Cowslips

This photo of some cowslips slipped through the net yesterday when I was uploading. I think of them as a wildflower, and always love seeing them growing in grass verges . When I was little I loved Alison Uttley's Little Grey Rabbit books, and she wrote about making cowslip balls. I've never seen enough in one place for that! I know they make good wine too, but again I've never seen enough for that. In Grey Rabbit's May Day, Fuzzypeg the little hedgehog makes cowslip balls for their May Day celebration, which was an English tradition.

My little Fuzzypeg here is in need of some serious refurbishment. I was in hospital for my 5th birthday, having my tonsils out. While in hospital I got a lovely present from my dad of a "Rainbow Box", which was a clear perspex cube maybe about 5 or 6 inches along each side. Inside it were three sheets of coloured perspex, cyan, magenta and yellow, which were interlocked and overlapped. So depending on which angle you looked at it from, you got different colours. I kept that till it was too scratched to be worth keeping. When I got home from hospital, Fuzzypeg in his little pull-along carriage made from three-quarters of a coconut shell was behind the sofa, with the cord stretched out so that I could see it. I bought a lot of books myself with Christmas money and so on, but the one in the picture must have come from my Dad's family, because it's dated 1932, and he had to make a new cover for it for me as the old one was falling to bits.