The Fairy Toothbrush and The Secret Garden

Our provence, is known as "The Fruit Bowl".

It's not surprising that we have annual "Blossom Parades" & orchards galore.

We also have a profusion of flowering cherry blossom trees in Hawke's bay..

If you'd like to please press play to listen to music from The Secret Garden while you're here.

And it's the time of the apple, pear, peach, plum, nectarine & cherry blossom...& so much more!

The glory of the flower that fruits & those that just delight the senses.

 The purple cascade of the wisteria can be seen dripping over fences & verandas... 

 It's such a nice time to travel around the Bay a little; tootle about & revel in the green & the fresh & the vibrantly extravagantly floral.
 On Saturday we headed out to Bay View, near the coast, to a relatively new Antiques, Collectables & Craft Market. It's held the first Saturday of every month from 10-2pm. My lovely friend Wendy & her sister Debbie have the sweetest stall there.

Wendy has been a volunteer at the Hospice Shop for years now & presently does the most amazing job of the weekly window down at "Connections". Her talent & innovation remind me very much of the delightful Julie & her Threadbare Cottage...such clever, clever, lovely women...all! 

 While we were out that way we went a little further up the line to buy a huge box of Navel oranges for just $20 & to pop in to the little caravan park at Eskdale to see if it would be a suitable place to take Lucy. The river there is very gentle & soft;

 all the land was meadow-like & fresh with spring promise..

 The banks of the river were carpeted with this pretty blue periwinkle.
Really we should all be growing this hardy creeper, otherwise what hope have we of keeping fairies in our garden's, since it is in the very heart of this simple azure flower that you you find the fairy toothbrush?

 At the market I found a Royal Albert "Blossomtime" trio for $20.
It was right about now, that I had a sweet epiphany. Suddenly, I know what I need to do: start a Glory Box for little Nina. I'd love to have your input on this...did you have a Glory Box? Do you know anything about their origins? And what should go in it do you think? Nina is only 3 so I've got a while, yet already we share the same taste; from my experience if you love pretty & gentle & lovely early on, you love it forever.

 I feel quite certain that this picture is a screen capture of the "Secret Garden". When I saw it I could remember going to see the movie like it was yesterday. (I know that I have mentioned this before but round it comes again..just can't be helped!) I'd never heard of the book, but I knew that I just had to see the movie. Rob & David & I all went together, almost 20 years ago. Poor little David was only 5 at the time. I had no idea it would be so grim & sombre in the beginning!

But when spring came & the garden began to open up & burst with colour & joy I cried & cried as my soul engaged with a new, fragile hope, for the very first time in my life.

It was around that time that I had become a "Garden Fairy".

These amazing blooms came home with me this week. Aren't they so rich & wildly beautiful!

This spring has a Secret Garden feel to it.

 I think that this has to be the most beautiful tulip I have ever seen. (And I'll have you know a wonderful man chose the bulbs!)

I adore my Dogwood..

 and the cherry blossom "Perfection" beginning to flower over Lucy (she wasn't here last year), for the very first time.

 Anna Rose Whitney, tucked in to a shady spot,

  has finally settled in happily just outside my kitchen window.

 Last week I noticed an exceedingly rare listing on Trade Me, a vintage Sanderson fabric that I have only ever seen once before, on: Niki's English blog, Nostalgia at the Stone House.

 I am very grateful to have been able to buy it..a Buy-now & a decent price.

 It is imperfect, it has some holes & small patches of mildew..won't have to feel guilty for cutting in to it now.

Rob needed to drop off keys in Napier on Tuesday so I took a little ride with him. I saw this darling little Mrs Tiggy-winkle cane washing basket in the auction. I left an absentee bid on it & never thought to hear from them again, but I got a phone call the next day to say that I had won it!

 Which was jolly perfect timing as David had just moved in to a little place on his own & has well.. absolutely nothing! And since I have ceremonially gifted the other two one of my vintage washing baskets, it seems, it had now come his time too. Guess what turned up on our doorstep next morning? David & a basket full of dirty washing..doesn't have a washing machine yet! He was very nice about it all, though I have to admit & at that point, not many clean clothes left, probably only what he was standing in!

 So this week there'll be more scrubbing, sweeping, trimming, feeding, repotting, painting &
LOTS of admiring the loveliness, moment by moment...

 Perhaps even a tiny tea party for two..perfect!
Although, I do wish that you could all come!
Have a lovely week.
Thank you so much for coming to see me.
MUCH

Kindly Currant Buns & a Fairy Bedcover

Every leaf will unfurl, every flower bask in it's own glory,

for a day or a week...

in celebration of the sun & the coursing of life returning..

in it's veins.

Fragrance, elegance, grace.

Spring.

Caught up, as I am in such loveliness of season I quite forgot to mention to you about Happy.

Happy Harris of Happy Loves Rosie international acclaim!

So when I came across this little ad in Happy's sidebar

I paused for just a moment & then...

I thought, why not?!

It was Happy's own Vintage Caravan inspiration that sowed those first seeds of the tiniest wistful dream, that one day I would own a vintage caravan of my own.

 And the red, ooh the red..at first, I could not do!! But over time, the strangest change began to happen & as I grew & as my soul began to heal the red came in to focus & Lucy came along to help me live in my Pollyanna place of... I can be happy too. I have been told off many times by those who do not understand, told to stop looking for the rainbows & the miracles, but you know what...I NEVER ever will & they can't make me!! 

The Lucy interview with Happy can be found just here, if you haven't seen it or for the slightly extended version : The Lucy page.

A small kindred spirit came along to play at Aunty Catherine's again today (yes there were boys but they were mowing lawns & playing with remote controlled cars & lego).

She instantly spotted the little vintage iron that I had found at the market a while back. The wooden ironing board is still in the roof awaiting a new cover so we improvised, while listening to little vinyl records. I am most impressed, in Nina's magic hands the little iron both cleans & presses!

 This is Carrot the giraffe, he loves peanut butter.

I know it sounds very weird, but as it turns out, this banana chocolate icecream is really very good.

Everybody agreed...you can find the super simple, healthy recipe here in the kitchen blog.

I often mention how I have bought & sold various items on our own Trade Me auction site, well I have been reflecting lately that Trade Me is so often very much more than a commercial transaction. What I mean is this, several years ago I listed an utterly adorable fairy duvet cover (no wee girls on the horizon then), the cover was sold locally & a lovely lady came to my door to pay & pick it up.
The lady was a Nanna & had bought the fairy cover for her 3 year old granddaughter who had lost her mother the previous year. The wee girl & her brother (who had a heart condition & a pacemaker at 5) were now living with their grandparents & everyone was still very sad. I knew I had some fairy wings tucked away which I gave the Nanna too...& then she told me that the two of them were now off to the cemetery together to visit "Mummy" & show her the lovely new things.
Ooh I wept when she left. We never know who we just might touch, even bring a little comfort to... through beauty.
The duvet was covered in fairies, roses & butterflies!

So when I found this book yesterday for 30 cents

I was delighted to find it was full of kindness & thoughtfulness

(Emma Jane got to hold the new baby bunny)

She made currant buns to share with Teddy & all the forest friends.

As it turns out the pixies were in a bit of strife as their cardboard box home was all sodden & leaky from the rain. Toasted currant buns cheered everyone up no end!

A new suitable house was then sort out & Fairy Rosebud called upon for her assistance,

& of course there's always a fishing frog..

who just happened to hook a red kettle.
(look at those wee wings!)

A little fairy wand waving to give the kettle a few homely touches & the pixies were over the moon!
A happy dance is definitely in order.

No currant buns here, but these tasty lemon balls are very delicious.

 You can find the recipe just here.

So this week, I wasn't overly surprised upon buying a pretty yellow orchid off Trade Me, to find that I was in fact trading with my dear neighbour just across the road!

 I love this spot of blue ajuga in our spring garden.

Thank you so very much for visiting.

I hope your week is one filled with colour & kindness & a currant bun or two.

 ♥♥♥♥♥

Rusty Knobs & The Big Book of Little

Hello dear friends!

Living in the Land of the Garden Fairy as I do, I am rather firmly of the mind that the Little Ones should not suffer, be thoroughly & robustly loved & that Little can indeed triumph over Big, so, when I came across The Big Book of Little with a Margaret Tarrant picture on the front cover I was quite sure that I would like this book...and I do, very much! 

"The garden of beloved children's stories is full of small characters: the Little Mermaid, Tom Thumb, Little Red Riding Hood, the Little Engine That Could. That's not only because children themselves are small. Audiences old and young, for generation upon generation, have cheered the triumph of the little over the big. Here, then, is a collection of tales that delights in everything small...these classic stories will enchant & entertain, & remind us that sometimes it is the little that make all the difference"

So much lightness & joy!

 I also came across one of my other favourite things..vintage Sanderson fabric, this pattern came in the form of a bedspread via Trade Me & from the care of a lovely lady called Andrea. Thank you Andrea!

 This gentle spring Saturday morning we managed to get ourselves out of bed & off to an early morning small Church fair & at lunchtime a school Gala just down the road. There was little of the usual jostle & pushing, I think most people stayed home, glued to the Americas Cup yachting race.
I found some lovely things: this hand painted Art Silk tablecloth has clearly never been used & is so pretty.

 At St Mary's, trestle legs were being dragged out by the armful & instantly snapped up. They are exactly what I have had in mind to use with this old scavenged, lounging-in-someone's-garden door.

Out came the door, which was repaired just a little,

 various cloths draped & fiddled with,

 including the Spring Lilacs Sanderson. (Do pull down your skirt dear!)

 I found a vintage basket at each venue. They are so useful...& charming.

 The good old door is particularly large & doesn't fit as a replacement for the garage doorway.
I love it's chippy paint effect..

 the patina of age & history

 & the lovely rusty doorknob & key hole.

It was most handy indeed that I spied an old forlorn wheelbarrow at the school. At first I was sure that someone else had already parked it over in the corner, but as I admired it this way & that no one came rushing to claim it so...I just wheeled it away!

 I think that I might plant geraniums in it...in the pots, for bright summer colour.

 The garden is rising in to spring..

I do love my faithful friend Herbert Stevens pink, grown from a cutting from my first garden mentor.

The simplicity of quince blossom is arresting.

 I've come to rather like these poppy's.

 But I am so utterly thrilled to have an abundance of bluebells in my garden for the first time.

 They are so English & sweetly scented & perfect happy day, sky blue.

Lucy loves them too.

 After all these years I have just discovered that this is called Cerinthe major ‘Purpurascens’, commonly known as honeywort (I did know about the honeywort bit). It is a relative of borage & it very much likes to grow in my garden. It is gently self seeding & is nicely contrasting to other foliage, with it's grey & indigo hues.

 But the best moment of my week (absolutely!!) was discovering that this pot of lily of the valley had survived through the year, & even better than that, it was flourishing...look at all those flower buds!!
I have come to the conclusion that if you cannot grow them in the garden that they like to be squished up together & planted in very deep pots.

 Nina came to meet Jane & tiny Violet

Someone has to be the runner around the circle while others fix the brick edgings.

I'm always alert to sweet innocence, rainbows, loveliness

(Look at the baby pixies being pushed up on to the mushroom & the little mite to the left sniffing the babies dummy!)

and I am continually drawn to opportunities to show & celebrate kindness.

I first "read" this story in one of my Chicken Soup books. It is one of the very, very best!

I bought these lovely roses on Etsy from Tattered Vintage recently, only they came with "friends", all on the one page. I persevered on Pixlr & finally learnt to "cut" out pictures (this time round anyway) What a triumph!

Much love to you all & thank you so much for popping in.

May you find much loveliness & kindness in your coming week.

♥♥♥♥♥