Yesterday I had a wonderful surprise …..an order from a lady in Georgia, USA, which given the enthusiasm of the Southern States for my guinea illustrations, mugs and fabrics, wasn’t in itself a surprise. I believe with their strong homesteading roots and often paired with religious fervour to till the land, guineas feature heavily in… Continue reading Unlikely combinations
Myrtle was the first chicken I lost. I felt helpless as the vet couldn’t diagnose. She couldn’t breathe and I read every book I could, but everything led to the same diagnosis, which I now know is not always right. It was supposed to signify gape worm, but I honestly now believe it was sadly… Continue reading Little Souls
During molting season, just finishing now, the poultry garden is full of feathers, sometimes like a soft snow fall over night. Meticulously I gather them, long, strong flight feathers and tail feathers from the geese, pure white ones from the pekin ducks and pretty patterned, spotty ones from Bovril, our guinea. The gingers, coffee, clotted… Continue reading Feathered friends
From way, way back as a child I loved fabrics. My mother’s wooden chest in the hallway provided hours of fun for me exploring the Colefax and Fowler, Laura Ashley, Cole &Son and Liberty prints, feeling their textures, weight and mesmerised by the pattern repeats and complex layers of colours. My mother rarely sewed but… Continue reading Fateful Fabrics
Every morning is a surprise here…some are misty, the coops slowly becoming visable as the sun rises and evaporates the damp air; others are cold, chilled with a tough layer of frost, buckets of water frozen solid and perfect to create ice scultures, the garden filling with little ice discs or the sound of torrential… Continue reading Winter wordless
I haven’t posted for a while and wanted to catch up with a few updates. It’s a longish post but bare with me…I promise over the next few weeks they will be shorter and very varied. A lot has been going on and I have exciting things happening. But it had to start somewhere….. In… Continue reading Pipi found me
A recent post on Facebook perches prompted me to do a quick post on my perches. . There are a lot of different types and views on perches and after keeping chickens now for three years, I realized the old fashioned idea of round perches, like a thick broom handle, were wrong. The girls suffer… Continue reading Please perch
A few posts back I mentioned my dream of drawing and designing fabrics, characters and products. As an accountant, very embedded in my toils of tax and statutory accounts, I still scribbled in sketch books and jotted stories on ever growing bundles of lined and plain paper. Over the years I had completed half a… Continue reading From sketch to tea mug
I am very lucky to live near Aubusson, https://www.cite-tapisserie.fr/ the famous tapestry town in France. Felletin is just another twenty minutes further south and our brocantes are full of notions, wools and tapestries to snap up as bargains. I collect pre-loved tapestries too, always birds as they are my passion. Thistle Cottage studio will eventually… Continue reading Tapestry time
Last year I was given a box of baby guineafowl. They were supposed to be banthams. Billy Bantham my adopted, feisty cockerel needed girls. He had adopted the role of deputy to Ronnie roosters flock of Rhode Island hens as Ronnie had an amputated toe and found rounding up the girls at sunset difficult. But… Continue reading Pipi Pintade
Finally the Canon Mark III came out in the sun. Long overdue, I wanted to take pictures of my feathered friends. We have lost a few this year and sadly I had few photos of them and I feel bad about this and need to resolve. Every day is precious and no time is the… Continue reading Feathered gang
Toots, Pipi and Fifi hiding from the rain. They share a small coop with three other adopted chickens and Mr Chicken, our huge Cou-Nou rooster. The little coop sits along side the huge main coop as the Guineas like to go to bed earlier and can be very disruptive with their 98db screaming. I really… Continue reading The gang
Freezing today but luckily Penquin my Pekin duck had laid an egg. It was still warm and I held it in my pocket between feeding all the feathery family. My girls are now three years old and egg laying is sporadic. With the winter chill all the hens have slowed and from twenty hens I… Continue reading Boys will be boys
As a child my walk to school took me through a rambling footpath between mighty oaks and horse chestnuts. The latter supplied conkers that resulted in many bruised fingers from conker fights. Now this childhood right of passage has been banned. Shame, but it was actually rather dangerous. But also rolling around in leaves could… Continue reading Fallen leaves
Wasn’t that loud? I mean all that noise because a leaf dropped, a chicken sneezed or Ronnie Rooster did a tiny doodle-doo. The funniest thing is, if you replay this to the Guineas, they get louder….if that’s possible. They jump like jump jets , a vertical take off but with a very bumpy, ungainly landing.… Continue reading Ear drums
A French Homestead Life 