our house on a wet Sunday...

Today:

-Fighting the quails for elderberries - they love them & it's very funny watching them eat them & it must be good for them as they start to moult, but we want them to make Elderberry Rob...
-Cutting out the last two crows on a block of lino that now has forty eight crows, finished, yipee.
-Teaching a beginners lino course, indoors, out of the rain with hot tea and coconut slices.
-Drilling holes in walls to put up all the things that needed holes drilling.
-Playing card games about geography, yawn.
-Not seeing the ISS because it is cloudy AGAIN, will we see it at all this month? We really want to.

Must be Autumn.

as happy as a quail...

Quails like the small things in life (woodlice, worms, seeds etc) and are often to be heard chiruping away to themselves with delight when presented with a new bowl of sand to bathe in or a bowl of leftover rice from last nights tea.

Nothing gets them more worked up than a bunch of burstingly ripe elderberries though.

I'm sure they can feel the Autumn goodness giving them a little boost to keep their lovely eggs coming for a bit longer before they start to moult and settle down for a winter snuggled on top of their hot water bottles.

Watch out to the right though Speckeldy because Eagle has just spotted what you have got...

things for folksy, but...

I've got a big pile of prints which I'm going to list on Folksy (let's be realistic and say 'in the next two weeks') but there is just one thing stopping me - the ironing.  I know I can crop the pictures, but if I just did some ironing (ever) then the photos would be a whole lot better, especially when it comes to tea towels and canvas bags.  Maybe this post will encourage a friend or relative to rush round, exasperated at the feebleness of a non-ironer, in-order to sort out the sorry state of my tablecloths, tea towels and bags.  I don't iron anything, ever - just imagine how scruffy my family are...

My excuses this week include chicks, quails, shallots needed harvesting, glorious sunshine and really glorious sunshine...

will it be pink?

Today is beautiful and sunny ( I think we are allowed to be pleased because it did rain a bit yesterday...) and the perfect day for harvesting elderflowers.

We are really lucky because we only have to walk as far as the back garden to harvest ours and it is a beautiful black elder, so the flowers are pink - and there are hundreds this year, maybe thousands...the air is filled with the smell and buzzing creatures are coming from all around.

The first year we lived here I was uncertain as to whether the black elder was edible, but having made several batches of Elderberry Tonic for the winters and berry crumbles with a few elderberries thrown in I can safely say that we have all survived and the quails have thrived on elderberries each Autumn, so it must be.

This year is the first Elderflower Cordial year for this bush and I am really, really hoping that it will be bright, bright pink, like the flowers...24 hours of steeping has just begun, the kitchen smells fantastic...we will find out tomorrow!

there is always room...

I have an allotment - that is where I should grow food.  I have a teeny tiny back garden at the back of a terraced house and two energetic children -  that is where they should play when we are at home...

Today, I 'accidently' planted 10 tomato plants (with another 10 waiting for hanging basket space).  I'm sure they won't take up much space when they are fully grown....

...and I couldn't help but put out another tub of salad leaf seeds to replace these when they go over soon...

...and I don't think I ever did get round to pruning the giant black elder bush that the previous owners planted in a much too small garden (maybe because I want the flowers and then berries for a bit of cordial?) - so along with currants, plums, cherries, strawberries, kiwi fruit and quails there is not much ground left for playing on - lets hope they've had a busy day at school - gulp.

birds, birds, birds

Despite my best efforts I do always end up doing more prints of birds than anything else...how does it happen?

obviously the above are all regular visitors to my tiny urban back garden...

In other bird news, yesterday was bath day for the quails (sand bath that is...) and I cannot show with photos just how much they love it - ruffling and fluffling away, they all dive in and end up with legs and wings in all directions, looking scruffier than ever - but when they emerge, what beautiful sleek ladies they have become!!

 And they all know it too!

favourite pictures

Have you ever seen the images that Edward Bawden created for the London Underground?  They are fantastic and we have a few prints of them around the house.  This is my favourite...

but there are lovely ones for London's Parks and Gardens as well - what a great advertising campaign.

In holiday news we are mostly eating!  It's nearly 10.30 in the morning, so breakfast is a distant memory for some and a feast of bagels and quails eggs is now being demolished.  Only a couple of hours 'til lunch when another vast spread will be needed...I expect we can fit snacks in around all these meals too.

being outside instead of in...

Inside was very dreary today having got used to light and sunshine, 

so as soon as it brightened up I went outside with tea and not very nice biscuits that noone else will eat, (possibly because I adapted the recipe to fit what I actually had in the cupboard) - even the quails say 'no' and they think woodlice are tasty...

we had a quick chat and then they went back to sandbathing and quailing in the brief sunshine - here are Golden Eagle, Speckle and Megan resisting the camera as always.

but look what the plum tree is doing, and the bees love it - hurrah!

eggs aplenty

The girls are stepping into their springtime stride now, with Rosie well into the lead, and we suddenly have enough quails eggs for a pretty yummy feast...and yes, we do store them in the pansy pot outside the back door - fridges are sooo old fashioned.

eggs

It's arrived!!  The first egg of the season from our flock of urban quails, laid by Rosie and presented in a nest of chopped up ribbon by her proud owner - the others are enjoying the sunshine a little too much at the moment, spending their days preening, eating and sand-bathing - laying eggs is low on their list but they really should take note!  Extra woodlice for Rosie please...