This is what I always picture when I think of New England. It's somewhere I want to go one day, to see it in the autumn. This particular place is somewhere in Vermont. It's the kind of place I should love to live, only I wish it was in an area of the world less civilized, more wild and remote. I would love to take this farm and set it somewhere in the backwoods on New Zealand. And live on it of course!

We had allot of rain last week and it flooded again. Our local town gets flooded every year here is a picture of one of the floods, the church is in the middle of the little village.

The church is in a dip in the ground, about a meter below road level, because when the town was built all the buildings were built on stilts because of the flooding, all but the church that is. Later the ground got built up and left the church in a hollow.

Priscilla Ahn - Dream (2008) Offical music video lyrics

I heard of this song for the first time while reading a blog I follow, Living On Literary Lane. I don't think I have heard of Priscilla Ahn before, she has a beautiful voice!

Natural Horsemanship: There's a picture of me in this, can you find it!?

May

  I tried to write this post days ago but blogger wasn't working so I will write it now. 
We all know that May is the fifth month of the year, is spring in the Northern Hemisphere and autumn down here in the south. In fact May, in the Southern Hemisphere, is what November is to the north so when I tell you I was born in November, think of May. :-).

The flower for May is the Lily of the Valley

The birth stone is an emerald

Here are some quotes and sayings for May: Mostly all folk lore and superstition, but it's interesting.

 Apparently May is considered an unlucky month to get married in--what a pity!

"A swarm of bees in May

Is worth a load of hay;" - from an English folk rhyme

"What potent blood hath modest May." -Ralph W. Emerson

"A wet May makes a big load of hay. A cold May is kindly and fills the barn finely." 

More here:

Traditional Celebration Days and sayings for May

Who was born in May? And what happened in history?

Today in history (the 15th) Mary, Queen of Scots married James Hepburn, in 1567.

In 1905 today Las Vegas was founded in Nevada.

In 1928 today Micky Mouse made his first appearance!

 Wow so many things happened in May, Look here!

May is the New Zealand Music Month.

Fireplaces and Sailing boats

 

I am sitting in front of a warm fire thinking how I'd much prefer to be cuddled up with a real volume of the Lady of the Lake than writing this. Mama is busy texting away, she texts more than me now which is almost never--such a waste of time-- I keep telling her to use her thumb but she insists of holding the cellphone in one hand and typing with a finger of the other! Last night she spent a whole hour on one text! Well...

  The fire is dying down, 'Nathaniel put more wood on the fire!' That's my little brother (14). Yesterday he went for a sail on a real Americas cup boat and got to skipper it! He sails an optimist competitively and over Easter came fifth in the national camps. That's very well done out of 200 boats!

 That's the boat he sailed on. They are American boats don't know why he didn't go on a New Zealand one.

This is Nathaniel in his Optimist.

We are all very proud of him, he is in the worlds team now.

The Lady of the Lake

Circle of CALLCOTT Augustus Wall, 1779-1844 (United Kingdom)

  I have begun to read The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott today. I have heard of it and read of it in books but had never come across it until I found it among many of his other works on a website called the literature network which is a treasure trove of classic literature all there free for anyone to enjoy. I'm not really a fan of reading of a screen, I'd much prefer a book in my hands. But I did find it useful having an online dictionary and Google earth open while I was reading as well as Wikipedia to look up all the many saints mentioned. I found Lake Katrine, a real lake in Scotland where the lady lived. I do hope to visit that land of my ancestors one day.

  There are some beautiful passages in the poem, here are some from what I have read so far:

'Faint, and more faint, its failing din

Returned from cavern, cliff, and linn,

And silence settled, wide and still,

 On the lone wood and mighty hill.'

'So wondrous wild, the whole might seem
The scenery of a fairy dream.'

 

'Onward, amid the copse 'gan peep
A narrow inlet, still and deep,
Affording scarce such breadth of brim
As served the wild duck's brood to swim.
Lost for a space, through thickets veering,
But broader when again appearing,
Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face
Could on the dark-blue mirror trace;
And farther as the Hunter strayed,
Still broader sweep its channels made.
The shaggy mounds no longer stood,
Emerging from entangled wood,
But, wave-encircled, seemed to float,
Like castle girdled with its moat;
Yet broader floods extending still
Divide them from their parent hill,
Till each, retiring, claims to be
An islet in an inland sea.'

'What though no rule of courtly grace
To measured mood had trained her pace,--
A foot more light, a step more true,
Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew;'

It's all full of such beautiful words...

   I have only just begun the very long poem and am enjoying it more than I thought I would. Have any of my readers read it before?  It reminds me of Tennysons The Lady of Shallot a favorite poem of mine.

The Royal Wedding

 I wonder how many titles of the same name have gone about lately!....
Who else watched the royal wedding live until after midnight on Friday 29th? It was the most beautiful wedding! I love the royal family and our darling Queenie so it was a must see for me, even got my teenage brother to see most of it! I loved her dress, couldn't have imagined better, just the kind I would wear for my wedding!

 

This is a beautiful photo of the Duchess of Cambridge . That's going to be a very famous photo.

More about the wedding here:

The Royal Wedding of Prince William...

My April

   I apologise, but cannot be forgiven for not having posted for so long.
This last month has been a whirl of activity, first was Nan's ( Grandma's) 80th birthday weekend our whole family went down to Lake Toupo for the weekend in a house right by the lake with a beautiful view of the mountains. We climbed them on one of the days and there was even a sprinkling of early snow on the lower slopes.

 

   The view from the house where all 16 of us stayed. (Mt. Ruapehu)

Lake Toupo is so beautiful, especially in autumn

Mt. Ngauruhoe, from a ski field in summer, on Mt.Ruapehu

Where we stayed the edges of the cold lake were hot and in the mornings steam came off the edges.

It was very fun spending time with family, I could go on and on but it feels so long ago, like history now. 

The next weekend after that I stayed at my friends house for her sixteenth birthday party. Everyone dressed up and I went as Jane Austen. :) (sorry don't have any photos yet)

But what I've mostly been doing is being away for over a week at Easter Camp, I only got back last Friday, the 29th. It was a christian youth camp and quite an experience, never having been to school, being surrounded by 430 teenagers for four days took a bit of getting used to! It was an amazing experience. 

Then as soon as I got back I had to start painting as I was supposed to get a painting done for my cousins birthday. 'twill be done in the nick of time!

I am sitting with mum's laptop in the lounge, mum is sitting opposite texting ( she dose that more than me now, and is even learning to use her thumb!) my cat Pansy is crying and cuddling up to me, she is sad because her kittens went to the pet shop. Nathaniel and I started our old clock which was my grandfathers, it can chime Big Ben every hour but we set it so it only chimes the hour every hour. It looks something like this.