Autumn Cottage Diarist

At Last This Year - a Dragonfly!

The arch into the herb garden in the soft light of autumn

It's more by luck than skill that I have captured on camera the large Southern Hawker dragonfly that I first heard, then saw, clattering around the pots which skirt the herb garden pond this afternoon - the pond that split and drained over a year ago, which was reinstated back in the summer.

I am so very pleased with the way it has already settled down - it looks as if nothing had ever happened (in fact looks a tad more cared for than it did before), but it has been somewhat sterile up until now; while filling with water, a single dragonfly did indeed do one circuit of the pond, attracted by the sun on the water, but since then - nothing. The proliferating duckweed has helped to mellow it and then - today - the final sign that nature is  in good working order in that area; the advent of the beautiful dragonfly, which spent its time circuiting the pond edge, laying eggs into every nook and cranny it could find. I have missed them and was thrilled to see this one return.

Dragonfly larvae can apparently spend up to *seven* years developing at the bottom of the pond, but I have great hopes that sooner, rather than later, I will be able to once again sit in the arbour on a summer's afternoon and watch them climb out onto sedge grass, split their larval skin, and emerge to pump up their wings and fly away - another generation of dragonflies taking to the air.

I have a passion for all forms of Dragonflies - they entrance me, and have also been a great inspiration to artists in paint, textile and jewellery for many centuries; along with the wild creature itself, here are some examples of the beautiful items that have been created by human hands

Rene Lalique - Dragonfly brooch - 1904

Also by Lalique - the mesmerising 'Dragonfly Woman' at the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon

Lalique (again!) - Dragonfly Tiara

The exquisite embroidery of Annemieke Mein

On paper: Frog-Dragonfly-Fantastic-Bird - Jacob de Gheyn (1565-1629)

From the British Library - a page from De Bello Gallico, circa 1550

Red Dragonflies - a Homage to Monet - Reiji Hiramatsu

Now all I want to pick up my pens and needles and sketch, paint and stitch - but in the meantime, I can always resort to my camera!

 

 

There's Rosemary - That's for Remembrance...

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance… fennel, lemon balm, mint - a symbol of the pot that she always kept filled and from which she abundantly fed me… buddleia and echinacea, for the butterflies and bees, for she is their sister, at one with Nature.

My Mother was a weakly child - indeed at her birth, the second twin to emerge, she was 'covered over', given up for dead, until the midwife saw movement under the coverlet and heard the faint signs of breathing. That was just the start of a life of poverty and struggle for my beloved Welsh Mam; of much unhappiness, above which she rose with the grace of an angel. Her survival mechanism was simple: she loved everyone -  humans as best she could, animals unconditionally. A legacy that she passed on to me, though I live it very poorly in comparison to the open heart with which she engaged with Life.

2 years old, Mam on the right, her twin sister 'Floss' on the left

To be honest, I am surprised by the depth of the grief that I have felt today, on what would have been her 100th Birthday. I think I have processed it, put it all behind me, 'dealt with it' - and then - on a glorious autumn day, the sun shines, I pick flowers from the herb garden to place on her grave, and grief rises in my throat and leaks out through my eyes. Grief - the price you pay for love, never completely goes away.

Along the lane to the graveyard in Highclere Park

Alongside the graveyard - the Chapel in the Park

Entrance to the graveyard

The steep slope leading down to her interment, under the trees

I've been up to the graveyard in Highclere Park this morning, to put some flowers on her grave, but in truth, she is not really there for me. Though her mortal remains lie in the most idyllic spot, in the end it is just a stone over some ashes of bone.

Autumn sunlight on the old graves

The real truth of her being I carry with me every day - her memory is in my genes and in those of my children. My mother taught us all how to love. I need no other memorial.