March

March 26, 2024August 31, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)Leave a comment

March has been full of extra challenges here, a two-steps-forward one-step-back kind of month.

Amy went into hospital for surgery on her complicated wisdom teeth, which required a general anaesthetic and, for someone with quite intense anxiety issues, this was very difficult for her. We’re proud of her for coping, and she’s now recovering well.

Planning for Toby’s life after college has been an adventure in stress management, and as yet is still unresolved. My mind is a cacophony of worries about his future and the impact that has on all of our lives as H & I grow old. And Toby has been struggling to cope recently and has had to stay home from college a couple of times after injuring staff. With all of this to juggle any hope of me being able to concentrate on a task like pattern writing has completely gone out of the window. In fact I can’t seem to concentrate on anything fully at the moment. I can’t even choose a shade of green to finish my Spring lamb and instead have managed to start a rabbit and a bear, flitting around with my knitting too.

The other day I sat down with a notepad in front of me a tried to write a list of things that would promote some calm happiness in my life and all I had on my list was ‘going to the woods’. Going to the woods is enough for now, those quiet solitary interludes help me to top up my batteries just enough, but in truth I long to have something more exciting to look forward to with eager anticipation. It would be so liberating to wake up in the morning and think to myself, ‘what shall I do today…?’; to do something on a whim without meticulous planning to fit around other people’s schedules; over even simply to choose what time I go to bed at night, when to take a bath, or just to be able to sit and concentrate on something, anything, without constant interruption in order to meet someone else’s needs.

But that is not my lot, and so I must choose to either wallow in self-pity or try to embrace the gifts that each day can bring if you look hard enough. I’m coming to realise that since I cannot change my circumstances the thing that I must change is my mindset and have started reading ‘A Book for Life: 10 steps to spiritual wisdom, a clear mind and lasting happiness’ by Jo Bowlby and I really hope it delivers on that tantalising title.

Happily being out in the countryside always does bring me pleasure, and there are many small joys out there now that Spring is arriving: the gradual building of bird song each morning, each week a little louder and with a few more voices, gathering towards the full beauty of the dawn chorus that comes in April; wild daffodils and wood anemones nodding in the spring breezes and the field boundary hedgerows now clothed in cloud-like blackthorn blossom. And I am grateful for the small sustaining pleasures of seeing the beauty of nature.

I hope that you’re finding some moments of peace and pleasure in your days too, J x

crafts & knitting · foxes in my garden · garden stuff · general stuff · wildlife

Spring, maybe?

March 4, 2024August 31, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)17 Comments

It’s been so wet here, rain has fallen for weeks on end and many of our familiar pathways through the woods are now well beyond muddy and are completely flooded and impassable. It’s been mild too, we’ve only had a few frosts here this winter and everything now seems to be sprouting and proclaiming the arrival of Spring. Hopefully it’s not too soon and there are no snow storms just around the corner.

The old plum tree in the garden is currently in blossom, though with all the rain it’s been hard to get good pictures. Usually I post with pictures of it’s beautiful frothy white blossom against bright blue skies, but this year it’s rain soaked blossom. It’s still a lovely sight though and has been a magnet for the growing local population of green parakeets, who’ve been enjoying feasting on the unopened flower buds, sometimes 6 of them in the tree at a time.

We’ve also had daily visits from Squidgy the squirrel who now scrabbles at the back door to get our attention each morning and who loves Brazil nuts best of all. Up until a couple of weeks ago Kit was also visiting frequently and always in daylight. Now however it seems as if we have a new friendly fox, who always visits in the dark. It’s so unusual for a wild fox to tolerate being visible to humans, usually as soon as they see or hear you they disappear into the shadows and are gone. But this new fox is much bolder and, like Kit, stays in the garden when we come out of the house, she sits a safe distance away, ready to run if the need arises but looking hopefully for a snack of one of Toby’s cocktail sausages, which I’m more than happy to share with her. Amy has named her Kira and she’s been visiting every day for the last week. I’m not sure if that means Kit has been turfed off her territory again (a while back she disappeared for many months) and we are wondering, because of the bold behaviour, if Kira is actually one of Kit’s cubs that were raised in our garden in 2020. No way to know of course, I’m just delighted to be able to see these beautiful wild creatures up close.

In between planning for Toby (hopefully we’re nearing the final stages of that all now) I have of course been knitting. I’ve been wanting to knit a lamb in spring green colours, I’m so drawn to green as a colour at the moment, but am dithering about what shade to knit in, I find it’s one of the more difficult colours to choose tonal shades in. Hopefully I’ll reach a decision and finish a spring lamb soon.

Hope that you’re finding small joys in your days, J x

countryside · general stuff · in the woods

Winter Walks

January 29, 2024August 31, 2025 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)10 Comments

The countryside is currently drab and dormant and much given over to mud, so most of the pleasure in a winter walk comes from the promise of what awaits on returning home. Coming back home after a chilly walk in the murk and mist is a delight; closing the door on the cold; peeling off layers of damp, muddy clothes and changing into warm, comfy and cosy things; cupping your chilled, weather reddened hands around a mug of hot tea and snuggling down by the fire is blissful.

But there is still beauty and colour to be found out there, even in the depths of Winter:

The beech leaves holding fast to the trees and bright with the colour of a polished copper kettle;
the red ember glow of the holly berries still held deep in the dark, prickly heart of hedges;
the vibrant green skirts of moss that the trees wear in wet, wintry weather;
and the sky, a constant shifting canvas of colour, most spectacular at dawn, but beautiful too when the watery sunshine pierces pearly cloud and outlines the skeletal forms of the bare branched trees.

This scant scattering of colour is not quite enough though, so I am eagerly anticipating signs of spring starting to show, and hope to find the first snowdrops soon as a sign that the greening of the woodlands is coming.

In Little Cotton Rabbit news there is not yet much to tell from here, but there are exciting goings on happening at Lucy Locket Land. Lucy had the brilliant idea to create some special kits throughout this year which mix my animal patterns with her own wonderfully imaginative and creative additions.

In January she had the mice dressed as Arfur the Handymouse and Martha the Mousekeeper and these kits proved to be so popular that they are currently sold out. Februarys kits will be the pigs, so it will be exciting to see what they’ll be doing and I can’t wait to see what other creative fun Lucy comes up with for the other animals over the rest of the year. Here’s a link to her instagram where she’s posting teasers for future kits, and a link to her shop where the kits are sold.