May Days

This month has been very busy. Frenetically busy with work; busy with being a parental taxi-service and revision-support-unit at the start of H's GCSE exams. Busy most days to the point of being seriously stressful but I remind myself that "busy" is also "absorbing" and I realise (a tad reluctantly, truth to tell) that I am even more like the busy Mrs Tittlemouse of Beatrix Potter's story, than I thought I was. Sometimes I toy with the idea of chucking my job in and carving out a lot more time for myself. I cherish the notion that my days would become blissfully unhurried and more creative but I've come to feel that, actually, this is an illusion, as far as I am concerned. I like to be purposeful. If I am totally honest, I have to admit that I need the grit and grind of work, in some strange way, to fuel and be a foil to the rest of my life even if that grit and grind takes over sometimes and there are days when I wish it a thousand miles away. Strange how these things go. Everyone is different, of course, and what I have come to feel applies to me, may not apply to you. I am not remotely suggesting it should. Just coming to terms, I suppose, with the nature of my own Mrs Tittlemouse soul!

Anyway, among all the busyness, I have still been out in the countryside, especially in the early mornings and evenings, among all the green-and-white May flowers.

No wonder the World War II song, sung by the soldier to his sweetheart, has the line, "I'll be with you in apple blossom time." It's the time to be in England. Better than almost any other month. The countryside is ethereally beautiful and it's felt like the start of summer.

Of course it can also be freezing cold in May and even to the point of snow, but not this year. This year, the lanes and paths have been full of foamy, white flowers, swaying in warm breezes. Frothy white Queen Anne's Lace everywhere (I don't like the name "Cow Parsley"); beautiful and different in every light; although the smell can be off-putting after a time, if you pick it to put on your windowsill;

but also the heavily-scented, hawthorn blossom, (the eponymous May tree that superstitious souls know never to bring inside the house, lest it presage a death); the flounced, white, horse-chestnut candles tinged with pink-and-yellow wicks, in their pale flames;  starry, greeny-white, wild garlic

and the more sedate, creamy bells of white comfrey and white dead-nettle. A magical Spring world of green and pale in various shades and combinations.

Nothing is tired or jaded but fresh and hopeful. Inspiring and energising. I'll have a large helping of that, thank you very much. Inside as well as out. So where odd moments have offered themselves over the last few weeks, I've seized them and run up a little string of Queen Anne's Lace bunting in shades of pale sap-green, white and lemon.

The pattern for the lacy flowers is in Issue Seven of Simply Crochet from last summer but any lacy flower pattern would work similarly well if you feel a sudden urge for something similar but don't have a copy of the magazine.

I've hung it between two curtain rails over a little mirrored shelf in my bedroom with a single spray of scented white lilac from the bush in the garden.

The lilac is nearly over now but it has been so beautiful this year. Inside and out. Soul-soothing and tranquil. Good at the end of my busy and / or stressed days.

In other news,

1I have finally succumbed to getting a new sewing machine. My elderly Elna was just becoming too unreliable and was beginning to cut up rough over even the simplest tasks. My new one is a Bernina 350 known by me as "Hunca Munca". She's lovely and I can't believe how much easier she is to sew with.

2 Along with my more restrained green-and-white moments depicted here, there is another rainbow project on my hook. More on that shortly. Restrained, it is not!

3 I have bought a pair of pink flip flops. They are the pinkest shoes I have ever owned.

Wishing you all a happy Monday. It's a Bank Holiday here in the UK so, of course, it's raining, but for once, Mrs T does not have much that is purposeful on her plate and is proposing to spend it in a quiet uninterrupted corner with a hook and some yarn. She may even fall asleep, like her namesake does in Beatrix Potter's"The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse", when she finally stops bustling about!

E x