Beautiful Buttons and Swifts At Sunset

Hello, thank you for dropping in.  The weather here today is HORRIBLE; just when we dared to think that Summer Is A-Coming In the temperature dropped and it began to pour with rain.  Fiddlesticks!  We were hoping to go camping this weekend but again, the weather has foiled our plans. 

 

Of course, every cloud has a silver lining and so I am able to catch up with you here.  I have some exciting news: I WON A PRIZE!!!!!!!!  This almost never happens so excuse me while I do a little dance of joy before I explain...(dancing)...Mama's Mercantile has just gained her 100th follower and she organised a little giveaway to celebrate reaching this landmark.  I was one of two winners and on Friday morning this sweet little parcel dropped through my letterbox -

 

 

Obviously I untied the lace and put it in my sewing basket.  We can't waste lengths of lace, can we?  I unwrapped the paper and this is what I saw -

 

 

a pretty tweedy needlecase on top of a pile of goodies.  I don't have another needlecase and I do really need one so this is a perfect gift and it, too, has gone into my sewing basket.  Underneath the needlecase were these -

 

 

nine colourful cards of buttons.  I think you know where I put them.  Aren't they glorious?  Mama's mercantile has more buttons than anyone I know - if you look here you'll see what I mean.  Her son-in-law says that she owns all the buttons in Lincolnshire and I think he may well be right!  But that wasn't the bottom of the gift pile, underneath the buttons were these -

 

 

four handmade notelets.  I am sorry about the shiny cellophane, I briefly considered taking them out of their packets to photograph them but I didn't want to spoil them.  What a lovely parcel, just perfect.  Thank you sooooo much.

 

 

There is one more thing which I am bursting to share with you and I really can't wait till next time.  I have been worried about the swifts: every year in late May we are able to sit outside on warm evenings watching, and listening to, swifts wheeling around the sky above us.  It's one of my seasonal markers, letting me know that summer is almost here, and yes, I do know that meteorologists regard 1st June as the first day of summer but as I have explained before, I'm an astronomical kind of gal and in this house summer doesn't begin until 21st June.  Well, to get back to my point, this year we haven't had a single evening warm enough to sit outside and we haven't seen any swifts, which was causing me to be concerned.  However, on Thursday evening at 10pm I HEARD THEM.  If you haven't heard them before, they are unmistakeable because they fly together in groups and scream, loudly.  I was indoors, by myself, so I opened the front door and there they were, quite low in the sky, racing down our street.  My heart lifted as I watched them climb higher and higher.  Swifts are incredible birds, they eat, sleep and even mate on the wing and only really stop flying when they are nesting.  This year's fledglings will be in the sky for the next two years!   And as they flew westward, my eyes followed them and this was the quite literally awesome view from my doorstep -

 

 

11 June 2015, 22:00

 

See you soon.

 

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x