Old Hobbits Die Hard.

Wormwood the magician, you remember him? He went off to live with Ashleigh in North Wales.

Now North Wales is land of mystery and mountain of secret and hidden valleys and of the ancient Druid island of Anglesea. Just the right place for a real magical wizard like Wormwood to live.

Photo Flickr

And where exactly do you think a wizard should live? Deep in a damp cave..."Pah no" says Wormwood, he doesn't like the cold and damp.

In the Forest with the Elves and Goblins?
" No indeed" says Wormwood, " I get hayfever....all those plants would have me sneezing all day."

 High up in the trees with the Fairies?
Ah no...fairies can fly and Wormwood can't. He gets vertigo just thinking about trees.

Alright then, down in the meadow with the cows and sheep.
" Ugh...they smell you know".

Oh well, he'll just have to live in a special little house.

One that has comfy furniture and a nice warm bed. One with smart wallpaper and fluffy rugs. Not at ALL what I thought a real Wizard like Wormwood would be after. No dearie me.

And we all thought that Mandrake was a softy?

Night night Wormwood. Sleep Tight.

You know,  it was never this way in the Hobbit. Magic isn't what it used to be. <sigh>.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
Thanks to Ashleigh Carter for her super photos!

Periwinkle's Problem.

Some mice like to hibernate, that is sleep the cold months of Winter away. Some are out and about all the time. And some do a bit of both, they snooze then they wake and scurry about for a while, only to fall asleep again.

The Medlar House mice are no exception. Some sleep and some stay awake.

The little Dormice sleep from the first frosts in perhaps October, to the warmer days of April. They are rather fat when they lay down their heads for their Winter sleep as they have been eating and eating to build up reserves which will keep them going when it's very cold. When they wake up, they are quite thin, and need to eat again quickly.

Ditsy the Dormouse is round like a little ball.

Imagine going to bed at night when your clothes are a bit tight and waking up in the morning to find that your pyjama bottoms fall down round your ankles because you have lost so much weight.

THAT is what happened to poor dainty the Dormouse. None of her clothes fit her any more and it's too cold to go without them!

Poor little Dainty with no clothes....just a collar.

One little mouse that stays awake some of the time, is Periwinkle.
She is a little blue Harvest mouse who should really hibernate all the time but she gets fed up of sleeping. Let everyone else do that...she wants to explore.

So it was one bright day, off she went into the garden to see what she could see.
It was very, very cold and frosty.

The Medlar Tree and the Curly Hazel tree were beautiful and looked as if they had been painted with white glitter.
But it was very, shivery in your Summer dress. You see, when Periwinkle had gone to sleep, in October, the weather had been very mild. She hadn't bothered to change her dress. Brrrr.

Now it was March and the winds were blowing, the ice was still on the water butts and the ground was frozen hard.
"But I thought it would be nearly Spring" said Periwinkle to herself.

" Oh no, " said a voice behind her. " It's not Spring yet".

It was the little white mouse Wensleydale, who had come on a visit from the Town. He had once lived in a cage in someone's house, where it was warm all the time and where food and water was given to him without him asking for it. He never hibernated.

He was however, a very clever mouse and even though it was easier to live in a cage and be looked after, he had escaped and had come out into the big world to see what it was all about.

" The weather forecasting men said that it was going to be a late Spring and that this nasty weather was going to last and last" he said.

Periwinkle, was amazed. How did he know? Did he know by the whispering in his whiskers and the curling of his tail what the weather was going to do?

Of course he had to explain to her that he had seen it on something called the 'television' which the people who had put him in the cage, had got in their house. This box in the corner of the room, had little people in it who scurried around doing things and who told the humans what was happening and what the weather was doing.
" Pah! " shivered Periwinkle " I don't believe you!"
Well it IS rather hard to believe isn't it?

Wensleydale is a gallant mouse, he has been watching a lot of Costume Dramas on this thing called a television and so he pulled off his nice blue jacket and wrapped it around Periwinkle. That was the gentlemanly thing to do, he knew, when a ladymouse was cold.

Periwinkle was immediately charmed and smiled shyly.

" You can keep it if you like " said Wensleydale. " I have lots of others in different colours."
And because Wensleydale was a rather romantic kind of mouse, he said " It goes with your pretty blue fur."

Periwinkle didn't like to tell him she was probably going even more of a blue colour because she was freezing!

Wensleydale rummaged in the pocket of his and now Periwinkles, jacket. He brought out a piece of white fur.
" Wait there he said"
He scampered off.
Periwinkle waited and shivered and shivered and waited until,
" There!" said Wensleydale. The piece of white fur had been strung onto a bit of garden twine. He popped it over Periwinkle's head.
" That", he said " is what the people call a Muff. For putting your paws into to keep them warm."
"Did you see that on the tel-e visi-on?" asked Periwinkle smiling.
" No" answered Wensleydale " I read it in a book! "
What a clever mouse.
And I bet you can't guess what the piece of white fur was?

Do you remember when Wensleydale caught the next door's cat's tail in the mousetrap...?
Hmmmm. ( Read here )
It is a white cat.
So,
Off they both tripped back into the roots of the Medlar Tree.
And Periwinkle acquired a nice new blue jacket, warm toasty paws,....  and a boyfriend.

Tea for....four?

Things are moving here at Medlar House.
Small green things are pushing their way, at last, from the frozen soil. The hyacinths which should have been out and smelling divine for quite some time now, are only just showing colour.
Plenty of the mice are showing colour though.

You know why Medlar House Mice are pretty pastel colours don’t you? They eat a strange diet of Medlar fruits from the stately Medlar Tree, catkins from a Purple Hazel, leaves from a Silver Pear and Hazelnuts from a curly Hazel tree and it’s these which turns them blue and pink and green. All these unusual and pretty trees grow in the garden and so the mice are lucky little creatures.

Now they are clever mice too. They turn these raw materials into lovely food for themselves. They make cakes from the Medlars, sandwiches with the Silver Pear leaves and they boil the catkins to make Purple Tea, into which they dunk, Hazelnut biscuits.

There is a party going on at the moment, under the roots of the Medlar Tree. A tea party. Papillon knows that the best tea is brewed in the little brown teapot. Peacock is the one who dispenses the milk and Cowslip has been busy with her version of the French Fancy made from Sweet Medlars. It just needs Marshmallow to help eat them. Oh yes, she will help. She has such a sweet tooth.
“ Diet? What diet...”, she is asking.

Each of these mice can be bought from Medlar House Mice for £12.50 plus postage. E mail me at sue@pastmastery.com or message me on Facebook. I can make mice to your specifications too. Ask me to quote.

Oh I Do Like t' be Beside the Seaside!

The sun has come out and for a moment, it's deceptively warm in the Medlar House Garden. Stephen has found a leak in the pond.
He has spent quite a time mending it and tells me that one of the mice has chewed through a pipe.

Now come on...which one of you did it?
Own up now....your pocket money will be docked.
No one is owning up.

Oh dear.
As the weather warms up ( we hope ) the mice will be out and about scampering over the rockery and flitting on and off the bird tables. The sunshine has made some of us, I'm sure, think of Summer holidays and warm days by the sea,

One mouse who never stops thinking about the sea...is Peregrine. He LOVES the sea and has many salty takes to tell about his adventures on the High Sea as a Pirate.

He is retired now. A retired pirate. But he still longs for the sea and a ship of his own and a chest full of gold and a target at which to shoot his, very beautiful, flintlock pistol. He keeps it primed and stuck in his belt just in case there are any cats about.

He was a great mouse for burying his treasure but not remembering to make a map and so he can't find many of the chests of gold nowadays, even if he were to be able to travel to the desert islands he visited before he lost a leg.

Ah yes...his leg. He was, he tells me, abseiling down an ivy stem when he lost his hold and fell into a stream. Before you could say, Shiver Me Timbers, a Stickleback fish bit off his lower right leg. A serious Pirate wouldn't let that stop them so his friends made him a wooden leg. The only thing they could find on this desert island was an old peg. So they whittled it down and attached it to a button and hey presto... Peregrine became Peg!
You can see him here in all his Piratical elegance. He still likes to cut a dash. Even if he can't dash nowadays. He has a machete for slashing through the jungle of roots and of course his lovely pistol. He wears a starfish on his hat just to remind him of the sea and of course his faithful 'parrot' Pipsqueak,is to be found on his shoulder. No chests of gold though.

Anyway, Peg the Pirate is quite content really nowadays, just to collect chocolate coins.

Did I tell you mice really like chocolate?

April's Fool.

It's now April. Yes it is. I know, I know, it doesn't feel like April.

High and cold winds buffet us, snow flurries continue to plague us and frosts at night are the bane of early morning car windscreen scrapers everywhere.

It's cold in the Medlar House Garden too. The Amelanchier ( a pretty little bush which has soft pinky white flowers,) is doing its best to flower but though it should be out in a couple of weeks it's only at the bud stage now. Very small buds.

Will it ever look like this again?

The Primulas are keeping low to the ground and the flowers are tiny.

Don't even ask about my Auriculas. It breaks my heart to say the prolonged cold has killed off a lot of them.

Down in the roots of the Medlar Tree all is quiet. You can hear the odd snore and snuffle.
Up in the branches of the Medlar Tree, the House Sparrows are having a chirping time. They seem impervious to the bad weather, these bouncy little birds. "Wake up... wake up, " they seem to be saying. But all the Medlar House Mice sleep on.

Did I say...all.?

No, one little mouse has been woken by the lovely rays of sunshine we have had today. She stretches and yawns. It's Dainty the little white Dormouse. Dainty has a long furry tail unlike her cousins the other mice whose tails are thinner. Her whiskers are long too, her eyes are large, black and beady and her ears small like her cousin, the Harvest Mice.
Go back to sleep Dainty. It's too cold to be up and about. I know that you are supposed to wake up in April and start foraging for food but really, it isn't nice out here.

Take a leaf out of your brother, Ditsy's book.

Keep snoring.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!