Snapdragon's garden

Best holiday EVER

Can you guess?

A mythic island to the North with 22 uninterrupted hours of sunshine each day

with puffins, arctic terns, guillemots, razorbills, snipe, sandpipers, oyster catchers, curlews, & seals to spot

with wonderful carpets of wild flowers in the fields

and on the cliffs

with sea warm enough to swim in (with seals)

We have just had the best holiday ever - Orkney in a heat wave.  I am transformed (and rather brown)

And then we popped in to see these folk

Which was truly lovely.

Bouquets

A bouquet ordered for a new mother

And a bag for a new big sister

School's out for summer

Well it will be in half an hour.
I have promised to spend the first week of the holidays (at least) doing Mummyish things so shan't be blogging much and mail order flowers won't be available next week.
in the meantime
We had a photo-call of sorts

and this - heavily cropped to omit the evil eye of Mummy Peblo.

Growing up and moving on.

Somehow the last few years have run together and suddenly I turn around and find that Zoe is leaving primary school tomorrow. 

This morning was the leaver's service when the P7s get to take over the local church and put together an hour of hymns, readings and reminiscences - never has "Auld Lang Syne" played on recorders been so poignant.
They are a lovely class - a credit to the community, their parents and perhaps most importantly to the school.
They are also beside themselves with excitement, looking forward to staring at Balfron high after the summer.
But tell me - just when did they all get quite so tall?????

Under here . . .

there are 3 little fluffy black chicks.

Peblo is a black maran hen - 6 years old and the only survivor of our original flock.  3 weeks ago she took herself off to a patch of nettles in the corner of the polytunnel and went broody.
Yesterday she was all growly and when I lifted her up there were 3 gorgeous new born chicks.
I'm not about to upset her by doing a photocall but will as soon as they are out from under her feathery skirts.

Thanks for all the camper van love yesterday.  There are now only eight camper badges left from this batch.  J x

I want one of those.

I have a bit of a thing about vintage vans - of course we have the green Citroen h-van;

and the airstream
and even a little morris ambulance
Some - as you can see - waiting to be restored.
But all this doesn't stop me lusting after all the VW campers that seem to be about at the moment.  There was a lovely one parked in Drymen the other day with "Life is Good" painted on it.
However Euan says "No! No! No!" and points out that the house looks a bit like a scrap yard as it is.

So I have diverted my love of the VW camper into this

a little  4 x 6 cm badge - modeled here by Katie.
This is part of a summery collection that will be going onto the website in a week or so - in the meantime you can get one here.
£4.95 including postage.

And it was such fun to sit in my cabin looking out at the sunshine working out how to draw a camper-van with the machine.

Glorious

This morning is absolutely glorious.  I ate my breakfast - porridge and cream - outside with Minou watching wagtails on the lawn.

Last night Euan and I sat outside with a glass of whisky watching the house-martins and then, as the evening wore on,  the bats swoop round the sky eating up midges before they got to us.

Isn't this wonderful? - now 7 feet high.  I used a few for Jenny and Jeremy's wedding but the rest are looking fabulous as a backdrop to the delphiniums.
And here are some sweet peas and a foxglove or two - just to prevent this post getting a wee bit too Scottish... porridge, whisky, thistles. . . . I'll be in a kilt and bunnet next.

Well we did it!

I do not wear sleeveless dresses without a cardi; I haven't worn a bikini since I was 14; I am always covered up.

Yet, on Saturday night, I walked the streets of Edinburgh dressed in a decorated bra along side 1000s of others - tall and short, thin and voluptuous, male and female.  All in the most wonderful creations.  All raising money for breast cancer projects.

 

This is of my walking partner Alison and I - just approaching this

 Alison was amazng as she had seriously blistered feet for the last 6 miles or so, but just kept on going.

Teachers presents

This morning's breakfast was spent discussing how Christabel Pankhurst would have worn her hair.  Yesterday evening was spent searching for a suitable Edwardian looking blouse to fit an eight year old and failing.  Strains of backing music and snatches of song are coming from Zoe's room.
We are a week away from the end of the school term and schoolwork has been abandoned in favour of preparing for the school show.

You can also tell that Scottish school's are reaching the end of a year as I have been getting a flurry of orders for teachers' presents - the most popular are the little applique mirrors in pouches. 
Speaking to teaching friends they say that it would make a change from scented candles and soap . . .

The photo above is one of the new photos that Jane Robertson has been taking for the upcoming catalogue.

Don't you just love those nails!

Jenny & Jeremy's wedding part 3

I had hoped that the dark moss rose would be blooming for Jenny's bouquet.  In the end, despite a fortnight of sunshine, it stayed tight closed.  I was a bit despondent as I wanted a really special flower for the bouquet.
I had forgotten about these though

dark plum oriental poppies.

In the end I think I prefer them to the roses.

They were mixed with grass and cirsium rivulare for a bouquet.

Beautiful and elegant.  And not really do-able by anyone else.
Which is sort of what it is all about. :)