Ladybug beetles {One frame}

Greetings Friends!

Autumn is upon us!

So is a short post from me…

The leaves are falling, the warm clothes are out – along with my favourite winter boots and there is also a total abundance of ladybug beetles!! Over the last week they’ve literally decided that since the weather has turned chilly its best to go and find somewhere nice to hibernate for the winter…although quite a few of them have made their way into the kitchen. My butterfly house is also filled with them, its been like flying ant day but prettier.

Its been a couple of months since I last posted a One Frame so while I was watching (and wearing) the ladybugs I thought I’d take as many photos as I could in hopes of a few good snaps to share here.

Like this one, I think they’re harlequin ladybugs, but I’m not an expert and I think all beetles are pretty cool. I actually find it really hard to photograph these teeny tiny fellas, so when I get a snap thats in focus I get quite excited!

So with that in mind I really hope you like this ladybug post and are enjoying the beginnings of autumn wherever you are. I’m planning to post an update to my Wonderland flowers denim jacket embroidery next week.

Thank you so much for reading this post, and have a lovely, peace filled week!

Wandering through a meadow!

Hey friends! How are ya? 

Did you know that the first Saturday in July is National Meadows day!? 

Me neither!!

When I discovered Meadows Day was a thing and that it was this weekend I changed my mind on what I wanted to post and feverishly spent some time typing and getting some photos together, only to realise how late it had gotten, so I decided to post it today instead.

Still, better late than never…

According to the dictionary a meadow is ‘a field with grass and often has wild flowers in it.’ I love visiting meadows, wandering through the long grass searching for butterflies, listening to the birds singing and hoping not to attract any ticks.

So I thought I’d share some meadow related snaps from some of my recent adventures!

Meadows have been part of the English landscape for over a thousand years. A meadow is traditionally an area of grassland which is left to grow long through the spring and summer months and then cut for hay and turned into animal feed for during the winter.

One of my favourite things to do when adventuring is to spend some time just sitting amongst the long grass, listening to the buzzing…if you look closely there is actually a bee on the Knapweed in the centre of the shot – I didn’t realise until I looked back at the days photos.

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Connecting with nature in winter

Hello my friends! 

I don’t know about you but I often find winter a tough time of year to connect with. Christmas is always amazing as well as celebrating the solstice in December but it generally just rains a lot and is rather dull and grey in this part of the UK.

Of course there are still plenty of things to do, I’ve got bird feeders in both the front and back gardens and love watching all the little birdies (and the squirrels!) but nature is generally in hibernation and you can’t really play outside in it. 

I suppose staying upbeat this winter has been helped by the fact we’ve had more snow! It wasn’t quite as good as the snow we had back in late November but it gave me a chance to get out and about with my camera and I wanted to take you with me so you can enjoy the pretty countryside too! I hope these photos bring as much joy to your week as they did mine.

To start my icy adventure I headed to one of my favourite spots near home, because of the surrounding views I like to imagine that this is a gateway into Middle Earth.

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A Wintery Walk

Hello my friends! 

Before I start, I totally meant to post this last week but due to storm Bert I had no power (the perils of living in the countryside!!).

I am so unbelievably excited about this post as before the storm properly hit I woke up to five whole inches of snow!

Snow is one of those things that I will never get tired of and usually when we do get it here its only a light dusting, so the fact it was so deep was amazing (I literally haven’t seen so much snow since I was a kid when we lived in Scotland).

Obviously I just had to go walking in it and wanted to take you with me so you can enjoy the pretty winter atmosphere and stroll through the countryside too! I hope these photos bring as much happiness to your day as much as they did mine.

Starting off our wintery walk, I headed to one of the local fields to snap a quick landscape shot, all the fields looked so serene, every one could’ve been a scene on a Christmas card.

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Fleeting thought #7 {Fallen leaves & favoured pastimes}

Hey friends,

If you’ve never been here before then welcome!! 

Today I wanted to share the seventh Fleeting Thought with you. Its been a while since my last one of these, so here goes…

Autumn is just lovely isn’t it?

The sound of the geese flying south for the winter – or the Starlings congregating in their  murmurations, where I live is actually quite close to a forest that thousands of starlings live in the winter, every day at around seven o’clock morning and night you can hear them flying overhead you can literally set your watch by them! The parks and woodlands are filled with warm, beautifully mesmerising colours – even though the weather is less on the warm side! You can get your jumpers out and it’s okay to drink hot chocolate at lunch time.

Also pyjamas, pyjamas seem to always feature more in the autumn/winter months…the anti-social introvert in me loves a jammies day, especially if I’ve got a good book to read or an embroidery to finish.

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An Early Autumn Flowershoot

Hey friends!

We’ve been blessed with a few extra days of summer and I’ve been holding onto them as much as possible.

I was sitting outside a couple of days ago, listening to the bees buzzing when I suddenly noticed how many of my plants are purple! So I thought why not enjoy the last few rays of perfect sunshine and decided to go on a garden flower safari and I wanted to take you guys along with me so you can enjoy the relaxing atmosphere and pretty plants and a few bugs too! 

Starting off my flowershoot are these tiny purple daisies, I think they’re called Michaelmas daisies (a type of aster) and are a tough perennial that I don’t remember actually planting, but they’re so pretty poking out from underneath/behind other flowers that I’m not going to disturb them.

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Fleeting thought #5 {new tech & random photos}

Hello my friends, 

Welcome back…How ya doing? I actually meant to post this a couple of weeks ago but life got in the way.

So, this is the fifth Fleeting Thought its been like a couple of months since the last one and I kinda feel I need a drum roll to start this post off…ready…I’ve finally taken the plunge and upgraded my camera!! Which is super exciting!!! Sadly my trusty L340 gave up on me, so this post is a little bit of my feelings and a tiny (sort of) review mixed with some random photography experiments.

Lets do this…

I haven’t felt the need to upgrade my camera before and have used my faithful Nikon Coolpix L340 since it was released – I’ve always liked how easy it is to use and the photo quality is pretty good (unless you try to zoom too far) but it never really let me down…I must’ve taken over 100,000 photographs with it!

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Traversing the Sandy Grassland {Exploring Cubert Common}

Hey friends! How are ya? 

This week I had the opportunity to go exploring on the gently undulating sandy grasslands of a wonderful little National Trust site called Cubert Common – which happens to be one of the few enclosed Commons we have in the country. I had so much fun during that sunny (albeit windy) day and I wanted to take you guys along with me so you can enjoy the relaxing atmosphere and pretty plants too! I hope these photos bring as much joy to your day as much as they did mine.

Cubert Common is a rather tranquil trail though open grassland – its also a Site of Special Scientific Interest as its home to some rare plants and bugs! It’s a beautiful place to walk and is filled with some lovely wildflowers like primrose and cowslips, with yellow flag iris growing in the damp marsh-y bits.

Gotta say for my first trip the beauty of the place was kinda magical.

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A day among the flowers

Hey friends!

We’re beginning to get increasingly closer to all the beautiful flowers being in bloom and I thought I’d share some recent clicks of pretty flowers I’ve taken. Some from my garden and some from the wild and I wanted to take you guys along with me so you can enjoy the relaxing atmosphere and pretty plants too! 

It wasn’t until I sat to look over my photos that I realised I’d been focusing on pink flowers! I hope these photos bring as much joy to your day as much as they did mine.

Its funny I hadn’t realised just how many plants are pink!

Starting off my wildflower quest is a little light pink Scabious, I love these and am actually growing about a dozen of these plants in my Wildspace, as long as you cut the faded heads off they flower all summer long and the butterflies love them.

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