Morning Dew

Looks like it's going to be another sunny day.
Want to join me for morning coffee in the garden, anyone?

Opportunity

This petunia found a tiny place to put down roots....

... on the steps of the local travel agent.

The many faces of Callum

Here's the young man who will be playing horsies with this quilt when he gets a bit bigger.

Callum says "I'm five months old already! Time sure flies when I'm having fun..........

.........'specially when I'm wrestling on the floor with Daddy.....

......... and I'm winning!"

Horsey Tales

Once apon a time, there were four wild ponies. They were brothers, but you wouldn't know it just by looking at them. They were all so different.
And they were looking for a home.

The black one was called Sooty. He was very proud of his muticoloured mane and tail and he loved grazing in the clover patch in the sunshine.

The palomino was called Goldie. He loved to rear up on his hind legs and make everyone think he was really important!

The brown one was called Ginger. He was very fond of the taste of flowers, especially pink ones, which he ate at every opportunity.

The green one was called Gooseberry. He was rather shy and liked to hide in the forest. When he was hiding under the big leaves, nobody could find him.

One day, when the ponies were out galloping across the fields, they met Farmer Callum, and told him that they were looking for a home.

"Come and live on my farm", said Farmer Callum.

And so they did.

Goldie's idea of good fun was going for a ride in the back of the farmer's pick-up truck.

Ginger liked hiding in the haystack. But he soon came out when it was feeding time.

Gooseberry liked hanging around the water cooler to hear the latest farm gossip.

And Sooty just adored his new home in the farmer's red barn.

And all four ponies lived happily ever after at Farmer Callum's farm.

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No, I didn't make this delightful quilt.

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It was a gift from a family friend to baby Callum when he was born five months ago.

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I've been commisioned to sew loops at the top to turn it into a wall hanging until Callum is old enough to have it on his bed.

But I thought you'd like to see it before I give it back.

Back Yard Summer

While I've been posting about England, my back yard has been blooming!

Clockwise from top left: Purple Coneflower (echinacea purpurea); Lady's Mantle leaves with jewels of rain (and a fly); vivid blue Delphinium; Day Lily (hemerocallis); red Blanket Flower (gaillardia) with a bee laden with pollen; sweet blue Forget-me-nots; green tomatoes, soon to be juicy and red I hope; pink and white Impatiens or Busy Lizzie; and in the centre the blue sky of summer (if you enlarge the image there's a tiny bee flying across the sky.... or maybe it's a 747 very high up.... you decide).

England Part XII - Stonehenge, Wiltshire

I caught a red double decker bus from Salisbury Railway Station to Stonehenge.

Of course, I sat upstairs.... you get a better view from the top, plus it brought back memories of when I rode a double decker every day to school, but that's another story.... and after travelling about 8 miles through the gently rolling fields of Salisbury Plain, I saw my first glimpse of the ancient stones.

One of the most famous prehistoric sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones.

The standing stones were erected around 2200 BC and the surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC

The stones themselves are no longer accessible to the public, but I remember as a child being able to stop by the side of the road and walk into the site, and even climb on the stones.

In Victorian times, it was perfectly acceptable to hire a hammer from the blacksmith in the nearby town of Amesbury and come to Stonehenge to chip bits off the stones to take home as souvenirs! Needless to say, that sort of naughtiness is frowned on today.

Stonehenge was built in several stages. The design enables observation of astronomical phenomena - summer and winter solstices and eclipses. Many of the stones are missing, having been used as building materials over the centuries. Perhaps this is what Stonehenge originally looked like.

My ticket entitled me to an MP3 player that gave me an audio tour of the site, but sometimes it was hard to hear due to a busload of very noisy and enthusiastic Italian tourists who arrived at about the same time as I did.

The sarsen Heel Stone is approximately 16 feet high (4.88m) with another 4 feet (1.22m) buried below ground. It probably stood upright originally.

More pictures and an explanation of the site here. This will tell you all you ever wanted to know about Bluestones, Aubrey Holes, the Sarsen Circle and the Trilithons, the Station Stones, and the Slaughter Stone.

And then you can test how smart you are by taking this quiz.

And I didn't meet a single Druid!

For further posts about my vacation in England, please scroll down.

England Part XI - At the Pub

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Fed up with the weather?

--o--

Can't keep up with the rising price of fuel?

--o--

The boss getting you down?

I'll meet you at the pub on Tuesday.