Category: countryside

countryside · general stuff · winter

calmer

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)59 Comments

Thanks so much for all of the kind and lovely comments on the previous post. This week has been a lot less dramatic and Toby has been happily at school without incident. For me there has been a lot of knitting, for in knitting my heart knows calm; some tea, cake and laughter with friends and a lovely peaceful woodland walk amongst the snowdrops which are just beginning to break bud.

I took 133 pictures on my wood walk (and got very muddy knees in the process) and there were just too many of them that I wanted to show you, so I made a little film.

Note: To see the snowdrops at their best it’s worth cranking it up to HD which you can do by clicking the little thing shaped like a cog and moving the slider to 1080p HD at the top, after a moment you should get a little HD in red by the cog and then you can re-start the film with better quality.

 

Have a good weekend. It’s St Valentines day tomorrow so I hope you’re spending it with someone you love, kisses from me too xxx

autumn · countryside · crafts & knitting · general stuff · in the woods

woodsy

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)23 Comments

Happily the half term school break wasn’t as wet and windy as I’d feared and in fact we were rather lucky with mild, sunshiney days perfect for lots of lovely wood walks.

Toby is such a happy boy in the peace and tranquility of the woods, he notices lots around him, touching trees, exploring textures and enjoying the different sounds he can make with his feet depending on whether he’s rustling through the leaves, tromping down the boardwalks or crunching along the gravelly paths. He does like to keep moving though (you can see his shadow pulling on my shadows arm in the picture above – “c’mon mummy, c’mon”). The only time he does agree to stop is when there is a snack involved. I might miss out on more in-depth looking at things and photo taking when I’m with Tobes, but I do love these peaceful little adventures that we share in the sanctuary of the woods.

Amy meantime had a great time on stage in 6 performances of the Addams family, though she was quite worn out by the end of the week. It was lovely to see her having such fun up on stage and the show was a great success.

Other than spending time with Toby and driving Amy back and forth I didn’t get an awful lot done, so it’s nice to have some free time again now he’s back at school. I’ve been settling back into a bit of crochet blanket making.

It has been put aside for most of the summer but it feels right to work on it again now the days are colder and shorter and I’d like to think that I might get it finished to put on the bed before winter truly arrives, though that might be a little optimistic of me. Once it’s a bit more finished I’ll find somewhere to spread it out and take a proper picture. I’m also working on a small batch of animals that I hope to have ready soon, more news of that when they’re ready.

I’ll be back soon with that post about the mice pattern making that I mentioned. Til then enjoy the rest of your week x

countryside · general stuff · in the woods · spring

all is well

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)40 Comments

If you’ve popped in here for a visit over the last 5 days you may have been greeted by a blank page and been wondering what has happened to me and the little cotton rabbits. Last Thursday Typepad (who host my blog) were targeted by a rather massive and sustained distributed denial of service attack which knocked out all of their services and since then they’ve been working round the clock to get up and running again. Fearing for it’s safe return has made me realise just how much I love my blog and the contact it gives me with others who like woolly stuff and similar things and I’m very happy to have it back.

Anyway, I’m getting back into the term time swing of things here, catching up (albeit rather slowly) with an email backlog that built up over the school Easter break, settling back into pattern tweaking and writing for those seasonal sweaters that I promised and generally just enjoying having some time to call my own instead of Toby’s. This morning I’ve been on a bluebell walk as the local woods are full of them and we have a lovely sunny morning here today so it would be daft to sit inside all day.

I always think of April as the month of unfurling and those bright chartreuse green shoots emerging everywhere from little brown tree buds are quite magical. The most magical sight of all though is the carpet of bluebells.

For just a couple of weeks each year the woods are transformed into a place where you can really believe that fairies exist. When you sit quietly on a mossy log in a bluebell wood, troubles fade away for a while and you feel a sense of timelessness and peace, at least until a dog comes bounding up to lick your face as one did to me earlier! Still, it’s a lovely way to escape from modern world stresses and I have resolved to go walking in the woods on my own more regularly, and of course it is the regular weekend activity with Toby – the woods are his favourite place to be.

Hopefully if you pop in again you’ll find everything in it’s place but if things do go wobbly again please don’t give up on me as I will definitely be blogging here for a long time to come 🙂