Saturday 6 June 2009

Country Diary Edwardian Lady Pictures, Images and Photos

i have been poring over my new book over breakfast for the past few mornings and becoming familiar with the different types of flowers, birds and animals i am going to be seeing when i go home. the book is called "the country diary of an edwardian lady" and it is the journal of a woman called edith holden who lived quite close to where my home is and it is very lovely. it goes through every month of the year and documents the natural changes in the months with really lovely watercolour paintings and drawings, poems, quotes by other people about nature and little sayings about the different months. it says in the back that she died as a result of drowning in the river thames whilst collecting buds from chesnut trees. i think that is a sad but very apt death for someone who loved nature so much.

this particular june entry made me very excited because these places are right next to where i live!

june 25th~
went for a long country walk through catherine de barnes, hampton in arden, bickenhill and elmdon. everywhere the lanes were fragrant with wild roses and honeysuckle and the breeze came to us over the hedges laden with the perfume of the clover fields and grass meadows. the grasses of all kinds were lovely, all along the wayside. i found the meadow sweet in bloom in many places, gathered self-heal and great burnet among the meadow grass and dogwood and the white, waxen blossoms of the trailing rose from the hedges. we picniced under the hedge with pink and white clover bloom and tall grasses nodding round our heads while a pair of excited robins chattered and fluttered in the bushes round us, evidently very curious as to what we were about down in their field corner. saw a great number of beautiful little dragon-fields, pale blue with black markings at a wayside pond, and yellow water lilies in full bloom on elmdon park pool