Flutterby Patch

Blackberry-laden hedgerows and busy mice

'It was a fine morning. The blackberries were ripe, the nuts were ready and the mice of Brambly Hedge were very busy'. So writes Jill Barklem in her Autumn Story.

No apologies for returning yet again to the wonderful world of mice, hedgerows and ancient tree stumps known as Brambly Hedge. In this beautifully depicted illustration from the Autumn Story you can see Lord Woodmouse using his walking stick to hook down a prickly branch laden with juicy black fruit whilst his little daughter Primrose picks up the berries from the ground.

 
Once the baskets are full Primrose makes her way back home but worryingly gets lost on the way and all the mice begin a frantic search for her.

Just look at those mice searching for Primrose on the shelves and in the cupboards of the magnificently named 'Store Stump'. One mouse is even searching in a bowl of blackberry and apple sauce... just in case! But do they find Primrose? If you haven't seen the book I hope I can tempt you to find a copy, I know you won't be disappointed.

The first stories were published in 1980 and there are now eight. These books are just the right size for little hands to hold.

 

I have a copy of 'The Four Seasons of Brambly Hedge' which not only includes the first four stories but also a detailed account of Jill Barklem and her work. Below you can see one of the pages showing illustrations and hand written notes from Jill's personal sketch book. What wonderful talent and imagination she has.

 
This post is dedicated to all you bloggers who are currently gathering seasonal fruit and veg and are busy baking, bottling, brewing and freezing in order to fill your store rooms. Particular mention goes to Suzanne at Blueberry Cottage who seems to have a succulent seasonal dish on the table every time I visit. Whilst reading her posts I can almost smell the tempting aroma's wafting from her kitchen.

You can discover more about Brambly Hedge on the official website. There are all kinds of treats. Visit the mice in their homes by clicking on areas of the map or print some of Jill Barklem's drawings for children to colour. There is even a bookmark to make. Have fun! 

Competition - win Bo-Peep and her 'woolly jumper'

On my desk this Wednesday is a basket of knitting yarn and a tiny doll I've knitted together with her sheep. I've named her Little Bo-Peep and she will be looking for a new home with one of the nice people who visit my blog. Bo Peep and her sheep will be my 'givaway prize' at the end of this post.

I live in a mountainous region of northern England where thousands of sheep graze and shepherds (and shepherdesses) wear warm woolly clothing to protect them from the wind and rain. The pretty dresses and straw bonnets Little Bo-Peep wears in traditional nursery rhyme books wouldn't be at all practical in our area.

I found nine pictures of Little Bo-Peep in various nursery rhyme books but not a single one is suitably dressed for 21st century farming. 

Here is my knitted Bo-Peep in her warm woolly clothing. Oh dear! She appears to have lost her sheep yet again. He's a rascally little fellow so perhaps we'd better look for him.
 
As we haven't ventured very far recently I thought you might like to see a bit of my local area and our wild windy hillsides that are home to a few people and great many sheep. On the way keep an eye open for the woolly runaway. The weather is fine at the moment but unfortunately the storm clouds are gathering so we must find him as soon as we can.

 First we will travel to the village of Troutbeck and then on up the steep hill to the Kirkstone Pass.

 
The most visited house in Troutbeck village is 'Townend'. It was built for a wealthy yeoman farmer 400 years ago at around the time the Pilgrim Fathers settled in America. It contains superb examples of traditional carved oak furniture and other household items. Now owned by the National Trust it is open to the public throughout the year. I love wandering round this house looking at the way people in those far off days used to live.

 This is the original 400 year old stone barn belonging to the house; still very much in use today

Around 300 - 400 years old, the houses in Troutbeck are built from local stone quarried from the surrounding hillsides. Walls are typically 2ft thick.

Rain clouds part and watery sunlight falls on Troutbeck Church.

For part of the day the high hills cast dark shadows on this scattering of cottages. The sheep in the foreground are taking advantage of the sunshine. No sign of Bo Peep's woolly companion amongst the flock.

Now we travel further uphill and are able to look down on a remote farmstead in the valley below. This is 'Troutbeck Park Farm' and it was bought by Beatrix Potter in 1923. She used it as a setting for her 'Fairy Caravan' stories. 

Even further up now and the vegetation is more sparse and there is very little shelter from the wind and rain but still the sheep graze.   

It's not unusual to see sheep walking casually down the road. I think they are wise enough to know that there is often longer grass on the roadside verges than in the fields.

At the top now and the Kirkstone Pass Inn has provided refreshment for weary travellers for six centuries.

 
This is the view from the top of the Kirkstone Pass to Brothers Water below. Once a rough stony track this route through the mountains has been used by travellers on horseback for many centuries. Today it is a steep twisting tarmac road and is used each year by many thousands of motorists.

Sheep grazing amongst the rocks are well camouflaged.

And look who we have here, its Bo-Peep's runaway sheep. Found at last and looking rather guilty or perhaps that should be " looking rather sheepish".

Delighted to have found him, Bo-Peep has decided to keep her sheep on a lead; though looking at the mischievous expression on the animal's face it won't be long before he finds a way to go exploring yet again.

Could you give a good home to Bo-Peep
and her rascally sheep?

Bo-Peep measures 6 ins (15 cm). Beside her is a piece of stone quarried from the area we have just visited. It is known as Westmorland Greenslate. If you would like to win this little lady and her sheep here is a fun competition you could enter. Simply try and guess the total weight (in grams) of Bo-Peep and her sheep together with this piece of Westmorland Greenslate which is 1 cm thick. To help you I can tell you that the total weight is somewhere between 100 - 300 grams. Now all you have to do is write your estimated weight in the comment section at the bottom of this post. NB.Sorry, the stone isn't included as part of the prize as it is rather too heavy to mail, I added it to make guessing the weight a bit more fun.

Entries are open to anyone living anywhere around the world. I will gladly mail the little lady and her friend to any distant shore. The name of the person whose guess was closest to the exact weight will be announced in my blog on Friday 24th October. Do give it a go and good luck.

Toadstool house hunt

If you visited my blog on Wednesday you might remember I was looking for a certain something to inspire a knitted picture I'd planned. I spent an hour or more working my way through all manner of children's story books with little success. Then I found 'Winkie in Toadstool Town'  and hoped my search was over. You see I'd been looking for fairy toadstools; the kind I remember reading about when I was a child. There seems to be great enthusiasm for all things toadstool at the moment have you noticed?

  Unfortunately the cute little toadstool town in this book wasn't quite what I was looking for.

 But the toadstool on the cover of this book for Brownies was just right, red with white spots.

What I wanted to find was a fairy house, a toadstool with a door and windows. So my search took me to the book I mentioned last week. 'Come Follow Me' by Gyo Fujikawa. Full of wonderful pictures of fairy folk I felt sure I'd have success. But no! The only toadstools in the book were on the cover. These were being used as garden furniture by the tiny lady who resides in a grassy bank, you can just see her emerging from her grassy house in the bottom right-hand corner. My search continued.

Then I remembered the ultimate toadstool Des Res.....Big-Ears' house. Thank you Enid Blyton, I knew you wouldn't let me down. A sweet little door with a lamp over it and tiny lattice window, perfect. And just look at those inquisitive beetles at the bottom of the picture.

In this second picture you can actually see inside the house. Those stairs look a bit close to the front door wouldn't you say? They wouldn't pass the planning regulations in our human world. By the way, that isn't smoke coming from the window, its steam; in the story Big-Ears is doing his washing.

I was not hopeful of finding any more toadstool homes when I picked up my old 'Pookie' book. You need a hankie for this story, its a real tear jerker. I opened the book.....

   

....and what a wonderful little toadstool village met my eyes. Traditional red with white spots, lattice windows and chimneys, the lot. And in between were the sweetest tree trunk homes with steps leading to front doors that were hidden between twisted tree roots. What a delightful place to live!

Having found illustrations of fairy toadstools I decided to search for toadstool shaped objects around the house. Surely I must have something! But I'm afraid the result of my searching was this rather pathetic group of three, one made of glass, one of made wood and the third, a well used cake decoration dating from the 1960s.

I almost forgot to include my mother's wooden darning mushroom. Everyone had a darning mushroom in 'the old days' and it was in constant use. I still use it from time to time.

So what about the real thing? Autumn is supposed to be a good time for fungi so I was certain I'd find plenty of examples around the garden and in the wood. After much searching I found two lonely toadstools on a pile of wood chippings.

I've never seen a red and white spotted toadstool in the flesh. Sadly it has the rather ugly name 'Fly Agaric'  because it was once used for poisoning flies. It is indeed very poisonous which is a shame because its such a beauty. 
  
You can probably tell that I enjoyed my search for fairy toadstools as it brought back many childhood memories. In the end I decided to knit simple red and white fairy toadstools that would be small enough to fit on children's hats and scarves or something really tiny like a mobile phone or iPod cover. No windows, doors or chimneys in my knitted toadstools I'm afraid, there wasn't room! For added magic I've added a row of dancing fairies.

 
I've left the background white so that you can see the grid clearly.