Friday, August 28, 2015

A walk, a card and some seeds.

A walk on Cherhill downs.
Up here there is peace. Down in the distance the road curves around the mysterious Silbury hill. Up here the cars have been silenced, they are insignificant and unimportant. All that matters is the ticking of grasshopper, hum of bee and whisper of gentle wind in the grass among harebells.
In the sky, the pretty song of skylark calls. The ancient land echoes with it's tales of forgotten people.
My feet on white chalk, this old route, my footsteps following the old ways.
Wild flowers dot the grassland banks and ditches of the ancient iron age Hillfort of Oldbury Castle.
 A sea  of purple and lilac, scabious, knapweed, harebell and thistles alive with bees.
It's a good place to be for the soul up here. I can hear my own thoughts. 
Across the down, on the north side, high up above the fields of barley is the white horse of Cherhill. (Or Oldbury white horse)
How I love these white horses on hills.
Hmm I was hoping to see a corn circle too, but wasn't lucky this time. 
  
                                       “a walk is only a step away from a story, and every path tells.” 
                                                                                              ~Robert Macfarlane

This summer has been too quick for me this year,  just like the bees on the thistles in the pictures above were. I wasn't fast enough to get any decent shots that day, except the one.  Bees have been on my mind quite a bit lately. There seems to have been more in the garden this summer. Not so many butterflies though sadly. 
A couple of weeks ago I was having a bit of a play around digitally, with one of my paintings, which is fun to do occasionally. I'm no expert in photoshop or anything (wish I was)  One of the images was a bee, I played about with layers and added some vintage stock images. I liked it and thought that it would look pretty as a card. So went ahead and made up a batch of cards. 
Then I remembered about the wild flower seeds spare, gathering dust, that had been collected by myself (from my garden I must add, not the wild) and some that friends had given me and I hadn't got around to using them, as many of the plants already grow in my garden and wild nearby. Anyway, I decided how nice it would be to sell this card with a packet of wild flower seeds. After oiling my rusty graphic design abilities here's the little label for the seed packet, which has been attached to a small brown envelope that hold the seeds.
                                          'Sprinkle these seeds to help the bees'

 If you would like a bee card and packet of seeds, you can find them in my shop here.
Enjoy the bank holiday weekend and last few days of August. x

6 comments:

  1. Lovely photos! Reminds me of our life in Wiltshire, we lived right next to Cherhill. Beautiful card too!

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  2. What a great idea to pass on the precious seeds. I love the label too.x

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  3. That is so lovely and a wonderful idea too!
    blessings
    ~*~

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  4. It's a beautiful area, I had the same sort of feelings at West Kennet when I was there a few years ago. Like you I've seen quite a lot of bees this year but not many butterflies. The wildflower seeds with a card is a lovely idea.

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  5. What a lovely thought, just ordered, loving the blog as always.
    Luv nad blessings
    Maura Xx

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  6. Love the chalk downs. You might enjoy "You want Alchemy" by Kate Bush on You Tube if you haven't seen it. An extraordinary visual tribute to bees which is both magical and funny.

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