Who’s that man at the door?

Face above the door, a Cardiff side street…

This magnificent face is above all the front doors of a row of old semi-detached houses in a small Cardiff side street that I often walk along.

He intrigues me so much that

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Daffodils for St David’s Day…

Miniature daffodils in the garden, in flower in time for St David's Day

Oh how we love our daffodils, here in Wales. And especially today, March 1, St David’s Day – our national day. We have a choice – to wear a daffodil or a leek – so most people choose the daff and an easy way is to buy a charity daffodil pin from Marie Curie Cancer Care. I’ll be wearing mine.

It’s also a day when

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Figures in a Monmouthshire landscape

The Circle of Legends in Tintern, Monmouthshire

Back in the summer I was totally smitten by this circle of six ancient wood-carved figures in a forest clearing in Tintern, Monmouthshire.

The figures themselves, sculpted from oak (or in one case sweet chestnut), are not ancient, but the people they represent are historical and mythical characters at the heart of this part of the country.

They were

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Designer birds: Owl

Blue owl by Fluro-Knife - love it, the colours are so cold and alien...

I heard a tawny owl (Strix aluco) in the garden last night, for the first time in months. It’s an eerie sound and how appropriate for this Halloween time of year.

But this post is not a nature ramble but a collection of modern images of owls – see also my posts on the art of penguins and peacocks.

In this post I will mention the goddess Athena, witches and wizards and share with you some owls depicted using various media. In most cases clicking on the image will take you to the source of the picture.

Owls are surely

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Merry Christmas everyone…

Nativity stained-glass window from the Church of St Mary, Swanage, Dorset...

I hope everyone out there has a lovely Christmas/Holiday/Yule.

Also a prosperous 2011 – or at least a healthy one.

If you are in the mood for looking at old churches, go to my ancestral places galleries.

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Cold words: Jack Frost, hoar and rime…

This rather handsome young Jack Frost by ArmadaRyu obviously doesn't feel the cold...

We have now had a couple of light frosts this autumn, and there’s an “Arctic blast” on the way this week, so I thought I would look into the words frost, hoar and rime, which I always thought meant the same thing, but apparently not…

Frost on a car windscreen a few days ago...

According to my Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (1980), frost means: a state of freezing; temperature at or below the freezing point of water. It comes from

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Jack o’ lantern and Will o’ the wisp

Cat and Jack o' Lantern by Robb Mommaerts

This is a swede lantern just like I used to make - click on the image to go to a Scottish 'tumshie lantern' article...

Halloween is drawing near so I thought I would look at pumpkin lanterns – and the swede lanterns I am more familiar with from my Welsh childhood. A swede? You may also know it as a Swedish turnip, yellow turnip or rutabaga.

Here in the UK there is a long tradition of making lanterns from turnips, mangelwurzels and swedes for harvest time in general, but it was the Americans who started to call them Jack o’ lanterns in 1837 and to associate them with Halloween, in 1866. Thanks Wikipedia for telling me all that.

American traditions have taken over in the UK now, not only by replacing root vegetables with jolly pumpkins, but also

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The toys of nature…

Snowberries (Symphoricarpos albus) I saw in a city hedge the other day - they make a satisfying pop when you stamp on them

The other day I spotted some snowberries in the hedge of a city terrace and it took me right back to my childhood in the country and how we played with any natural materials that came to hand.

Snowberries (Symphoricarpos albus) are also called waxberries as they

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Things of the past: Lavender bags

Pretty organza bags filled with lavender from Devon Flower Petals - click on the picture to go to their site

The other day I was walking along the street as the city awoke and was suddenly assailed by a strong smell of lavender.

These lavender wands from the Happy Valley lavender farm are a little like my Auntie Edna's lavender parasols - click on the picture to find out how to make them

My first impression was that someone had passed by, wafting perfume, or that an early bird was washing the kitchen or car with lavender-scented cleaner. It is a very

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We’ll gather lilacs – or maybe not…

Lilac by Edmund Blair Leighton, 1901

It’s that lilac time of year again. Common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) is such a humble plant. We had one in our back garden when I was a child and it grew in a place where we emptied the soggy brown leaves from the teapot – and where we emptied the chamber pot in the morning. Sorry to

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