Bumblebees!

I am on a mission to feed the Bumblebees.  You have to be living in a bubble to not know how important the little bumblebee is to our countryside and how much it is under threat by modern farming methods and human invasion, plus the lack of flowers; simple beautiful flowers.  So to find out more I went to a talk by Dave Gouldson, a leading expert in the conservation of bumblebees and the founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and he was an engaging and great speaker.  So I bought his book and I have just finished reading"A Sting in the Tail" - it was amusing and informative and a brilliant read.  I am now obsessed with bumblebees and stalk them at every opportunity to try and identify each one in my garden.  There are 250 types of bumblebee in the UK - I only know 4 but you have to start somewhere.  My garden is not the best for bumblebees although when I look about there are more pollenating plants than I had originally thought, but not enough.  So I am digging up the junky grasses that sit like boulders in my flower bed and I am slowly but surely filling it up with flowering plants.  An Echinacea Sombrero and a Astilbe Delft Lace (a pink fluffy plant that is so pretty!) are settling into their new home.  And already they are attracting the bees!  Now I just have to dig up the rest of the tropical looking lifeless invaders and plant some more English country garden favourites.  

Noddy and Trout!

A quick sketch to showing the old folk gripped by the men's singles final of tennis!  Nearly a 4 hour match is a bit hard going.  Very glad that Djokovic won!

Sunset over the South Downs

This is what you do when you don't have a telly to watch and you are fed up listening to the tennis on the radio!  I painted a watercolour of the sun setting over the South Downs.  It is the view from my back garden over a wheat field towards the downs.  

Squeakals!

Thought I would knock up a quick print of my beautiful Squeakals.  He is such a beauty and so photogenic. We also have Mademoiselle Tinkie Tangerine Head also known as Club Tropicana, as she is such a sunshine babe, but she is more camera shy!

Work has started!

I have been working hard to spruce up the decor and breath new life into the cottage.  I think my efforts are being rewarded, as the lounge is turning into a wonderful space.

I was inspired by a recent trip to Thomas Hardy's cottage in Dorset. The parlour at Higher Bockhampton, with its dark furniture, large hearth, stone floors and dusty pink walls, perfectly suited my own parred down interior and simple formulation.