Long Ago And Far Away

What I miss most about Scotland is something I took for granted while I was living there, namely my close proximity to the sea. No matter where I´ve lived in my homeland I´ve always been close to either the Atlantic Ocean in the west or the North Sea in the east.

It seems almost inevitable that every move we´ve made within Germany has brought me a little closer to the coast...and to home. Now we´re living right on the Dutch border and at last I´m able to spend part of each summer in one of my favourite North Sea resorts on the Zeeland peninsula which is only a 3-hour journey from here.

This photo was taken on a deserted beach in the far north of Scotland when I was 19. To me this page expresses how I feel about those days which now seem so long ago and far away when I still took the sea - and my youth - for granted.

No Dogs Allowed

I was strolling along the beach in Domburg when I saw this row of newly built, as yet unoccupied, cabins looking quite surreal against a dark stormy sky. My first thought was what fun it would be to leap out of bed in the morning and run straight into the sea. My second thought was they were so close together it might not be such fun if the people on either side stayed up until the wee small hours partying every night. As it transpired, there was no decision to be made anyway when I discovered that dogs were not welcome but I really don´t care. The small cottage I rent every year where dogs are allowed has its own secluded patio and no close neighbours and is only 10 minutes from the dog beach. We´ll be going there in just a few weeks and I´m looking forward to sun, sea and peaceful relaxing evenings.

As you can see, I´ve altered the photo quite a bit by removing everything but the cabins themselves and changing their colour. In place of the sky, sand and sea I´ve used backgrounds from Jewelled Sea. As a protest I´ve included Dora and I´m sure that she wouldn´t mind a bit if that lobster dragged those dog-free cabins into the North Sea...

Golden Evening

I was looking through my holiday photos recently when I came upon this golden North Sea scene captured a couple of years ago in Domburg, a small Dutch town on the Zeeland peninsula.

During the long sunny days of summer the beach throngs with sun bathers and joggers while children splash and shout in the shallows, but as the sun goes down and the beach is left mainly to the seagulls, it takes on a serene magical beauty.

I created this page using Jewelled Sea which you´ll find HERE along with a couple of kit freebies.

Gardening Around the Clock

This spring I seem to have spent nearly every waking hour in my garden. I appreciate it even more than usual this year, perhaps because we had such a long, severe and depressing winter. Just as soon as the very last tulip had gone into summer hibernation and the first forget-me-not had appeared I was out there sowing, planting, fertilising, pruning and taking precautions against the most deadly enemy of my plants, the dreaded snail. And it seems to have paid off. Here are just a very few of my recent garden treasures although even as I write this my garden is changing with new flowers appearing and old ones fading so rapidly it´s hard to keep up-to-date.

I see from the clock that it´s twenty five past spring so we´re on the brink of summer already. I´m looking forward to seeing what this new season will bring. I created this floral page using backgrounds and elements from my most recent kit, Nature Notes.

First Lupin

Last summer I sowed some lupin seeds in a pot. When they were big enough I transplanted them to a plot in the garden right next to the Red Queen´s rose bush. Over winter they disappeared only to reappear in early spring. I was thrilled and cherished them like new-born kittens. A few weeks ago I was rewarded by the very first flower spike. Since then they´ve produced many more in various colours ranging from salmon pink to pure white but none more beautiful than the very first one.

I´ve used the QP from Time Began In A Garden to frame my lovely lupin.

PS Diane has offered to send me some more bluebonnet seeds as I had no luck with the first ones she sent. I´d love to have these wild lupins in my garden too so wish me luck!

Caught In The Act...AGAIN!

Remember my white rose bush?

Well, this year the Red Queen´s gardeners have been up to their old tricks again! She seems to have pardoned them last summer but it looks as if she means business this time. At least she´s only caught one of them in the act. If the other one´s careful he might get away with his crafty repainting for many years to come.

On the other hand, he might find it easier to remedy his original mistake and actually plant a RED rose bush. I hope he doesn´t though. It´s always interesting to see how many roses these rascals manage to paint in one summer.

Click to enlarge

The little that can be seen of the background is from Nature Notes and the photo mask is the one I used to create one of the frames in the kit. The long-stemmed rose is from Vintage Bouquet. As before, the wonderful b & w illustrations are by Tenniel from an old copy of Alice In Wonderland daubed red by the Red Queen´s gardeners. Well, they get blamed for everything else so why not that too...

Flowers For The Gremlin.

I´m sorry it´s taken so long to give you the link to the floral motifs freebie I offered you as an add on to Time Began In A Garden. I´ve had a lot of aggro lately. First of all some pesky blog gremlin got in overnight and started playing about with my design and the result was a huge margin at the top and bottom of the background with everything condensed into a little square in the centre. It took a lot of trial and error before I managed to get the appearance of my room back to normal again. After that, for some reason, the little pest suddenly decided to prevent me from posting on my own blog and I had to ask Lajuana to publish my last two posts. Then, as you may know if you have a blog yourself, we had no access to them while Blogger was carrying out “maintenance” yesterday. As far as I can see “maintenance” only entails deleting comments so apologies to those of you who took the trouble to make friendly comments on my last post. I´ve since changed my browser and – yippee! - find I can publish my posts without Lajuana´s kind assistance. On the other hand, as I now find I can also do so using my old browser, it looks as if blog gremlins don´t restrict their activities to only one...

Better get a move on before the gremlin strikes again!

If you´d like these paper flowers and leaves, you´ll find them HERE.

The gremlin can regard them as a peace offering.

PS Changing my browser was worthwhile after all! I´ve just discovered that I can now copy and paste text without having to write it twice, once in Word and again in my post.

Uhoh. Should have kept quiet about that in case the gremlin´s still around!

Dora´s Moved In!

I knew she´d get in sooner or later. There was no way I could keep her out of this room forever. I´ve told her she can stay for a while but only if she promises to be on her best behaviour. That means NO CHEWING, NO SHREDDING and definitely NO NOISY ANTICS. I´d add NO JUMPING UP ON THE COUCH but I see it´s too late for that, and judging by her speculative expression and the worried look on her teddy bear´s face, it´s probably too late for the no chewing command too. Well, at least it´ll keep her from shredding the photo album. Hmm. On second thoughts...

Happy Birthday, Dora

They say a picture speaks a thousand words so on her 5th birthday I´ll let Dora speak for herself.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DORA!

Garden Deco

I´ve spent the weekend getting my garden/patio deco out of its winter hibernation. Some of it, like the frog with his motion sensor, spend all year out of doors. He´s quite a useful little fellow. He croaks loudly when cats approach intending to scratch up my flower beds and sends them on their way. Appropriately, if unwittingly, he also collects slugs which take cover under him...at least until I find them. Others, like the hanging verbena, are replaced every summer and some, like the cockerel, just get rustier and more disreputable as the years go by. Having them distributed about the garden reassures me that summer, if not exactly here already, is at least on its way.


I´ve used one of the freebie QPs from Time Began In A Garden to display some of my garden deco. I think it´s very versatile as it can either be used as a potting shed window with a view of a garden or any rural scene or as a frame for a group of 8 related photos. If you´d like it yourself, you´ll find it HERE alongside previews of the kit and the preview of a completely new floral freebie which will be coming soon.