A Walk In The Woods

We are doing home visits for the children due to start in September. So we get to look around the local area a bit. I have found one really good potential Forest School site, and one other piece of woodland on Plumstead Common which has a sign saying it is a nature reserve. I dragged my colleague Linda up and down muddy hills-we were quite adventurous! There were birds singing, it was damp and fresh and really very pleasant! This tree is so gnarled and old-and looks like it could come alive at any minute and walk away! Like an Ent from Lord of the Rings.

Beautiful blossom. Not sure what-is it hawthorn? Is that May? Oh I really need to improve my woodland knowledge. Talking of that-I had a woodpecker in my garden on Friday-I was really excited!

This path is much steeper than it looks! And the mud was slippery. Great fun!

Un-woods related, but cute! Lily is fascinated with this dolls house, and often peers in the windows. Maybe she knows something I don't! I found her sitting on it this morning looking very pleased with herself.

Weekend Events

Finding this article about Rachel Whiteread and her dolls houses. Thinking that two is quite enough for me unless I win the lottery. Finding this magazine on the hall floor on Friday evening. Having a look at the work of Jane Cather-absolutely beautiful.

Seeing Edna's little smiling face among all the other beautiful cloth and clay dolls. This is a group submission by Jane Des Rosier-who teaches doll making using cloth and clay techniques. Edna has been gone a long time now but I hope to see her back here one day!

Seeing my name in print-really exciting! Deciding on a whim (a whim born out of long pondering and purchasing large items such as dolls houses when I HAVE NO SPACE!) to completely reorganise all of my shelves, including painting my ebay shelves white. I was not sure about this but am so glad I did it, as everything looks much better displayed on them now. ( I will take pictures to show you!)

Giving a woman and her son a lift to the woods two miles away to find their runaway dogs. She was asking anyone she saw if they had seen them. She asked me just after I got home from buying paint, then asked a van driver and he had seen them. I felt so sorry for her as she was so worried-I hope she found them.Enjoying putting all of these things back on the shelves in different arrangements. This is one of my favourite things to do. Also enjoying rediscovering books I had forgotten, putting my Penguin books on my Penguin bookcase-bought second hand many years ago-complete with Penguin label.

Catching up with our ex-neighbours who called round unexpectedly today. We made a date to have a proper evening together in a couple of weeks.

Enjoying two late nights and two long lie ins.

Eating a delicious roast chicken dinner this evening cooked by Andy-thanks Andy!

Talking about what we want to do for our summer holidays.

Watching Antiques Road Show.

I will tell you the name of the pub tomorrow or Tuesday and announce the winner of the prize! Funny that one person has been there but they were kind and didn't give it away!

Sky, Faces, Flowers

A great big kiss in the sky over school today, created as we watched!
I started a new online class with Misty Mawn at the weekend-more faces-but learning new techniques too. She is a good teacher. Lots of ideas to try and good advice. The main technique is not one at all-more of a policy-keep practising! This week we are working on pencil and charcoal portraits and I have done a few so far-this is my first one-from a photo of Lily Cole. The pretty red rose is no more-I over watered it, it had no drainage, and it died! I was a little put out, but it did give to the end with these dried flower heads. What is their colour? It is not quite purple-maybe maroon.
Mauve Muscari. (Reminds me of Vulturi!) I needed calming flowers when I came home last night as I had to speak in front of a meeting of four different schools-at short notice I might add! We are taking part in something called The London Challenge, which is a project to raise attainment in writing (well I think it is in general but our group has chosen to work on writing) We had to meet in our phase (age) groups, then feed back the key points from our discussion (which I also had to chair-ha ha-luckily they were all very nice) Honestly, I thought I was going to cry and half way through actually said "Sorry, I'm a little bit nervous!' Apparently I didn't sound as bad as I felt-or were they just being kind?! The other three teachers from my school who had to do it too all said they felt the same but who knows. I was speaking in front of about 60 people! I know I am banging on a bit but it was traumatic. I was pleased with myself afterwards though and I enjoyed the applause! (sympathy applause?!)
Face number two-drawn from a photo of a really beautiful girl who I have distorted somewhat. I liked doing her lips!

I needed calming flowers when I came home tonight too-the nursery felt like chaos this afternoon-lots of new children still settling in so lots needing extra reassurance and help-but they then have to be ignored for a while when other children have run into metal poles, had accidents (euphemism for pooing on the floor then trying to clear it up with a whole pack of toilet tissue then walking half of it over the floor!), had more accidents (euphemism for weeing), need help to wee, undo belts, do up shoes, turn on computers, share cars and so on. By the time it got to home time I felt exhausted! So I came home early, looked at the flowers, had a bath, did some work and then did the last drawing below. What a day!
Isn't her lacy headdress beautiful? This is my first go at a three quarter view. I like how my drawing came out but I can see how the eye on the right is not quite-right! I often hold drawings up in the mirror to see them better and looking at a photo of the drawing can help too.
Roll on the weekend. I am driving to Rugby on Saturday to pick up a 60s Bungalow I bought on eBay for £10. Not a full sized one obviously. I don't know what comes over me-well I kind of do-I read an article in Elle Decoration about this woman designer who had done up a dolls house with miniature wall papers and other amazing things. It inspired me and made me WANT ONE! There will be pictures sometime I expect.

P.S. Here is a link to Interior Divine, which has an article on the house I mentioned-it is by Emily Chalmers, owner of London shop Caravan. Visit this page even if you miss the rest out!

Things I noticed today and more about the book doll

How most of the products I use around the house and on myself such as shampoo, face wash, moisturizer and cleaning products often come in pump bottles. As if people have lost the ability to squeeze. This is the kind of thing I think about when I am too tired to do harder thinking such as is required by the list of work I have to do. Maybe tomorrow. A sunflower head emptied of its seeds by gravity, birds and children. The sunflowers are all over now and, all of a sudden, lots of the kids were desperate to plant the seeds. I got pots and trowels and off they went. The stalks make quite good weapons too. A little intervention was needed there!

How yellow these crab apples are. These make good aiming devices.

How tangled this rose is. I wanted some hips to put in a vase but they are a bit sparse. It is still flowering though.

The prettiness of this dolls house door. They make me thing of Charleston or New Orleans-not that I have ever been there but they just do. I put three big dolls houses out today as we were a bit bored with the trainset. These are all donated by parents-we have two more in the cupboard. It is great having so many as you can have a mini street and lots of children can play together. I love the tiny world of dolls houses and I could see that look of fascination at the magical little world inside them on lots of faces today.

These wooden toys are pretty old but I think they are great. I wondered what situation was developing here.

As I am writing I am having a glass of wine. It is an Australian riesling. I notice that it tastes like basil-really strongly. It is strangely pleasant and went well with my vegetable based tea!

The first stage of folding.

Gluing the back on with the help of some pumpkins. I think it is finished-I say I think as I am not sure whether to add any paint or other colour. I will wait till daylight!

I celebrated tidying up the area next to the draining board by lighting some candles!

The last two things I remember noticing today were the delicious scent of a couple of rosemary plants I bought for school (along with 160 daffodil bulbs for Forest School and the nursery garden) and the equally lovely smell of the Christmas trees hiding at the back of the DIY store. It was as if they were all waiting quietly for things to really get going. I wish I could blog smells!