This is a blog that I’ve been going to write since the new year, the year is a bit older than I had intended but hey ho. Of course the subject has changed as well because I like to make blogs relevant to what I’ve been doing on volunteering days and on Tuesday I was, once again, involved with fairies.
We’d heard on the fairy grapevine that the rain had got to some of their houses and fearing fairy magic reprisals we thought we had better do something about it. A friend of the Garden has made some new houses for the Fairy Wood and all we needed was a sort of Fairy Godmother to get it sorted. Well they are in short supply so we had to make do with a Fairy Grandmother and her trusty assistant to get the job done.
We collected the houses from the Science Centre (we had to use the car because even fairy houses are heavy) and took them over to the Fairy Wood.
We had just started locating them when along came a group of dear little elves (in the form of children obviously) and they offered to help us.
Well, of course, they know more about where fairy houses need to be so we were very pleased to let them help. They had some good ideas too, like putting three houses together so that the fairies could have parties! One of the boys (obviously a more sensitive soul) felt that maybe fairies sometimes need their own space so he placed his house behind a tree. We did put some of the larger buildings – like the hotel – a little bit further away from the village so that disturbance from any carousing would be kept to a minimum. There are some more bits and pieces that need to be added all in good time but I’m on the case. Thanks to the children and their Mums, sorry I mean elves and senior elves, for their help, we hope they will keep an eye on things on future visits.
When not in the Fairy Wood I did manage a walk in the Garden this week when I went down to take some donated books to the second-hand bookshop (well worth a visit). There are signs of spring everywhere and, although I think the Garden looks lovely at any time, it is beginning to look beautiful once again after the ravages of our awful winter. The Great Glasshouse comes into its own in April and May so don’t miss a chance to go in a have a look at some of the flowers that we just don’t see in this country. We were in the Canary Islands a couple of weeks ago and saw plants growing wild there that are cwtshed in the shelter of the GGH. It’s good to know that there’s magic in the National Botanic Garden that isn’t confined to the Fairy Wood.
Pam Murden
04/04/18