TINY WORLDS

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VERY SMALL WONDERS

If you go outside, walk around your garden or neighbourhood a little, and then bend down and take a closer look at things, what you will see is a whole other world of small wonders. These are of the very very small variety, but they are no less wonderful.

🍄🍄🍄

Outside my house, there are all types of lichen, growing on rocks, tree stumps, branches, and fences. There are yellow lichens, green ones, black ones, frilly ones and even a few that look like little trumpets. 

There are bees burrowing into flowers.

There are mosses too, and dew drops caught in blades of grass, and ants carrying sticks two times the size of their body. 

And this is the most ever-so-special part...

Just after it rains, and when the earth is still damp, there are small mushrooms that sprout up from the ground in all different colours! Red with polka dots, orange, and brown striped ones. They are like jewels of the earth, popping up when you least expect it, and brightening my day by reminding me of fairy houses and gnome's hats.

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“One can get just as much exaltation in losing oneself in a little thing as in a big thing. It is nice to think how one can be recklessly lost in a daisy!”

— Anne Morrow Lindbergh

MAX & MIRO

A few christmases ago, I decided to paint a picture for my grandparents of their two cats: Max and Miro.

I worked with egg tempura, filling out the undertones of their silky fur before painting in the grey bits and the whiskers.

MAX

Max is a lovely cat, quite talkative nowadays, where he used to be wary and shy. He likes to greet me on the garden path, before I ring the doorbell, and his meow is fairly loud. I say a polite hello back, of course.

Max has white socks and a white tummy, and he always gets into fights with the other cats. Although, he is a little older now, and spends more and more time lazing about in front of the heater. 

MIRO

Miro was Max's brother, a shy cat who was all fluff and fur. His tummy would get knotted from lying on the sheepskin rug in my grandmother's sewing room. His fur felt like rabbit fur.

It was a rare occurrence to see Miro, but when he did show up, he liked to be playful - chasing string and things, and taking swipes at his brother as they passed each other on the stairs.

RAIN & GUMBOOTS

It is such a cosy feeling, to be inside a warm living room while it is raining.

I find the best thing to do when it rains is make oneself a cup of tea, and curl up on the couch with a book.

When it rains in autumn, I love to go out and get the firewood, putting on a pair of gumboots over my thick wool socks, and then running through the puddles to get to the shed. The wood is stacked in a pile, and it smells nice, like pine and musty old rooms. I select a few pieces and then run back in the downpour, to find that once I get back inside my cheeks are all warm and I feel so alive. 

“Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside: candles at four o’clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without”

— Thomas De Quincey

Rain is comforting. It reminds me of classical music and greystone church buildings.