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30 Days Wild card designs featuring my sketches.
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![two orange patterned butterflies on pink flowers](/uploads/3/7/5/8/37581127/17-butterflies_orig.jpg)
The sights and sounds of summer . . .
To start, why not put some sounds in your ears while you read over this post? Below is a compilation of various recordings I made (on my camera, so not brilliant quality) during June. Originally, I intended to do a recording every day for 30 Days Wild, but didn't manage it. Speaking of 30 Days Wild, it was fantastic to get my pack from the Wildlife Trusts, featuring cards with pictures that I drew! It was very exciting to have my art going out to thousands of people. I talked about the process of creating the cards here.
So, back to our activites in June. We paid a visit to London for a family wedding at the start of the month and enjoyed some green spaces in the city.
The wedding cakes were a sight to behold. All the fruit and flowers inspired me to try something I'd been meaning to get around to for the last few years: cooking with elderflowers. I foraged a couple of flower heads and made them into pikelets (sweet little pancakes), which worked quite nicely.
It's hard to fit in outdoors time around a full time job with a 1-2 hour commute each way, so we decided to start a little tradition of going on a walk on the way home at least once a week. We chose Arlington Reservoir, because it's a one hour circular walk on an easy trail, with a variety of stuff to look at: the water and waterbirds, a bit of woodland, views of the South Downs, animals, buildings, fields. It was satisfying to watch the evolution of the micro-ecosystem that is the reservoir wall over the course of the summer and autumn, until it got too dark to walk any more.
There was a gorgeous Chicken of the Woods fungus growing on Battle High Street, of all places. I didn't want to take it, as it looked so lovely and colourful. Somebody else didn't have any such qualms - it had been cut down when we next went past, a couple of days after I took this photo. (I later heard it was a friend of a neighbour, who presented it to a family member for their birthday!)
We had an amazing microadventure on the South Downs with probably the most beautiful scenery I saw this year. The HRRA walk this month was also on the South Downs, which meant even more fabulous views!
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Small tortoiseshell butterflies, which have suffered a population decline, especially in the south of the UK.
And at the end of the month we went Champing for the first time. Despite quite a grey and drizzly month overall, we did manage to make the most of it.
3 Comments
First, I absolutely LOVE the idea of recording the sounds you hear throughout the month, and having that Soundcloud at the top of the post. Such a pleasant thing to listen to while reading your blog. Second, you take such beautiful photographs! Love the sound of elderflower pikelets and that wedding cake is amazing! It's a shame you don't get the chance more often to spend times outdoors, but commuting is often a necessary inconvenience. Wishing you all the best for 2017! :)
Reply
Thanks Elizabeth - you too! I'm really pleased you enjoyed listening to the audio piece. At the time, my failure to record something every day annoyed me, but it seems I'd recorded enough to make a nice little collage (even after cutting out all the bits of sound that were completely blasted by wind noise!). If you're interested in doing your own recordings, Allysse has a monthly theme going on her blog at the moment: https://besteglatisant.wordpress.com/category/audio/
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24/3/2017 19:54:28
I am greatly inspired by your posts and thinking of writing mine now. Thanks for being an inspiration to me as I was also trying to write blogs but was not getting the appropriate genre.
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