Why Do You Build Me Up Buttercup?

Do you remember when you were a little girl or a little boy and the butter question came up? 

A simple yes I like it just didn't cut it. The only way to check if any of you really did like butter was to thrust a buttercup below the chin and if you lit up yellow you were telling the truth!

We spent endless hours in meadows searching for them, with no need to keep in touch with our parents by mobile phone, and the only worry in our little minds was whether or not we would go in deeper than our wellies crossing the little burns (or brooks or streams) that trickled across the fields. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could go back to those simple days? 

How things have changed in 20 years. Have we got meaner as a race or has the media got better at portraying the bad things that happen in the world?

On a lighter note, I dearly wish that buttercups were so hard to find in my garden! Maybe its just they do better in England than in Ireland, but I can't move for them here! No matter how often and how carefully I dig them out, they just keep coming back with a vengeance, bigger and stronger than ever! Tips on how to shift them organically would be fab if you have the time.....

Thought I would share this with you. It's called Lady's Mantle. 

This is one of the plants that got me excited about flowers for the first time ever in my adulthood (along with bluebells !) No matter how hard the rain came down, and how glum it made me that I couldn't get work done, this little beauty made it all happy again when I saw how it clung to the droplets of water with its beautiful leaves. It thrives on neglect and comes back year after year, regardless of how much of it Louie snatches on his way past, of how little I water it, and of how cold the winter gets. Doesn't it look all wonderfully leafy and magical? 

And here are my sweet boys having a peek over the wall at the rabbits running rampant in the field (literally!) Bless them (the dogs, not the rabbits)! They were dying to leap the wall and give chase, but thankfully didn't (they have pulled me over, and through worse in the past!)

Have a lovely weekend,

Linzi x x