most of the long autumn and stocking up for winter.

Autumn is a great time to see wildlife, and the red squirrels here made my day. You'd think that living with small fluffy animals, I wouldn't want to see more of them. But I do, oh I do. I loved noticing the differences between the squirrels and our degus, even down to the fact that the squirrels will come right up to you for food and yet it took us MONTHS to get the degus to eat out of our hands.

I don't really think of myself as a bird-watcher. But as we go out and about, I find that I always want to know what things are. What's that bird? That tree? That plant? And the more I know, the more I want to know. Which might be why I've joined so many Isle of Wight nature groups on Facebook. I want to know ALL THE THINGS.

The last few weekends have been full of wonderful things. I'm quite emotional about it really - there's so much beauty around us and I love that we have the time to enjoy it together.

I love noticing all the little details, and feeling like we're making the most of every minute of this glorious autumn. These are good days, my friend.

Stretching our legs

It's been a while since we went on a proper walk, and we certainly hadn't planned to this afternoon. But the weather was nice and we didn't have our beekeeping gear...so why not? I met Chris after work and we took a picnic lunch up to Brading Down. Lots of planes, microlights and autogyros taking advantage of the still, calm weather.

To work off some of the excess lunch we decided to stroll down, across and back up. We've done this walk before and there are always good things to be found. I didn't have my proper camera with me today but I was very grateful for my phone:

I do love bees. If I'm honest, I might love bumblebees a little bit more than honeybees. I mean, look at them! They're so cute and almost cuddly. And their ridiculous bodies that look far too big to fly...how can you not love a bumblebee? We saw so many all the way round on our walk, lots of different varieties as well which is quite pleasing. Definitely a sign of a healthy ecosystem.

Wild roses were out in bloom, and we also saw our first blackthorn. Late spring/early summer can be a tough time for honeybees to find forage as we traditionally get a 'June gap' when the early flowers stop but before the next ones blossom. But with blackthorn out already, it looks like we won't have to worry about that this year.

Chris and I have very different styles as we walk. He is very much interested in the animals and wildlife that we find, can tell what sort of bird is which and is always the first to spot something interesting like a lizard sunning itself on a leaf (we found one of those today too). I love to see all these things, but I also really love all the different plants and flowers that we see. I really want to get better at knowing what things are, and I think my next purchase is definitely going to have to be some kind of field guide to wildflowers. In the meantime, I shall settle for taking photos and identifying plants once we get home. I'm pretty sure this is the Common Spotted Orchid, but I'm happy to be corrected if anyone knows better! Quite a thrill to find as I've never seen it before, despite the 'common' in its name.

Even though we were walking on bridleways and established paths, the vegetation was so lush and overgrown that it felt as though we were exploring unknown territory. I could have easily stopped here for a long time and looked out at that landscape. I am constantly amazed by how beautiful this island is. 

Our path took us past a small farm in the middle of the woods that had peacocks - really - wandering around. And as we walked past them we noticed a kerfuffle in one of the trees nearby. As we watched, two young jackdaws emerged from their nest in the tree and took their first flight. Slightly uncertain and distinctly wobbly, they were shaky to start with and one of them even crashed into the undergrowth nearby and then had a hard time trying to extricate himself from some stinging nettles. We could hear their parents calling from the branches above, and finally a third fledgling popped out from the nest and flew precariously to a nearby branch. I was quite concerned about them, but as we watched they all seemed to get the hang of their wings and flew away. A magic moment indeed.

There was plenty more magic on our climb back up the hill: a group of four or five wrens hiding near a nest in the woodland; a baby rabbit that watched us get closer and closer before scampering to safety in the warren; and some neatly nibbled nutshells that are the sign of a dormouse - something Chris would dearly love to see. It felt good to stretch our legs and get out from the routine of Saturday beekeeping, and our efforts were definitely rewarded today.

Photo vs. Sketchbook

I almost always carry my camera, and I definitely always have my phone on me. If I can't take a quick snap of something then I feel very lost indeed. I also generally have a sketchbook with me even if I don't have my full watercolour set. What I don't generally have is the time to sketch on the spot, especially if we are in the middle of a walk somewhere. I've been dithering a bit over putting sketches from photos in my journal, because it sort of feels like I'm not doing it 'properly'. Thankfully, I seem to have got myself over that now and I am enjoying transferring some of my favourite photos into my sketchbook.

Like anything, it takes practice. I don't want my pieces to be photo-realistic because I don't have the time for that, but I guess I'm aiming for a certain amount of realism. Working in the comfort of home means I can also take the time to sketch in pencil first without adding ink, and I'm enjoying this new challenge.

Making a habit of it

One of the habits I am trying to embrace this year is to keep a sketchbook with me at all times, and to sketch wherever I may be. This is all well and good, but sometimes it gets really cold. Other times people start talking to me. I like people talking, I really do, but not when I'm sketching.

I've also noticed that I have a habit of drawing churches. It's not from any particular religious sentiment, mostly it's just that they are interesting buildings. It does occasionally involve freezing in a churchyard though. 

I am way behind posting my sketches on here, partly due to laziness because I can't be bothered to scan them, and partly because I do like to have one or two 'in hand' just in case anything happens and I can't sketch for weeks on end. No-one said this had to make sense, right?

In any case, it's probably safe to post these which I did in early March. We had an afternoon of terrific fog, a thick blanket that covered everything. Fog isn't particularly fun to sketch but it did make for some interesting skies, like this sunset behind the church. This sketchbook is the lightweight one I keep in my bag - it's not designed for watercolour but it takes it really well, and because it's a cheapo sketchbook I don't feel bad about drawing loose and fast and with lots of interesting lines. When I use my 'good' sketchbook I find myself trying to make my sketches much neater and more precise.

The lychgate. Done in about five minutes just as I was leaving. Isn't traditional English architecture wonderful? I love the slightly wonky roofs and pointed Gothic arches. Once upon a time I wanted to be an architect, but you can't build that sense of history. I'll settle for sketching instead.

A whole other language

When I was a little girl, I read a lot of books. I knew lots of words and I wasn't afraid to use them. I can remember teachers being very impressed by 'the range of my vocabulary'. These days, the language I am interested in is the language of art. If you read this post  you'll see what I mean. How do I say what I want through my painting? Roz Stendahl, the artist whose blog I linked to, is constantly looking for new ways to say what she wants to on the page. If this is a language, I am still learning the alphabet. Quick brushstrokes to indicate sea or rocks. Soft, cool shadows to show land in the distance. Layering colour and creating forms.

The thing is, like with any language I have to practice to get more fluent. And so I keep drawing, keep painting, and sometimes it clicks and everything falls in to place. Like when you manage to order your meal in a foreign restaurant without the waiter laughing at you. 

These sketches are just from a couple of afternoons out last month. One done on location, and one from a photograph. I do enjoy sketching from life but sometimes it just isn't possible (especially when you're on a muddy walk). Either way, fresh greens and spring flowers make for much more interesting pages.

Tales from the allotment

Just like beekeeping, allotmenting came into my life with Chris. I think it was the third time we'd met when I went to see him on his allotment. Little did I know then! These days we tend the allotment together, as well as growing a small selection of vegetables at home. Last year was so busy that neither of us managed to do as much down here as we'd have liked, and the wet weather has certainly hampered our efforts so far. We managed to get out last weekend and start digging over one of the beds, and we decided to head down again today and make a bit more progress.

After checking most of our hives last weekend, we were hoping to do some more today but the weather was too cold. The bees were out and about but there were showers of rain and hail that made us keep running for shelter. If the weather picks up again hopefully we'll be able to get some more checks done next weekend.

The bees are quite happy to come and see what we're doing, and often sit and rest in front of us. And of course I am quite happy to whip out the camera and take a few photos!

This little slow worm was hiding in some of the long grass. Chris rescued it and put it safely in the greenhouse.

The allotment has two long beds and a bramble hedge down one side. Over last weekend and today, we have been digging over the beds on one side and reclaiming them from the grass that is trying to take them over, as well as chopping back the brambles. It's a brutal job, and at the moment everything looks quite brown and untidy. It's very satisfying, though, to see the spaces start to appear and the pile on the bonfire grow. We're going to have to be realistic about what we can achieve this year, because work and bees already take up a lot of our time, but I'm hopeful that we can keep on top of things and grow some good crops.

I'm learning to pace myself and take a lot of breaks for tea in the shed. And after our work today we stopped for an ice cream and admired the view. What a lovely way to spend our Sunday.

Life right now: beekeeping

Beekeeping started off as the thing that Chris did. Then I got involved, and somewhere last year it became a massive part of our life together.  I can talk the talk about slow living and being close to nature, but this is walking the walk - and I have the stings to prove it. Maybe they are to remind me that this is reality; I don't just get up and go to work in an office, this is real life and it's happening now. With the coming of spring and some properly warm weather it is also time to acknowledge that this is going to take significant chunks of our free time over the coming months. This weekend we began our first proper inspections to see how the bees had coped through the winter and if there were signs of new life.

This weekend we have checked on 13 out of our 16 hives. As you can see, the bees are pretty comfortable with us, and us with them! It is still slightly stunning to have a bee land on you, but once I remembered they just wanted somewhere to rest for a minute then it was easy to just let them get on with it. If you look closely at this bee you can see she's been out collecting pollen and is carrying it back to the hive in little 'baskets'.

So, for the first time this year we got out the smoker and had a proper look inside the hives. We were looking for good numbers of bees, new stores of honey, and eggs and larvae which is a sign that there is a queen who has started laying. We've been seeing lots of pollen going into the hives so we were very hopeful. Chris is also trying out his new beekeeping outfit - wearing a whole suit is a bit of a pain, so he's gone for a hat and veil, worn over two layers of long sleeves. Much easier to get on and off, and I am tempted to do the same. (It also means you can wash your layers, which is excellent because they do get very mucky).

Pleasingly, all of our hives so far have got eggs and larvae in all stages of development - our queens are up and running. Some of the hives have more bees than others, but that was how they ended last year so it is not a cause for concern. What was most satisfying was that some of the hives we were most worried about - including this little one above, and the two that we rescued from the flooding over the winter - were all in good shape. We've removed the fondant food from most of the hives now, but we'll be looking to put new frames in and encouraging some of the colonies to make new honeycomb so we will have to give them some sugar syrup to help them along.

Watching the bees flying in and out is still one of the most relaxing things I know. They don't seem to mind me at all and just get on with their business, swooping past to drop onto the landing board and trot in to the hive.

As it gets busier it will be harder for me to take photos as we do our inspections, but for now I am enjoying getting to know our girls again and remind myself of all the things we have to do for them. Here's to a wonderful summer.

One of those weeks

It has been a busy week, which makes me even more grateful for moments of calm. And if they are accompanied by sunshine and blue skies, even better.

I have a whole stack of pictures that I want to turn into paintings, but I'm pretty sure that if I painted those trees at that angle you'd think I'd gone crazy, right?

And in the middle of a sea of mud, a whole bed of crocuses prove that spring is on its way. February was a tough month and I am ready to welcome March now.

Oh, we do like to be beside the seaside

Continuing on the seaside theme of my last page, here are some more low tide pictures. Except these are a special low tide, when the sea goes out far enough to let people walk out to the fort and back. I've seen photos and heard people talk about it, but I've never taken part. It was definitely wetter than I expected - the water came over my knees - but well worth it and totally exhilarating.

Still in the 'using up all my stash' mode - see that green sticker with a quote on it? I think that's been on my desk for about five years. Everything else is newer than that, in varying degrees. I guess sometimes it just takes time to be inspired.

Even on a beach page, I can't escape pink and green. And glitter, it seems.

Not quite as many embellishments as the previous page, but I am still using them up. I am really enjoying pushing myself to be creative, mixing products and colours while staying true to my own style. Thanks for stopping by!

Scrapbook Sunday

Photos scrapped within a month of taking them? Yes, it's true. Sometimes I just have to go with what inspires me, and yesterday it was these pictures. I also have a new photo printer, which makes printing small photos for a collage like this so much easier. The photo grid inspired me to try a more streamlined design and instead of layering elements on top of each other, I worked to build a grid with different embellishments and journalling cards.

I've had that card with a sweetcorn on it FOREVER, so this was the perfect opportunity to finally use it. Everything else came together from that, and luckily I had enough elements to make the rest of the grid. The folded circles came from a discount basket somewhere, but they worked just perfectly for this, and I like how taking them outside of the grid adds a bit more movement. I don't normally do double-page layouts, or use 8.5x11 card, but for some reason it just happened with this page, and I like it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Take a deep breath and carry on

Gran was the bravest person I knew. She never complained, never grumbled about life, never faltered in her determination to carry on. I am desperately trying to follow her example but I don't think I'm doing very well. There haven't been many new sketches in my journal lately so I thought I would catch up and share some I did earlier in the summer. Happier times.

You can see this sketch in larger format here. Flickr has increased their free photo storage allowance so I can upload there again.

Opposite extreme

From the largest size photo to the smallest: a 4x4 print using one of my many photos from Instagram. There are various services out there that will print your Instagram pics, but I've found the best results when I upload them into Photobox on a standard size print and trim off the edges when they arrive. Simples.

Having a smaller photo leaves me more room for embellishment, and in this case also more room for the story of our second date. It's quite a long story, and involves me getting heatstroke and passing out in the middle of a field. Fortunately for me, it didn't put him off :)

I'm all out of enamel dots at the moment, so in a moment of inspiration decided to make my own using Liquid Pearls. This is the White Opal version, and I've discovered that if you put a good fat blob on the page and then flick the back of the paper really hard, the blob flattens out to become a lovely dimensional dot. Perfect for some subtle embellishment layers.

I haven't done so much scrapbooking lately as I've been busy filling my sketchbooks. Those photos aren't going to go anywhere, though!

Tranquility - an evening walk

I haven't done a walk post in a little while. We often go for a stroll, some longer than others, and I take loads of photos. Some of them make it into scrapbook pages, and I might post one or two on Instagram. I think it's nice, though, to have all the photos in one place so that when I look back I can remember where we went and what it was like. There is a scrapbooking podcast that I  listen to (Paperclipping Roundtable) and their most recent discussion is with a woman who suffered amnesia and lost eight years of memories. Wow. I can't imagine. Without even listening to it I have started reflecting on life and how I record it. I haven't kept a paper journal for a long time, but I am considering how I can make sure I am keeping my memories safe. The idea of being 'caught-up' with scrapbooking isn't something that appeals to me as I like to craft when the mood takes me. But what about those important stories that I just haven't got round to scrapbooking yet? I need to think about that. 

Yesterday evening, we picked up some chips and a pineapple fritter (to share, I couldn't possibly eat a whole one) and drove to Gurnard seafront. We sat in the car and ate our food...why do chips always taste better outside? Then we walked slowly along the front, past the kids bringing their boats in after sailing club. Just after the boathouse, there was a turning to go up the hill and into a small wood, and a most beautiful sunset behind us.

This is where the photos start to get a bit grainy, because I only had my phone and the light was fading. Even so...the path looked so inviting, rising through lush greenery with the last of the evening sun glinting through the trees. The wood was quite dense and silent, a proper hobbit-wood and we half expected to see Frodo and Pippin sheltering in one of the secluded corners. There was lots of evidence of animal activity, but they all kept out of our way as we walked through.

Apart from this little chap! As we came out of the wood and onto the road again, Chris suddenly stopped and pointed. Whenever he does this I know it means he's seen something, and if I want to see it too then I have to keep quiet, move slowly, and try and see along his line of sight. Just how he spotted this little guy in the hedge, I have no idea. We moved so, so slowly to try and get a better view, and I really didn't think that the mouse would stay there if I took my phone out to try and take a picture. But he did. We moved closer and closer, snapping a shot with every step in the hope that one of them would come out well enough to see. By the time I got close enough to take the shot above (and there's no zoom on that, it's as it comes from the camera), I was holding my breath to try not to disturb him. I had my arm out holding the phone, and my other hand trying to fend off the branches and random insects that were doing their best to put me off. Mr Mouse, though, wasn't in the least bit bothered. He waited until we were up close and looked right at us, before turning and making his way slowly back into the depths of the hedge. Magic.

That moment is going to be a hard one to beat. I am so glad that there is that photo there to remind me, and I am so glad I've written down just how magical it was. Walking back to the car we could smell a beautiful floral scent from one of the gardens nearby, and could see the mist rolling in from the West. Beautiful.

Busy little bees

Things have gone quiet here on the blog front lately, and as usual it isn't for the lack of anything to write about, but because life has suddenly become so busy that there hasn't been time to sit down and put some words + photos together.

When I first met Chris and he told me he kept bees, I didn't really have any concept of what it meant. He became known as 'bee-man' when I talked about him to my friends, and it was one of those things that sounded interesting in a vague sort of way. Mostly I loved his enthusiasm for it, the way that he made bees sound so engaging and his plans for a bee empire. I helped with the honey collection at the end of last summer, but didn't really get involved apart from that. 

Bee-keeping season rolled around in the spring, and it was time to start inspecting hives again. Chris decided to do it at the weekend and invited me along to watch (with my camera, of course). I borrowed a bee suit and away we went. 

Bees are amazing. They are surprisingly calm when you lift the lid and start having a look, and many of them will just carry on with their work while you do yours. I watched Chris doing his inspections and took lots of photos.

Chris pointed things out to me (can you see the queen in the picture below?) and after a while I stopped taking so many photos and started to hold a frame, or help by using the smoker. I started to pick up the terminology, and understand what we were looking for. It was a very proud moment when Chris asked me to lift out a frame by myself and check it, before carefully lowering it back in. These bees are his babies, and I was honoured to be trusted with them.

Since those early inspections, it has been a steep learning curve as our original four hives started showing signs of wanting to expand, so Chris carried out some 'artificial swarms'. This left a queen egg in the old hive, and took the old queen and half of the bees into a new hive. Four became seven, and all was looking promising. Then the swarms began! And this is what has kept us so busy over the last few weeks:

Sometimes bees decide to swarm by themselves, and they will cluster on a tree or post while they look for a new home. When this happens - and someone spots it - Chris gets a phonecall and we drop everything and rock into action. The theory behind swarm collection is simple - the bees follow the scent of the queen, so get as many as you can into your basket and hopefully if the queen is in there, all the other bees will go in too. In practice we rarely seem to get the queen first time, and not all of them have been in such convenient locations as this tree. 'All of them', you ask? Our original four hives, with artificial swarms and 'incomers', are now a total of 17. Not all of them will produce honey this year, and we are braced for one or two to do less well, but even so - I keep having to pinch myself. 17 hives?!

I confirmed my status as bee-keeper rather than bee-photographer last weekend. Chris got a call for a swarm, and he couldn't go. The only way for us to get it was for me to go by myself - so I did. With a bit of help from Chris' mum (also a bee-keeper) who kept a close eye on me, I did it! These bees (above) are now safely in their new home. Their queen isn't laying yet, but there is still time and we are hopeful that they will do well.

In the midst of all this excitement, I totally missed that June 6th was the third anniversary of my most major surgery. As we sat on the Downs earlier, enjoying a picnic lunch after a morning of bee-inspecting, I couldn't help but reflect on how far I have come and how much my life has changed. Even this time last year, if you had told me how I would be spending my time and how good I would be feeling, I would have thought you were being ridiculous. I count my blessings every day, and there are many.

Have a little faith

 It felt like Spring was never going to arrive. I should have had more faith, really.

Nature is doing its thing. Slowly, but it's coming.

 Every little flower, every little bird...it's all beautiful and makes me quite emotional, actually.

There is still lots of grey and brown. Lots of bare branches. But in between there are green leaves, tiny flowers, and splashes of colour.

 The wind brought with it some beautiful blue skies and clouds that left wispy, frothy trails.

I am SO going to sketch that shed. I took more than 90 photos on this walk and any one of them would make a lovely picture.

I'm thinking maybe a large-scale canvas/ I've been in this house for two years and there still isn't anything on the walls, so these photos might be the prompt I need to change that.

Don't get me wrong, it's still cold. There was a fresh, biting wind that made my eyes water and my nose run. I was very glad to get back into the warmth of the car and eat our picnic.

But Spring is a promise. A promise of sunny days and warmth that reaches your bones. A promise of new growth, renewal and opportunity. 

Life is good.