There have been plenty of witchy goings on this month, oh yes. Aswell as Beltaine happenings, May is also the month of our Red Hearth gatherings, here in Stroud, among the wildish women. The Red Hearth is our very own special roundhouse in the woodlands of my fantastic friend Kesty Jakes, and it is here that we gather, honour the land, drum, sing, weave, sit round fires, story tell and do all sorts of other wondrous wild things….

We even manage to get teenagers there, which is especially great:

I tell you, magic happens when drum women gather….

I am hoping tonight will be no exception. As the moon turns dark, we will be gathering again, this time to celebrate the busy webs of our lives that we weave, during our Spinmother ceremony. This is a beautiful ritual inspired by Carolyn Hillyer for those among us who find ourselves spinning in different directions, holding the many and varied threads of our lives. A chance to pause, breathe, re-member our dreams and who we are in the middle of that beautiful chaos!

We will make a candlelit spiral with May blossoms and other wild flowers, which we will dance and drum at dusk, and then cosy-up in our roundhouse, by the fire, where our crafty hands can weave some magic into wool, beads, and hazel…

Sigh. What more could I ask for on an early summer evening

I have to tell you that I am so ready to up sticks and move to Spain. I even have a converted horse box fantasy sploshing around in my head – check out here for details. But in the meantime, and there always HAS to be a meantime (sigh), I have been entertaining myself with a few May pastimes:

gathering hawthorn, woodruffe, baby beach leaves, jack-in-the-hedge, ransoms, white nettle, dock, red clover and plantain for a green Beltaine soup (oh yes, I am a real witch, yes I am, yes I am – a skippy song to be sang in the kitchen)

Then get yourself a reality check and understand that no-one in the family (or neighbourhood) will actually eat a soup that colour, so hedging your bets by making Seville Orange and Almond cake:

While I’m at it, always good to crochet up a sun-scarf – like a rain dance, but in reverse (more witchery)

and finally, while waiting out the rain and thinking generally that this may be our new climate from now on, great to add my piece to a very long letter getting Mr. Cameron to go to the Rio Summit and get behind making Ecocide a law - Polly Higgins, you are my  HERO!! Phew. Thats a lot of weather and sitting.

Now, where was I? Am getting all muddled up with winter being here once more, not to mention confusion in the thermal undies department. Well, March was a month of birthdays, all over the place. Just before the wintry winds blew in, Dareth, Debs, the Hotpants and I headed out for a special birthday picnic by a river in splendid sunshiny, champagney loveliness….

Just before that, I had been involved in a bit of a frisky week, backstage with our schools “We Will Rock You” production. Wow, those kids were  something again….

and I am now slightly embarrassed to recall that I too dressed up as a Bohemian for the last night party, complete with blue tipped hair. Oh dear.

My baby turned 14 years old (how?????) and skipped off on a school trip for a week

My big boy turned 19, he now has birthday cake AND a glass of wine….

Easter came and went amid cake, chocolate and chalking a girly masterpiece on the only white wall of our house. Of course.

Right then. Will someone please tell me – was that summer?? You know, that lovely blue-skied little bubble of weather we had about a month ago – well, was that it?

Because I really need to know what clothes to be wearing for one thing. And I need to alter my expectations if it’s not returning. Not to mention, touch up my nail polish in between saving the world and stitching myself into oblivion. Really.

Anyhow, grave matters aside, I was rather pleased with this little present I made for our sweet friends Dom and Kev. A babysitting book with pledges from each member of our family to come on over and watch their i-player look after their lovely daughter. Handstitched from bits of paper and fabric from my basket of wonders:

Which by the way Dom, if you are reading this, you still have three tokens to cash in, so give us a call. I pinky promise not to try all your face creams and scoff  your chocolate. (Can’t vouch for the other miscreants in my family of course…….)

Why I love this girl of mine….

After four long, LONG years, the day she had been waiting for swung into town. And not before time in her fed up mind.

So off we go, her and I, to our regular monthly stop out at the Maxillo Facial Othordentist department. I need to say that just about the only bit of this that gives me joy, is the beautiful turquoise of the building. Is that shallow of me on such important days?

Ah, but this trip was a special one. For that pesky brace’s time was up. Up.

Oh, the shining, mad gladness of it all……

Yahooooodie, big World, here she comes….

Ooooh, ooooh, quick check, all teeth still there….

Small day, big milestone. This wondrous 15 year old daughter of mine.

I think I may be waning like the moon.

See what I mean? That’s anaemia that you see there, and it is a challenging beast I can tell you. So what you need on foggy days, and especially if you are feeling like the smallest slice of moon is this. (And yes, I have made a list to please my Virgo heart)

Number One: Knitting

Number Two: A Plan

Number Three: Homemade Lemonade

Number Four: A favourite Uncle (probably called Uncle Geoffrey) to send you a wonderful book in the post

Number Five: Spring flowers from a friend, and a blackboard reminder

All things pass.

You know how celebrities have A lists and B lists and then those sad old D lists….?

Well, it turns out that teenagers have them too. Apparently they use them to grade poor unsuspecting recipients of muffins (yes, cakes with fancy decorations)…It’s a long tale, and not one I’m going to expand on here. But those of you who have been following the “Hot Boy Muffin Saga” of our family on Facebook will by now have a certain expectation of a Batman Muffin winging its way to stardom.

Well, its not going to happen people. Oh, the Batman muffin got made alright. But before I could grab my camera and get snappy it was whisked away without a ‘how’s your father’ and I was most firmly told that I would have to make do with some left over smiley face muffins. “And you can’t eat them mum, they are for my other friends. Well, maybe you can have half” Or maybe I could just lick out the bowl, me and the dog sharing……oh yes, I know when I’ve hit that D list my friends!

Well, at least they have sweet little faces, that did make me smile. And that’s not bad, from the land of teen….

Well, this has been a bit of a big week! And there’s a little something I wanted to tell you……

It all started here

which many moons (and needles) later, ended up here

and that’s where the magic really started…because Alpha have some very talented and patient people who were able to take my stitchy offerings and make them into cards of all loveliness…sort of like this

with the very nicest chlorine free uncoated FSC board using vegetable inks – hooray!

oh, this printing lark could get quite addictive you know. There I was, in their big ‘ol warehouse, snapping away like some little demented goblin, quite arty I thought…

Anyhow, the outcome of all this shenanigans that day was this

which all looks terribly reasonable, until you get all 10,000 of them home, and into your kitchen….

scary-doos, and no mistake. But after everyone had calmed down, we got busy with packing them up into their sweet bio-degradable polybags and this is how they look now… check out the funky rounded corners…oh, oh! And they are glittery too – YAY!!!

Coming soon to a shop near you! Or if you can’t wait that long, please please hop onto my website at The Stitchy Witch – I’d love to see you there! So, for the official sneak preview, and especially for all you stitchy gals and yarn-stormers, here are my favourites:

Thanks to the ever patient Graeme Del Nevo for his website sorcery, Debs Milverton for being the best Babel fish ever and to Kevin Barton for his graphic world domination – I hope you guys are still talking to me……

O.K. Let’s set the record straight. Just incase you were harbouring any fantasies that my life is just peachy – all pancakes and petticoats…..here’s the reality of my day.

After the usual round of dog walks, poo scooping, and washing up, and after a morning of work, I thought it would be a simply splendid idea to make spicy chilli-roasted chickpeas as a little snack to nibble on. And why ever not. I can hear my children’s enthusiasm right now – Yum! Thanks mum – you sure do know how to tempt us. Not.

But undaunted, I had soaked the little critters, and put a pan on to boil, before going up to my art shed for some afternoon work. I set the timer knowing I would forget them. Ha! No flies on me. Then I forgot the timer, and sailed merrily on into my afternoon. Two and a half hours later, as the burning embers of my house made their weary way up the garden to my consciousness I had a vague remembering…..

Such was my distress (I am Virgo after all) I headed down to my favourite junk shop, and bought a lamp that had been winking at me for a couple of weeks…retail therapy is the only way to go when your house is something out of the blitz
. Trust me. But then a crucial bit came off, so I had to stick it; then I stuck my fingers together with superglue; then a big dob of glue burned a hole in my woollen dress. Then one teenager came through the door yelling: OH MY GOD, HAVE YOU BEEN SMOKING??? MUM, HOW COULD YOU??? (teenagers always yell in capitals)

All this while I was perched on a stool, trying to stick the lamp, in a burnt out chickpea house, with the dog fighting the cat, my dear husband trying to do some after school tutoring, the plumber visiting to mend a leak, and the wrath of outraged teenagers to deal with.

Not good. Not peachy. And not a petticoat in sight.

Tomorrow should be better. Sigh.