Dulce Domum

On the number plate for my house is a scene from Wind in the Willows. Mole and Ratty in the little blue-painted boat is a vignette of perfect friendship and domestic harmony. Ratty is an engaging character: outgoing, sympathetic, reliable, capable, resourceful and kind. Bless Kenneth Grahame for seeing these possibilities in the common water rat.

But who really feels an affinity for rattus norvegicus? When he tries to make his home in a human habitation it cannot be Happy Ever After; it is unhealthy for the humans and ultimately disastrous for the rat and his kin.

Idling at the traffic lights on the local high street I saw a little brown creature with that characteristic slinking side-to-side gait. He sniffed under an open door and then flattened himself and crept into the store. Drawn probably by the warmth, he couldn't know that within this cavern of silkiness and perfume and elegantly thin models there would be not a crumb to eat, not even a morsel of rice-cracker or drop of Slim-fast.

Where did he come from? Up from the harbour, probably, or evicted from some other dwelling. I know this store, they have lovely things and although I cannot afford to shop there I often pause to admire. So I quickly parked and went in to tell the lone saleswoman about her guest. He sat against folds of oyster-coloured satin and turned his head this way and that, nose twitching.

"Pardon me, but a rat... "

"Where? " She moved quickly.

"Here, in front of me - no, down by you now, between the rack and the magazines" - for he moved around and searched for new corners as we spoke. He looked, for a moment, both incongruous and pretty, with silky brown fur showing very well against the rich drapery of a display table. Then he simply disappeared, and not out the door. We prowled around the store cautiously, but could find neither tail nor whisker of him.

I had to go on my way eventually. I would like there to be a happy ending to this story, something for a picture book. It was more likely a baited trap.

Papa above!
Regard a Mouse
O'erpowered by the Cat!
Reserve within thy kingdom
A "Mansion" for the Rat!

Snug in seraphic Cupboards
To nibble all the day
While unsuspecting Cycles
Wheel solemnly away!

Emily Dickinson

PS. I think I have a happy ending for him, stay tuned.

High Flight and Poppy Cat

Poppy Cat slipped out of my pencil many year ago, inspired by the shower of poppy seeds from the dried seed heads in the garden - a scattering of pepper in the air, like something from A Midsummer Nights Dream.

Do fairies and flying creatures capture the imagination because of a common wish that we could also take wing? To my four-year old mind it had made sense. I reasoned that I could fly: lift one leg off the ground, then the other, then hover. What was not to work? I tried it and the floor came up to meet me. Gravity. I still remember the pattern of the linoleum on my knees. But in dreams I still fly.

High Flight

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,
– and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless falls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor eer eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God."
John Gillespie MaGee

Best wishes, dreamers and fairy followers all.

Storms and Splendour

From a few$2.99 seed packages in May, these delights: Nasturtiums in a swath across the front bed for end-of-summer glory, and Shirley Poppies that have bloomed for weeks, silken and lovely.

And I am enamoured of my pear tree, only a couple of months ago in blossom...

and now laden with ripening fruit.

Alice in Wonderland-like, one idea threads unexpectedly but logically to another. "Creative re-purposing" leads to fine china being stuffed with pencils and paintbrushes, and vessels re-purposed leads to domestic economies. Not the economies of nations, but of one household, in the spirit of environmental conscience. Leading to the concept of Magic Thinking, which is not generally considered to be a compliment to anyone's intelligence.

It began with wanting to continue to enjoy a nice deep relaxing bath every day, but not wanting to waste water. How about having the baths and saving the water to pour on the garden, which has to be watered anyway? One could use the plastic jugs that otherwise go to recycling - the kitty-litter and liquid laundry soap containers. The benefits immediately presented themselves to be listed on a satisfying check-list -
bath (check)
wise water management (check)
flowers watered! (check)
nice arm muscles from carrying jugs up and down stairs (check)
who needs a Stairmaster! (check)
and so on, virtue upon virtue.
In June I started saving the plastic jugs instead of sending them to be recycled. I filled up about 10 of them after a bath, ran out of jugs and there was still water in the tub. Tsk, tsk, the waste. The next morning I carried the jugs downstairs and emptied them over the flowers. Very hot day, with thunderstorms in the evening. Flowers very well watered indeed.
Ran not such a very deep bath the next night, saved the water afterwards, and carried the jugs downstairs. The flowers didn't need watering, they were well soaked from the previous night
and the next band of thunderstorms was on the move. The full vessels sat there on the front deck, and so the pattern continued through July.
Now for the "magic thinking": I didn't even have to fill up the jugs any more, I just stood them at the front door and uttered my intentions to the sky. It has rained almost every day and the garden is very green indeed.
Ah well, I don't need the exercise after all. I am supposed to Do Nothing for two weeks after next week's surgery, then the summer will be over. The lawns and gardens are marvellously green and the pear tree is heavy with fruit, faintly gold (delicious pear-tart recipe here).
I have nearly finished up the next fairy book, helped by the memory of the little fairies who came to visit earlier in the summer at Sovereign House:

the stylish,

the small

and best friends,

observing every detail,

and undeterred by weather.

Best wishes, fairy followers all.

Fairies at Sovereign House

Many thanks to all the fairies, mothers, grandmothers, godmothers, sisters, patient brothers and friends who came to visit the Fairies at Sovereign house.

Such a lot of fairies
with wings, little fairy shoes, tiaras, gloves and clouds of pink,

enjoying fairy refreshments and fairy finds, and entering the "How Many Fairies" contest (there were several correct entries, "44 including the fairy dog and snow fairies", and the winner was the first correct one drawn from the jar. Well done!).

These are only a few of the many lovely photos we took and I will post more soon. Watercolour fairies on the drawing board are keeping me busy for the next three weeks.


About the Fairy Finds, the consensus is that the carved, hollowed-out acorns must be lanterns like those in the Illustrated Fairy Gazettes, and the walnut shell with the thistledown lining certainly looks like a cradle. The rounder, squatter acorns are common in this neighbourhood but the longer, pointed one is unusual for around here. And yet there it was in the garden.

"They who have eyes to see, let them see". What fairy finds are in your back yard?

A Reverie

"My paddle clean and bright, Flashing with silver,

Follow the wild goose flight, Dip dip and swing"

Entirely surrounded by paintings and frames, with Merry pouncing on the brown paper and bubble wrap, we are paddling into the home stretch for the Midsummer Magic show at Sovereign House later this week.

Midsummer Magic

A cordial invitation to fairy followers near and far to join us for Midsummer Magic at Sovereign House, featuring paintings from The Illustrated Fairy Gazettes and Posy's Fairy Wardrobe.


This is merely a flutter away for some of us, across the 12-Mile Creek bridge in Bronte and down West River Street. There is a path through a fairy glade to Sovereign house, overlooking the lake.


Mazo de la Roche, author of The White Oaks of Jalna books, lived in this house from 1910 to 1915.


Saved from demolition by the Town of Oakville and the Bronte Historical Society in 1988 and modestly renovated with the addition of gallery space on the ground floor, it retains a quiet charm and is the perfect place for art shows.


This is the fourth year that we have hosted Midsummer Magic, and every year we have been graced by the presence of would-be fairies with best dresses, little flowered sandals and, of course, wings.

Mug Monday

"Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used."

"When I use a word" Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less". Through the Looking Glass

Prowling around the house for just one of my mugs for Mug Monday ( hosted by the talented Valerie of Acorn Moon and Pat of Weaver of Grass), I discovered that most of them were already in use for anything but their intended purpose of simply holding a warm beverage. Needles and thread were in one, paint brushes and pencils in another, pennies in a third. Even the Portmeirion milk jug is stuffed with brushes. And so it was all around the house and garden,


Old canoe paddles double as useful garden stakes,


A lidless teapot and Limoges dinner plate have been home to an African Violet since 1997 (it thrives on benign neglect),

And the cloche that should be protecting strawberries in the garden is sheltering fairies in the house.


In Psychology 101 we were told that a sign of flexible intelligence is the ability to overcome functional fixedness, to perceive new applications for existing tools. And that is my excuse for filling the charming, stylish mug on my worktable with more paintbrushes, like feathers in her cap, rather than topping her up with hot chocolate or mint tea.

Speaking of tea, where's the coffee pot?