Still sitting here, but now I have a little friend, or two

'Waiting for Jack'

The septic tank is broken...
I won't say more.
Let's just talk about Pumpkins...and Faeries...(and mice).
I found this little lady sitting all alone on a pumpkin one evening.
She seemed as though she was waiting for someone.
I hope they turned up, the weather can be a little harsh this time of year.
I do love seeing the leaves change to rust though, and to smell the lovely fresh morning air.
I say this because I just let a field mouse out of a humane trap, down the lane, and it was rather pleasant (the air, not the mouse, although it was a pretty little thing), just seeing the dawn rise.
Everywhere is starting to feel all crispy.
I suppose a pumpkin, a fairy and a mouse would make a sweet fairy tale, unless someone has already done it? he he he

Speaking of freeing little critters, it is a natural part of living in the countryside, that others will want to come and move in too.
And, I can say that Beatrix Potter was telling the truth in her story 'The Tale of Two Bad Mice', we have had mice and voles move into dolls houses and rearrange the furniture!
I don't mind them finding the residence desirable, it just gets annoying when they chew the tables!

Ah well, if you can't handle a little wildlife, then the countryside is not the place for you :o)
I'm off to add some peanut butter to the traps...
(Forget cheese, peanut butter is by far, the best)

This painting is done in oils on canvas :o)

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

'Pumpkin and Little Spode Jug'

So, 'tis now the Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness...mmm
I think Keats lived in a gentler age.

But, as I promised/bored you all with my Autumn rant, here is another pumpkin.
This one took backstage to a little Spode jug who thought she was a prima ballerina.
The apple took offense to being in the sidelines and sulked.
None of them truly shone but they were all treated with care and affection.
Little delicate things are rather prone to accidents, after all. :o)

Now, I'm off to jump in the fallen leaves...maybe not...! :o)
This one is painted in acrylics on canvas.

Just Sitting Here, Waiting for Autumn...

'Pumpkin in Blue Chiffon'

 Summer...
Lots of folks just love it.
I dread the beginning and long for the end of it.
That may sound a tad melodramatic but that's me.
Excuse me while I hold the back of my hand to my head and look ethereal :o)
This summer has been such a strange one, all over the world ; too much dry, too much heat, too much rain in some parts.
The mountains we can see over yonder, are always green, endless green.
This month they looked like Arizona in a heat wave (I must say, I have no idea what that would really look like, I'm just guessing), everywhere was yellow, dry, wispy parched.
It no longer looked or felt like North Wales.
It was weird.
And so very wrong.

Our water comes from a natural spring, way up in the mountains and feeds down to a gravity-fed tank, then to our taps.
Each day we searched the sky for rain, weeks go by and you see it not coming.
We were waiting for the day when our beautiful water maiden dried up.
We have no other water supply.
Droughts are a scary thing up here.
So far, she has been doing a great job, slower, but still there.
We have left roses for her at the source, she deserves so much more.

So, you see what I mean about Summer...
And so, the pumpkins come out.
Not really real pumpkins, just the ones I have painted or made over the years.
It comforts me to know that Autumn is crawling ever nearer and they can come and play.
So, for a while I will be getting everyone (who cares) into the spirit of the next season by showing you my pumpkins :o)
Here is the first, this pumpkin fell in love with a blue chiffon scarf and wrapped itself up in it.
They did not want to be parted and so I painted them enveloped in their friendship.
Even though the pumpkin was well past its prime, and had lumps and age spots, it still danced beautifully.
This one is painted in acrylics on canvas.

Dolls Houses and Chewed Fingers.

Okey dokey, I have taken off my poufy frock and finished some more teeny weenies...
It isn't that I don't finish things...it's just that I get side-tracked by shiny squirrels and start other more interesting (at the time) projects.
So here we are again...
Autumn, punkins and toadstools time.
I am painting in oils again, Fae and other tinies, they are a wee bit shy so are not allowing me to show you yet but maybe soon...maybe

I also make miniature things throughout the year but I seem to forget to invite them to my blog so here is a little peek at some of them...

Playing at sweet shops :o)

 These are from a few years ago but you get why I enjoy playing :o)

When I was a little girl my friend Susan had the most fantastic dolls house, it had little jars of real sweets!!!! (They would seem massive to me now).
Her dad had fixed it so that a light bulb (a pea bulb) would turn on when you flicked a (giant) switch.
Gawd it was fantastic, I loved it so much, I loved the fact that we could stick our big heads in there and it was lit.
Magic!
Naturally, Susan was an only child and 'got' everything she wanted, yet she was not spoilt at all, she was lovely, I would dearly have loved to hate her because of this fabulous dolls house, but you just couldn't hate Susan, she was too okay.

I found it astonishing that every year she would choose some of her toys and give them to the Children's Hospital, see what I mean, way too okay.
My little sis and I held tight to everything we had, hey don't judge us against Susan, we were dirt poor and our things were meagre!

One year we both had a doll, me a Sindy and her a Tiny Tears ...the smell still wafts over me when I remember opening her box, plastic and newness and probably lots of chemicals but who cared it was Sindy!!!
And she was mine, all mine.
My sis and I didn't have clothes for them but we had the dolls.
Later my mum made us some dolly clothes from a library book after I copied out the patterns.
My Nan and my mum were good seamstresses, I think most folks were good at needle work then through necessity.
I had a Tressy doll too which an auntie had given me but my youngest sister took her behind the sofa (her favourite hiding place for doll-destruction) and bit her fingers until they had stretched into a long flat paw about an inch long, eugh!
She was a doll hater, she loved soft toys instead, cute and fluffy and to me, boring, they couldn't dress up and wear heels, you couldn't brush their long tresses, they were just cuddly.

One day my Nan dragged a dolls house all the way to our house, many miles walk.
She had bought it from a junk shop because she thought us three girls would like it and knew that she would get the money back from my 'dad' (I say this loosely).
We were overjoyed, it was even better than Susan's.
It had furniture and all sorts of really cool stuff with it.
It was humongous too!
We jumped with joy (I could cartwheel then but the house was too small to roll around in otherwise, me, cartwheeling for the love of this doll paradise!)

Dear old 'dad' came home from work, took one look at it and ranted about the couple of pounds she expected to get from him, and told her to cart it away with her.

My nan was heartbroken but she took it home in her big wheelbarrow cart thingy.
Later we would all play with it at her house.
She disliked my 'father' before, but this just iced her cake of hatred.

Trick or Treats?

So, you see now why I make mini things, somewhere within me is this need to recreate the dolls house of my dreams, the one where everything is peachy and a big switch turns on a light bulb.
And Susan and me are sticking our big heads in to have a look at all those little jars of heaven.
Such delicious memories.

Calorie-free chocolates :o)

I often think of Susan and what became of her...
and her dolls house :o)

One Upon a Time

One Upon a Time ...

At least that pumpkin is large enough for us to travel in.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into The Land of Blog, who should there be tap tap tapping at the keyboard...but your little Old Faerie Godmother (aka Me)!
I have my wand at the ready to turn your autumn pumpkins into beautiful coaches...
Any little mice shall become horses...
You my dear, shall go to the ball!
Now, what do they wear for formal occasions these days?
Are poufy dresses still worn to the Royal Balls?
Ahhh never mind, in my head you are all dressed in the poufiest frocks I can imagine.
(And I can imagine really real poufiness!)

As you can see I have been swept away into my own world once again.
I think it started many years ago Doctor...when I first learnt how to fly.
Since then there has been no stopping me...

It doesn't help that the Fae are constantly begging portraits from me...and you know how much they like to flounce around!
So, here I sit, wand in hand, wondering if anyone out there is in need of a Faerie Godmother.
Do you feel in need of a little wand-waving?
Are your clothes all tatty and ragged?
Are you still looking for Prince Charming?
Fear not!
I shall endeavour to right this injustice!
Just say the word...
All you have to do is believe.
The rest is magic...:o)

Now, I really must finish these paintings...maybe I should take this poufy dress off first...

From Little Acorns...

I don't know about you but I love Autumn...although to be honest this year most of the Summer has been very Autumnal!

I haven't had much access to computers this year and it's been a rather strange experience...on the one hand I have missed and craved the way you can peep into other folks' lives and see how you all are and what everyone's been doing...on the other hand, it makes you so free when you can no longer do that :o)
As I'm rather isolated up here in the mountains of wet and windy Wales it's lovely to be able to travel the world with you all and come to have virtual tea right in your homes but because I haven't been able to visit I have had withdrawals, isn't that odd?
One good thing though is that I can actually get on and finish things begun last year which I always left in the 'to-do' pile...so be warned, you'll all be sick of seeing me soon ;o)

My little Elves are now speaking to me and not sulking and I have even done a few Halloweeny things...maybe I should get on and photograph them...(yep,that would be a good idea ;o)) then I could share them with you over an nice cup of tea, and a cake :o)

This painting was supposed to be finished last Autumn but got buried under piles of my other  'oooh shiney' stuff  (my attention span is not great when a new idea pops into my head) but at least I've done it for this year!
(As you know I'm a slow worker, I hate being rushed ;o)
To be fair to myself though, I do fit these things in around home-schooling children, trying to tame the wilderness which surrounds our garden and all of the other boring day-to-day things like cooking-gawd I really don't enjoy cooking, and yet I do it every day...come rain...come rain...feeding teenagers is a never-ending story, how can they be so skinny and yet eat so much!? Please let me in on the secret :o)

Well, enough of that...here she is...this one is for all of you who have that little Acorn waiting to be planted, you know the one...the little idea or dream, just waiting for you to give it some encouragement and a little care ready for it to grow...and we all know what little acorns grow up to be :o)

My Little Faery Friend Daisy...

Sometimes...from the peripheral vision...you get fleeting glimpses of movement...
Many folks pass this off as a trick of the eyes...
Some just think that the imagination is playing tricks on them...
Some just like to lay on the dewy grass and watch the world go by before their very eyes...

It is now officially Autumn...season of mists and mellow fruitfulness...
So why are my little Fae friends still playing in the grass with no vests to keep the chills out?
I have no answer to that one...
As you can see...some of my little ones still hold fast to the notion of freedom without inhibitions...I suppose if you are a Fae then you can get away with it...unlike us giant folks the human beans.

Let me introduce you to Daisy...a pretty little thing...not at all shy...having a morning stretch in the Autumn sunshine...I don't know how she managed to find daisies still in flower though...but let's just call it Artistic License...

She said it was okay to paint her but only from the back...
I'm happy to do that though...it saves having to edit over body parts to be able to post my pictures on here...some folks you see are a little worried about seeing naked things on blogs and I might get into trouble...(although that doesn't usually stop me he he )

Daisy as you may have noticed doesn't have wings...she can fly without them...so I suppose evolution had a hand in that somewhere...much like us.

Well...I just thought that Daisy and I should wish everyone a beautiful Autumnal Equinox...that wondrous time where the world is equal and night and day are even...
If, as you take a lovely Autumnal walk... kicking through the fallen leaves...you happen to see Daisy...introduce yourself to her...she's a real sweetie...she always smells of blossomy mist...and she would be so pleased to know that you caught a glimpse of her...out of your peripheral vision...