'A little piece of paradise,' she said .............

  Early spring-time in England - one minute warm enough for a picnic by the water - the next grey, cold but fast greening! As a faery, Muddypond is most at home in the wild places, amongst the bramble clumps and the tall birch trunks - but this Sunday, I woke up and could smell the flowers and hear bees on the wind.
  So I followed the breezes .......

.....  and they took me to a meadow of long grass with apple trees and hundreds of fritillarias, nodding their painted snake-marked heads like bells.

There too were the bees, busy and chattering among the daffodils, wide awake and excited by the spring whispers, and over the stream, new lambs .......

This reminded me of the fairy Coquette, when she was painted by one of my favourite artists Warwick Goble in his 'Fairy Book' - he drew her for his illustration to 'The Woodcutter's Daughter', amongst the fierce beasts which she'd made into harmless lambs. He painted this nearly one hundred years ago now - I think he would have loved it here.

  Behind a wall of mellow bricks I sat in the branch of a pink magnolia tree and breathed in the scent of a million tiny flowers below - there were two older villager ladies - harmless enough, like the lambs - and as they sat on a grey, wooden bench  to rest and take everything in, one turned to the other smiling  - 'It's a little piece of Paradise,' she said.

Outdoor pictures taken at Sissinghurst Castle Gardens, Kent