Fairy Gazettes

A flutter at the mail box, a knock at the door - a nice weighty box has been delivered, well sealed with packing tape and bearing the sticker "cleared by customs". The fairies have arrived at last.

Or rather, The Illustrated Fairy Gazettes, "By Fairies, for Fairies", a labour of love that began some time ago, now realized in these pretty volumes.

This is not their first incarnation. The true original fairy gazettes have a closely guarded history, and the small-format desk top gazettes that we stitched together with poetry and vision and rainbow thread were our best approximation of those delicate little editions and the glimpse of fairyland they offered.

In these new expanded books we have done our best to be faithful to the originals and the fairy virtues therein, and I have had the pleasure of indulging in my childhood past-time of paper dolls.

In an envelope nestled between the back cover and jacket flap is a "Posy's Fairy Wardrobe" doll, with outfits and accessories...
and busy as we are with the next volume in the series, I took time out for a little fashion parade...



Which would you prefer - morning glory blue or columbine's pink hues?

Mothers Day

My Mother
by Ann Taylor (1782-1866)

Who fed me from her gentle breast,
And hush'd me in her arms to rest,
And on my cheek sweet kisses prest?
My Mother.

When sleep forsook my open eye,
Who was it sung sweet hushaby,
And rock'd me that I should not cry?
My Mother.

Who ran to help me when I fell
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My Mother.

And can I ever cease to be
Affectionate and kind to thee,
Who wast so very kind to me,
My Mother.
From Festivals and Fairs, The Illustrated Fairy Gazette



Where are the fairy places?

I had heard that along one of our main roads and up a certain drive there is a path that leads to trillium woods.
So on this Mother's Day we went looking....









and there they were...








Lovely starry trilliums in a fairy dell,






more and more of them, a vision of beauty.





Eventually we turned back to the not-so distant sound of traffic, then across the road and down to the lake,


where mothers and children paddled together beside still waters, on Mothers Day.


"Nature - the gentlest mother is,
Impatient of no child -" Emily Dickenson