Birthday time again

Every year they turn up regular as clockwork, my husband, son and son in law all have birthdays within a couple of days of each other and my daughter's follows in a couple of weeks, so it's been a busy few days, so apologies for my lack of blog's over the last few days, I will make up for it next week, when hopefully we return to normal.  Yesterday I had a brainwave, my son bought me a bird-table for mothers day last year which I have had in the back garden, only to be seen when I am at the kitchen sink or in the garden itself, not the best site in the world!  I have now moved it so it has pride of place in the front garden where I can see it whilst I work, why didn't I think of that before.  I have now finished my granddaughters blanket, cardigan and hat, new cardigan started, photo's below, and the design for my quilt is coming on, I am in steadfastly searching for materials and wool to help me carry on the knitting and quilting, the hunt for local charity shops has started, and my family are busy finding old materials for me.  Any donations gratefully accepted.   I am looking forward to brightening up my autumn and winter days with a burst of colour in the house, and lots of sewing to keep me happy and busy.  Today an unusual sight here, a single Jay, beautifully flashing it's colours as it fly's, we have plenty of other birds but a Jay I haven't seen here at all before.

Button detail

Cardigan and hat

Blanket

Blanket detail

 So given my preoccupation today with colours and beauty of them I thought of this poem by Dorothea Mackellar and Australian poet and author, born in 1885.  Beautifully written I hope you agree.

The Colours Of Light (Dorothea Mackellar)

This is not easy to understand

For you that come from a distant land

Where all thecolours are low in pitch -

Deep purples, emeralds deep and rich,

Where autumn's flaming and summer's green -

Here is a beauty you have not seen.

All is pitched in a higher key,

Lilac, topaz, and ivory,

Palest jade-green and pale clear blue

Like aquamarines that the sun shines through,

Golds and silvers, we have at will -

Silver and gold on each plain and hill,

Silver-green of the myall leaves,

Tawny gold of the garnered sheaves,

Silver rivers that silent slide,

Golden sands by the water-side,

Golden wattle, and golden broom,

Silver stars of the rosewood bloom;

Amber sunshine, and smoke-blue shade:

Opal colours that glow and fade;

On the gold of the upland grass

Blue cloud-shadows that swiftly pass;

Wood-smoke blown in an azure mist;

Hills of tenuous amethyst. . .

Oft the colours are pitched so high

The deepest note is the cobalt sky;

We have to wait till the sunset comes

For shades that feel like the beat of drums -

Or like organ notes in their rise and fall -

Purple and orange and cardinal,

Or the peacock-green that turns soft and slow

To peacock-blue as the great stars show . . .

Sugar-gum boles flushed to peach-blow pink;

Blue-gums, tall at the clearing's brink;

Ivory pillars, their smooth fine slope

Dappled with delicate heliotrope;

Grey of the twisted mulga-roots;

Golden-bronze of the budding shoots;

Tints of the lichens that cling and spread,

Nile-green, primrose, and palest red . . .

Sheen of the bronze-wing; blue of the crane;

Fawn and pearl of the lyrebird's train;

Cream of the plover; grey of the dove -

These are the hues of the land I love.

With that I leave you for today  to enjoy your day wherever in the world you are and will speak to you again tomorrow.  Thanks for reading.