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Where Is Catkin? by Janet Lord, illustrated by Julie Paschkis

Catkin heads out to hunt in the garden.  He sees and hears different animals in the garden but he can’t catch them.  There is a cricket, a frog, a mouse, a snake, and a bird.  After Catkin pounces them they disappear from view.  But sharp-eyed readers will be able to spy them hiding.  Finally, Catkin climbs a tree to catch a bird, but goes too high.  Now it is Amy’s job to find Catkin in the garden and rescue him!

The first thing you will notice about this book is its amazing illustrations.  Done in an almost Slavic motif, they are rich, deep colored and stylized.  As Catkin pounces an animal it appears in the yellow and red border, adding another layer to this book.  Lord’s text is brief and invites young readers to participate in the seeking and finding of the animals.  Readers will enjoy spotting not only the animals in the text, but also insects and other animals. 

A richly illustrated seek-and-find book that is perfect for the youngest listeners.  I would suggest using this with only a very small group, because the pleasure of the book is to look closely at the illustrations and talk about them. Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from copy received from Peachtree Publishers.

Also reviewed by Beth Fish Reads, 7 Imp, and We Love Children’s Books.

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The Miss Rumphius Effect issued another Monday Poetry Stretch. Today it was all about flowers in spring. I didn't write about flowers exactly, but I did write about something we discovered this weekend while getting ready to plant our spring veggies.

Greens

Last year’s lettuce
seeded itself,
after July's growth spurt.

Seeds huddled together
under snow
popping up in time


for salad on St. Patrick’s Day.

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins

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It feels a bit strange reading over my blog, as I don't talk much about sad things. So it seems like a constant stream of cheerfulness (and books, the original purpose of the whole thing!). But seeing as I'm fairly private I can't see that changing anytime soon, and in any case it's nice to have these updates for family and friends so think I will continue. Here is this week's post and one from a couple of weeks ago I never got around to posting!


1. Yellow iris are blooming in the garden – they are small and very cheerful.

2. Surprise crocus are popping up in one pot. I thought I planted them from a bunch of bulbs with a note I wrote last year saying snake-head fritillaries, but I was either mistaken about the pot, wrong last year when I dug them up or they have mysteriously transmuted into crocus!

3. Yesterday we took part in an archaeology day at a local reserve! We helped dig and sift through some test pits (didn’t find anything which helped disprove a theory about a potential railway on the site) and then unearthed foundations from a world war two set of huts that were far more extensive than expected – the archaeologists suspect it was a prisoner of war camp which was somewhere in our area. Great fun!

4. I managed to speak to all of my parents and sisters today on the phone, which quite rare. It’s difficult to fit in everyone on a weekend (easier then with time difference) but lovely when it happens.

5. An excellent veggie box this week has had us eating our way steadily – though admittedly slightly desperately as we ordered a larger size than usual - through some delicious meals.

6. I’ve been able to join the current pilates class after work on Thursdays

7. It has been sunny this weekend!

And from 21st Feb:

1. I finally dropped off bags of stuff that had been laying around the house to a local charity store

2. I arranged to have the zip replaced on an old faithful black skirt

3. Inspired by my recent reading of Connie Willis’ Blackout, we went and visited St Paul’s in London yesterday. And because it was a clear day we go to climb all the way to the top of the dome – great views!

4. Then we wandered over to the Borough Market, where we were sadly too late for some of the stalls. The upside was that some other stalls were selling off food before the end of the day, so we got a ridiculously cheap and large free range chicken (which will be roasted for dinner, yum) and two-for-one artisan bread and other goodies.

5. A close colleague has left to go on maternity leave, and although we’ll miss her we made her last day fun, with piles of cakes, lots of nice presents like books and people dropping by all day. I made an apple ricotta cake that was very successful (if I say so myself).

6. My sister’s pregnant belly is getting much bigger! She is sending me photos regularly, and looks beautiful and healthy. Only 7 weeks (officially) to go!

7. The crocuses in town are out in bloom

More lists and illustrations as usual at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast!

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I have many more tips about what to do with ideas (obviously!), but I didn't think you wanted to watch a 15-hour video. Stay tuned here over the next couple of months or subscribe to my Youtube Channel.

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Yes, we've had snow every day for weeks and weeks. Yes, there are still several feet of it on the ground. But the farmers down the road have shoveled out their sugar shack which means it's almost time to make maple syrup because the sap is rising. And the last frost date (third week of May up here) is only 11 weeks away!! That means.....

::looks out window at snow-covered tundra::
::raises notion of shoveling off the garden plots to allow the soil to thaw faster::
::Beloved Husband puts head in hands::

Right. That means winter is not going anywhere soon, but it is time to start planning the garden. Last year's garden did OKish, but because of booktours and the deaths of my mom and father-in-law, it was not as well-cared for as I'd hoped.

This year will be different! (Yes, that is the cry of gardeners everywhere this month.)

The focus this year will be on growing and harvesting foods that we can easily preserve to eat in the winter. Part of our "living gently on the earth" philosophy is to become as self-sustaining as possible. That means not depending on potatoes grown in Idaho and shipped across the country when we can easily grow them ourselves. I hope to harvest loads of potatoes, onions, dried beans (for soup and chili), parsnips, carrots and squash that will all keep well. I'm also growing the things that make summer so awesome: tomatoes, lettuce, basil, beans, peas, etc.

I have ordered from three different companies this year: High Mowing, Seed Savers, and Seeds of Change.

Another project this spring (well, when the snow melts, and God knows when that will be) is to propagate my mint, lemon balm, and geranium plants, as well as divide my hostas and daffodils. (Yes, I am lookin at you, Renee Warren, when I say that - I will need your hosta advice!!)

I can blather on at length about gardening, but it causes most of my family to roll their eyes and I don't want to bore you. How interested are you in hearing about my garden?



BOOK NEWS! BOOKS NEWS!

The coolest all-around book awards - The Indies Choice - have been nominated. Why are these so cool? They can only be voted on by independent booksellers. I am rather proud to draw your attention to the "Most Engaging Author" category as well as the "Young Adult Fiction" category.

::preens::

A pre-published YA author named Sarah got herself into a kerfuffle with the main branch of the Orlando Public Library recently. The teen section of the library, called Club Central, is roped off and restricted to patrons aged 13 - 18. Sarah blogged about being challenged and asked to leave the section and then she posted the library's response to her complaint. What do you think about this??

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Pssst! Over here in the strawberries and ivy! It's me, Mortimer!

Come join me!

This is Little Nell. She doesn't want Summer to be over yet.

This is Gramps. He's really, really old and sometimes grouchy. Please don't tell him I said that!

Here's Mom and Dad. They sit under the lamplight on the front yard and protect us from Laurel's dog, Emma.

Just look at her! All fangs and ferociousness. Grrrr!

Happy Animal Wednesday, and watch your backside!

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I pulled most of the onions from the garden last night. Now they are "resting" (drying a bit) on a screen in the garage. Assuming I can figure out how to store them properly so they last through the winter, I am going to plant about ten time as many next year. They were totally maintainence free and I think they helped keep the pests down.

I have also started to pull my cranberry bean plants. They also have to dry in a dark, dry place for several weeks. (These are the kinds of beans you dry and then put into soup or chili in the winter.)

Alas, my tomatoes have been striken by the blight, though not as badly as some folks I know. I think this is because I planted heirloom seedings, not the kind you can buy in big box stores. I am busy roasting them and making salsa. I'm not sure if I have enough to make spaghetti sauce. I might pick up a couple crates of Romas to do that, if I can get all the other chores done. I have to destroy my blighted tomato plants and sterilize the earth they grew in to reduce the chances of having to deal with this next year.

My eggplants are trying. This is a little north to grow them easily, and the cool, rainy summer we had did not help their cause.

My basil is taking over the planet.

In other Forest news, BH almost has the floor done in my cottage. This has been a huge job. We started with 125-year-old floor boards, of various widths and lengths. He had to sand off 125 years of varnish and grime and figure out how to make them fit into the cottage, given that they had no uniformity at all. Now they are all in place. He should finish the final sanding today, then he'll put a couple of coats of clear finish on it. We're still waiting on the roofers to install the slate tiles on the roof.

Because I am so behind on work, we're going to leave a lot of the finishing touches until next year. Right the goal is to get me in there so I can write!!

If you have no harvest to deal with, check out this article about the popularity of YA literature by author Paula Chase-Hyman. Stop by her blog, too.

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Yesterday was a low energy day for me, perfect for a day spent running errands and doing the tedious and necessary things in life one must do. Bah. Now they're over with.

My reward was to make the best pesto I have ever made with basil from my garden and fresh garlic grown by a guy near the village. This is a lean month here in the Forest and the price of pine nuts was too hight, so I used finely chopped walnuts instead. If the writing goes well today, I will make up a massive batch of pesto and freeze it. (Last year's frozen pesto was a little disappointing. But I have figured out what I did wrong. Don't add the cheese to any pesto you are going to freeze; it messes up the consistency a bit when thawed. This year I'll add the cheese to pesto once it is defrosted.)

The other reward from the garden last night was boiled potatoes. I sort of accidentally on purpose unearthed a bunch when checking on them. I've never grown potatoes before and am very excited by these. I think we'll have enough to store... maybe enough to feed us through the winter. Stay tuned.

Ready...

Today's advice: "I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act.  It discharges the tension."  Norman Mailer


Set....

Today's prompt: This is about perspective and age. Brace yourself for the scroll-down.

1. Write a list of ten objects you can see from where you are sitting right now.

2. Now write a list of ten more objects. The first ten items that drop into your mind.

now scroll down....







scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.....







::opens refrigerator:: did I mention how awesome this pesto is?




almost done scrolling!! ::wipes pesto off keyboard::



3. Describe the color of the objects you listed from the perspective of a five-year-old.

3a. Describe the color of the objects you listed from the perspective of a fifteen-year-old.

3b. Describe the color of the objects you listed from the perspective of an eighty-year-old.

Because they have different life experiences and cultural contexts, they will see (and probably experience) the colors differently.

Bonus points: Write a scene where two of these characters disagree about the name of the color of one of your objects.


Scribble....Scribble.... Scribble...

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I bought a bunch of sunflowers from the markets the other day, they are so wonderfully cheerful. It's also the first time in my life that I've seen fields absolutely full of sunflowers, a sea of bobbing yellows and oranges capturing the joys of the day, I love it.

Am not so crazy about the drawing though, I'm not quite sure why but it seems pale in comparison to the real thing. I haven't captured the vibrancy and am a bit disappointed -- maybe next time ...

Floating Sunflower cards and matching gifts at Floating Lemons at zazzle

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Recently, I blogged on the topic of my new, laid-back approach to dealing with garden pests.

There is one major exception to this tolerant view—the Japanese beetle.

My feud with this voracious plant assassin goes back to the year I first planted roses. My roses looked beautiful until about the Fourth of July, when the mature beetles erupted out of the ground. I’d walk out to the garden to find my flowers covered in beetles. They seemed to have a knack for picking out the most beautiful buds, the loveliest flowers in full-blown glory—and ruining them.

Not only that, those beetles were copulating on my roses, they were coupling up and having sex while they chomped my flowers to bits. They emitted pheromones, calling their comrades to join the fun. Talk about your multi-tasking. Meanwhile, their devilspawn offspring lurked under the turf, grazing on the roots of my grass.

I tried those Japanese beetle traps, and my neighbors thanked me, because they drew all the beetles to MY yard. I crawled around my yard with a teaspoon, seeding it with milky spore to kill the grubs. With no apparent effect. Apparently you have to also convince all your less-obsessive neighbors to crawl around on their lawns, too. Or offer to do the crawling for them.

I tried systemic insect controls, even though I don’t like using pesticides in my garden. The beetles treated it like a condiment. I looked up “Japanese beetle controls” online. Nematodes were described as providing “marginal” control, and the extension service bulletin noted that milky spore “may not be effective in Ohio and Kentucky.” Nobody promised me a beetle-free future.

Anyway, it was fun looking at the pictures of nematodes invading the bodies of Japanese beetle grubs and parasitic fly maggots boring their way into the thoraxes of the adults.

Or consider our friend, the Japanese wasp tiphia vernalis. “The female wasp digs into the soil, paralyzes a beetle grub by stinging, and then deposits an egg on the grub. When the egg hatches, the emerging wasp larva consumes the grub.” HAHAHAHAHA!

I’m not usually like this.

Now that I work at home, I’ve resorted to a marginally effective but completely organic and simple approach. When I take writing breaks, I walk out to the garden, pick off the beetles, and drop them into a jar of soapy water. I don’t know what it is about soapy water that kills them, but it’s fast-acting, whereas a beetle can swim around in a jar of plain water for a couple of days. (Trust me on this.)

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1. I harvested my first ever potatoes this week! They are Edzell blues and tasted very yummy roasted for tea. The skin loses its colour when baked. The rest are still growing in the potato barrel (an unwanted gift for a colleague now put to good use!).

2.I am also enjoying experimenting with the bread in Artisan bread in five minutes a day (a birthday gift). It’s no knead and the dough can be stored in the fridge for two weeks. The bread has an excellent crust and today’s batch featured a very nice crumb as well. Yum! I meant to get a better photo than this of a later loaf but we ate them too quickly.



3. The first blackberries are ripe!

4. We went for a nice afternoon walk around the river this afternoon

5. We found a café that we like in Cambridge that is not only not a boring chain but serves yummy food at reasonable prices (for the centre of Cambridge, anyway)

ETA 6. I finally made it to our local farmer's market. It was small but had some good stalls so we came home with veggies, weird shaped chillies, chilli sauce, rabbit pie and freerange duck legs.

More lists up as usual at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

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My Garden in Happier Days
I used to engage in a series of ongoing skirmishes with the animal pests that inhabited my yard.
The trouble began with the rabbits. One summer it seemed like there were rabbits everywhere. I had planted some Icelandic poppies and was eagerly waiting for the buds to open (a one-a-year event). One morning I looked and all the buds had been neatly nipped off.
My husband and I started a rabbit resettlement program (ok, we were young and naïve.) We put a live trap out in the garden and would drive the captured rabbits out to the industrial park and release them. We did this several times.
And then we caught a skunk instead. We retired the live trap and got out of the rabbit relocation business.
My neighbor took a more direct approach when a rabbit ate their newly planted pansies. He went out with an air rifle and shot it. I came home to a dead rabbit in my driveway and his wife and daughter crying, “Murderer!” as he shoveled it into a garbage bag.
I used to use nets to try to keep the birds from eating all our blueberries. Finally, I yanked the bushes and planted roses instead.
I’ve come to view the wildlife that share our yard as a kind of informal, fluid zoo. I realize that I’ve planted my house and garden where animals used to live. Small wonder if they burrow under my deck and raid my bird-feeder.
We have a lively population of chipmunks and squirrels. The chipmunks and moles have a network of tunnels throughout the flowerbeds. Now I sit in the garden and watch as they chase each other around the deck.
There’s a bird feeder outside the window where I write. It’s on a flexible metal pole. I find it entertaining when this big fat squirrel sets it to bouncing and goes flying off . HAHAHA. (It doesn’t take much to distract me when I’m on deadline).


One of the chipmunks took a more direct approach. He found the bag of birdseed in the garage and nipped the corner off, scattering birdseed all over the floor of the garage. No climbing necessary.
Recently, I noticed that the rabbits had nipped all the leaves off my lilies. Hmmm, I thought. Wonder if they’ll survive. The lilies, not the rabbits.
Ducks will lay their eggs anywhere. They are all like, Who you looking at? Earlier this summer, a pair of mallards laid their eggs in the flowerbed next door. The one belonging to Deadeye the bunny killer.
So I’m more laid back as a gardener than I used to be. Or maybe I’ve given up. I’ve accepted the fact that my yard is never going to be a showplace. There are some things that are just not meant to be.

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The "single girl" quilt is now assembled. It turns out I had only bought enough batting and backing fabric for the twin size so I couldn't make it larger after all.I finished the piecing last week, then sewed together the back panel which is orange floral My Folklore fabric. Before assembling you can use the template provided in the pattern to mark the hand quilting lines. I liked the way the circles look so I did use the pattern.


I've done the bottom row of the quilt so far. It's a twin so it shouldn't take too long, except insofar as it always takes too long to finish hand quilting a quilt. I'm already thinking about my next quilt so I have to try to stay motivated to finish this one.

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Congrats to Maggie Stiefvator for winning the most recent Cartoon Caption Contest (#7). Maggie is the author of a young adult urban fantasy about homicidal faeries, LAMENT (Flux ‘08), its sequel, BALLAD (Flux ‘09), and a forthcoming YA novel about werewolf nookie and first love, SHIVER (Scholastic, ‘09).

You can see the other caption suggestions here.

CARTOON EMBED CODE:
(Before embedding, see my cartoon licensing info.)

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lunch on the porchlistening to boys chatter;roses on the fence- Andromeda Jazmon

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I’m in the midst of my spring gardening frenzy. I’ve been working in the garden for three straight days. Yesterday I planted flowers—perennials and annuals (begonias, salvia, lavender, lilies, chrysanthemum, and pretty purple spiky flowers I can’t remember the names of.)
Today I shoveled 5 yards of mulch (well, my husband and I did). Now I’m nearly incapacitated. Everything aches, and the skin on my hands feels like it’s going to crack after all the vigorous scrubbing it took to remove the embedded dirt. To make things extra special I’m welcoming my annual case of poison ivy. I never know where it comes from but I get it EVERY YEAR! I practically have to sit on my hands to keep from scratching. That makes it difficult to type.
My ambition always outstrips my stamina. Buy two flats, get one free, well, I’ll just have to find a place to put 24 salmon-pink begonias. Wouldn’t it be great to have a flower border all the way down the driveway? If this bed was wider, I could fit some iris and day lilies in the back. Cutting garden, anyone? Did you know you can buy 100 bulbs for $25 if you order in the spring? (The bulb people know that by fall my enthusiasm and my energy will have waned.) Midway through the flats or the 100 bulbs, I’ll be shaking my head, saying, “Never again!” (Until next year.)
What if I did hard manual labor for a living? What if I had to dig ditches or plow acreage or wrestle boxes around instead of flopping into a chair and hitting the power button? What if I got so dirty on the job every day it required a power washer to get clean? What if I depended on my garden or farm for food (more than a few baskets of tomatoes, peppers and fresh basil).
What if I felt this crappy Every Single Night?
I have the luxury of being a romantic when it comes to gardening. When I was growing up, my grandfather always had a huge vegetable garden behind the garage. A former coal miner and Depression-era survivor, he would plant his onions on St. Patrick’s Day, even though he always said he hated the Irish. Although my grandparents lived in the city, and he worked in a factory, my grandmother canned tomatoes and green beans and peaches and pickles and sauerkraut and they had a cellar full of potatoes and onions.
After my grandmother died, my grandfather remarried and moved away from his garden. “You must be sorry to leave it behind,” I said to him. He looked at me as if I was out of my mind. “I hate gardening,” he said. “I’ve always hated it.”

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I am slowly transitioning from insane farmer woman back to being a writer who gardens a little. By the end of the weekend, the new vegetable plots should be finished, seedlings in, and seeds sown. And it's a good thing because I am itching to get back to writing. All the travel and work stress is almost gone, and being in balance again is now appearing possible.

The glass is now installed in the Magic Window, the walls and most of the ceiling are up, and the cool chimney pot we found at the salvage yard is in place on the roof.

Our friend Steve, a natural born Tinkerer, has been up here helping out. He's our lead elf for alternative energy issues. (The goal is to keep the cottage completely off the electrical grid.) The small wind turbine came last week. At first they mounted it on the garage roof, but that was a bad idea. Then they put it on a 10-foot pole in the back meadow. Better. Now it's on a 20-foot pole in the back meadow - MUCH better. They are still experimenting with the exact location to take the best advantage of the winds. The other piece of the electric system will be a solar panel that should arrive next week.

Just writing all of this down makes me tired.

Aside from gardening and hanging with friends this weekend, I am going to try and make yogurt in my crockpot, thanks to a tip from Bookavore.

Don't know what you're going to do this weekend? I have a few suggestions:

Change a life. Buy a book for a boy in prison (thanks to all at Guys Lit Wire!)

Read Jezebel's review of Wintergirls.

Read this jaw-dropping interview with A. S. Byatt in which she discusses her new book, The Children's Book, a novel set in Edwardian England that examines the destructive side of creativity. (For the record, I usually like her books a lot and am looking forward to this one.) In the interview she says some rather stunning things, such as, "Yes, because I noticed that there's a high rate of suicide among the children of children's book writers."

And "I think that most of the children's writers live in the world that they've created, and their children are kind of phantoms that wander around the edge of it in the world, but actually the children's writers are the children."

In the first comment, I believe she is speaking only within the context of children's writers from the Edwardian era, but the second comment seems more general. Any thoughts on this, gentle readers? (The book is available in the UK and Australia now, comes out in the States in October.) (And thanks to Judith in Australia for the info about this!)

That ought to hold you for a couple days.

ONE LAST THING!!! Do you have any secret ingredients you put in deviled eggs? If yes, please tell me what they are!

PS - GoogleLitTrips has a very nice feature on FEVER 1793. Check it out, teachers!

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If you've been following me on Facebook or Twitter the past week, you've noticed I've spent a ridiculous amount of time in the garden. What's up with that?

It's my therapy.

After the insane amount of travel the past six months, my brain is fried and my soul is tattered. There was no earthly way I could dive back into writing. Many people take vacations when they get burnt out. Packing my suitcase to go away again was the LAST thing I wanted to do. So I pulled on my pink rubber boots, grabbed the shovel, and headed for the back yard.

The first order of business was the flower beds. Last year, they were home to both flowers and veggies, but this year all the beds we can see from the house are flower-based. (The beds we can't see from the house get a little more sun, that's why. And we have a short growing season, so we have to take advantage of whatever sun we get.)

It took about a week to get all the plants and seeds in. Our land is on top of a hill that is mostly glacial till. This means a large part of gardening means extracting large rocks and filling in the hole with imported dirt and/or homemade compost.

This is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, of a boulder that was two feet tall and big enough around for me to just be able to get my arms around. Thankfully, it had the good grace to split into 5 manageable pieces when I finally removed all the surrounding dirt and smaller boulders. The extraction took two hours. My back is a little sore, but it was worth it!

This week I'll be catching up on more correspondence and beginning to shift my brain back into writing mode. And - most importantly - I'll be whipping the vegetable beds into shape. I am fretting because I am very late getting my peas in - that will be the first order of business.

A few book notes.

WINTERGIRLS made The New York Times Editor's Choice List. As did CHARLES AND EMMA, by my friend Deb Heiligman.

Last Friday, we enjoyed the very last event on the WINTERGIRLS tour, at River's End Bookshop in Oswego, NY. More than 100 people came out; one guy drove up from Philly, others came from Potsdam, Rochester, and Rome (NY, not Italy). It was a blast. Thankfully, the fire marshal did not stop in to count heads.

And finally, what do you think of The Happiness Project? Is it a load of manure or something worthwhile, useful, and life-altering?

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Wow. You guys are incredible. I can't begin to express how much your comments and emails about the New York Times discussion board kerfuffle meant to me. Thank you, thank you!!! I am blessed to have such kind readers and friends!

Because of the stress from the past six months of travel, and losing my Simon & Schuster editor (he was laid off last week - I am still too upset to blog about it rationally), and everything else, I've been mostly gardening this week. Despite the soothing effect of attacking the boulders in my garden with an iron bar, pick axe, and rototiller, I am still having nightmares about zombies. Go figure.

But the rocks are slowly yielding, seeds are being planted, and I have no doubt that the zombies will soon crawl back to where they belong.

Cottage Update!!!

While I've been wielding my pick axe, BH and his tribe of elves have been hard at work at the cottage.

This is the interior of the north end. The windows are up high because there will be bookshelves underneath them.

They have put the Magic Window in place in the south wall, and filled in the gaps around it. The glass guy is supposed to be here this weekend. He'll install the clear, insulated, UV-filtering glass - can't afford stained glass yet - someday!!

The insulation crew did their job this week, Coler Natural Insulation of Ionia, NY. Their spray-foam insulation is based, in part, on soybean oil and is a healthier choice for both me and the environment.

Insulation guy at work! The cottage is much, much quieter with the insulation in place. Next step, along with the glass being put in place, is for BH to put up the ceiling and interior walls.

Last but not least notes!

Gail Carson Levine has started blogging. Drop by and welcome her to the blogosphere!

TWISTED won the Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award, given by the Indiana Library Foundation (and named after one of Kurt Vonnegut's characters - how cool is that!?) Thank you, Indiana!!

TWISTED was also nominated for the Kentucky Bluegrass Award. Check out the whole list!

Off to hit zombies with a shovel... Read the rest of this post

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I have been too busy revising for the life in the UK test today (holiday was too fun to bother with much studying) but I promise I will be back to regale you with interesting facts that all British people apparently need to know.



1. We’re home from a great trip to Scotland. Highlights included an early morning start at Loch Garten RSPB reserve that was rewarded by sightings of capercaillie, ospreys and red squirrels
2. Orkney was as full of interesting historical sights as I had hoped. As well as the famous sites like Skara Brae, Ring of Brogdar and Maes Howe (Viking graffiti inscriptions!) I managed to undermine my self-assessment of myself as a rational person by getting the heebie jeebies while standing alone in a 5000 year old small stone tomb with a flickering torch. It wasn’t possible to run out (very small tunnel entrance that required crawling) but my exit was not leisurely!
3. When our car door was ripped from my hand by the howling wind on Orkney (seriously, I thought I would get blown away at one stage!) and smacked into the car next to me, the car owner laughed and said worse things had happened to the car, and not to worry about it!
4. Culinary highlights included yummy single malt whisky tasting and fresh seafood
5. My potato plants have grown so much while I was away! I was wrong to give up on them.
6. And while on the subject of not giving up on plants, the fuchsia I thought was killed by the cold winter has come back to life and has tiny flower buds all over it.
7. I have an abundance of books at the moment, which always makes me feel happy!

If I don't get the Scotland photos up by the end of the month please feel free to make pointed comments! In the meantime you can enjoy Mother's Day pictures and posts at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

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