Wildlife pond in garden.

  Wildlife Pond

A year and four months ago my daughter decided she wanted a pond (with frogs and newts of course) for her Christmas present.  Now I have to admit although I am normally saying haven't you got enough playmobil / cuddly toys etc, I was thinking "that sounds like a lot of hard work".  Oh how  wrong I was.  This was easy compared to dog/ cat/ piles of toys clogging up house, and it can be left at the weekends without need for expensive kennels...

Online I discovered that you either pay for a butyl liner or you have to keep re making your pond.  I quickly found a supplier of butyl liners http://www.butylproducts.co.uk  This website allows you to calculate the amount of liner you need and you can buy the underliner and we put in the same  felty stuff inside too and it has been a bonus for wildlife as it creates warmer pockets around the edge.

I ordered a metre cube of sand from Ridgeons and  her grandmothers, overjoyed for something that was not plastic nor computer based paid for the lot (less than £200 in total).

Boxing day  was spent working off the Christmas lunch digging and shifting the sand that had been helpfully left about 20 metres from the pond.  Still it meant everyone in extended family kept busy all day not just valiant one in the bottom of pond.  By the end of the day we were filling it up with water.  By the start February 2012 we were beginning to put in plants given to us by friends and family, but the algae were taking an upper hand and the surrounding black was prominent.  Unhelpful comments from husband were heard like "why do you let her do things like this" etc.

Granny and various pond owning friends of hers to the rescue: tadpoles galore!  they gobbled up all the algae and the warmth meant our oxygenating plants took off and a combination of all of this created a crystal clear pond.  Even the irises I had planted flowered in their first year. (yes they did cost something but I painted them and sold the painting so...)

Skip forward to April 2013

The work has been minimal, additional expenditure 0 (yes compare that to dog or cat)

, but the excitement this year has been unstoppable:

First a smooth male newt was spotted:

Then the king cups came out:

Damselfly nymph - an amazing creature with three tail like gills

 Pond dipping from dawn to dusk

We have our very own disabled frog named HOP

 Frog spawn and more and more.  This year we have been able to give away frog spawn.

 Water boatmen

 Then there were three.. the male newt has two females

 A frog by the kingcups

And loads and loads more but NO FISH! apparently they don't work in small wildlife ponds.

And if you are wondering where all this info came from- the Oxfam book shop in Saffron Walden, simply the most amazing charity book shop I have ever been to.http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/local-shops/oxfam-bookshop-saffron-walden

The Pond by Gerald Thompson and Jennifer Coldrey, but I am sure there are many other equally informative books on the subject (oh yes and there is always the internet)

Finding Strength

Finding strength

On bad days like today, even harder when yesterday was such an amazingly good day, I have to try and find the strength to go on being patient with my son, who has fragile x syndrome.  As much as my family are brilliant at the end of the day it comes back to me and only me to keep things going at times.   My mother cleverly taught me about 10 years ago that I did not need to be alone at times like this.

Granny's vase with philedelphus and briar rose

10 years ago when I was going through a particularly difficult patch with Sasha my mother gave me my Granny's engagement ring which I wear most of the time along with another ring Granny left me when she died.   My mother said it would pass to me my Grandmother's strength of character and spirit.  Not sure I quite achieve what she did but nevertheless looking at it helps.  The living may not be able to help but the dead can, as their memories are always around and available.  

I painted the philedelphus at my mother's house.  The vase is one of a pair  that came from my Granny.  This is a photo of the set up.  I changed the background afterwards, much as I love my mother's curtains the vase and flowers all muddled up seemed too much.  Looking at it today I am thinking I would like to do something simpler with that background which was so much part of my childhood.


In an exhibition I did last year at The Exchange Library in Saffron Walden I used Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge as my inspiration as I do so often use them to keep my spirits up.  This is an extract from a poem by Wordsworth about a little girl who believes in the presence of her dead siblings paints such a beautiful picture of someone who absolutely feels the presence of the departed ones.  Strangely as I started writing this my son was shouting at me and continually asking for things but as I have started reading the poem and thinking of my grandmother the calm within me has passed on without me having to say a thing to him.

We are Seven

A simple child, dear brother Jim
That lightly drawn its breath
And feels its life in every limb
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage girl:
She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.

She has a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad;
her eyes were fair, and very fair;
Her beauty made me glad.

Sisters and brothers, little maid,
How many may your be?
How many? Seven in all she said,
And wondering looked at me.

 The little girl goes on to explain where they all are and it transpires two are in the graveyard.  Wordsworth protests that means they are gone but the girls insists:

"How many are you then," said I,
"If they two are in Heaven?"
The little maiden did reply
"O master! we are seven"

"But they are dead: those two are dead!
Their spirits are in Heaven!"
T'was throwing words away for still
The little maid would have her will,
And said "nay we are seven!"



And as if by magic as I corrected the punctuation on the poem, Sasha has fed the cat and is now stroking me.