happy christmas

Happy Winter Solstice!

Such a wonderful feeling knowing that the light is returning, even though we won’t really notice it for a little while, it does feel good knowing that it is happening.

I took the above photo in my garden this morning and if you look closely you can see buds on my cherry tree….happy days!

I have some snowdrops in bloom too!

And despite it being December there are still some vivid colours in my garden.

However even though I’m out in my garden looking for signs of spring, I’m not completely ignoring Christmas!!

I’ve been painting tins again and made this one to hold some holly.

The Peppermint Bark has been made.

The Christmas tree(s) have been decorated.

Candles and fires have been lit……….

……..and we’ve cosied up to enjoy the season.

My son comes home from Berlin tonight for a week and as my daughter and son-in-law don’t live too far away, I’ll have all my family around me for Christmas.

All that remains now is to thank all you lovely friends for continuing to visit me here throughout the year and to wish you all a very, very Happy Christmas!!! xxx

 

september

Hello all, its been a while, hasn’t it!

To celebrate our birthdays and wedding anniversary we took ourselves off to the French Riviera for a week and very lovely it was too.

As always we had a wonderful time in this amazing part of the world!

Meanwhile during the month my garden has continued to bloom!

Nice to still have lots of colour in the garden and thankfully still plenty of sunshine to enjoy it too!

So as another month comes to an end it’s time for a round up of this month’s animals.

The first ‘September Girl’ is Hortensia.

Hortensia is another name for hydrangea and this little bunny is a celebration of those beautfiul blooms.

If you’re born during the month of September, like me, your birthstone is the sapphire and this little one with all her deep blues is of course Sapphire!

The crossover time between summer and autumn is the time of year for chrysanthemums and Xanthe’s dress is covered in them!

Her name comes from ancient Greek and means ‘golden one’, which of course she is.

This is Orchard!

It’s definitely an apple time of year and Orchard has a little tree fastening her cardie and lots of red apples all over her dress.

Maizie is a little harvest mouse and her dress is a little harvest festival all on it’s own.

And last but by no means least this is Ffion, my first Green Rabbit fox.

Her name is Welsh and means ‘foxglove’.

All six of the ‘September Girls’ will be listed in my Etsy shop on Wednesday 30th September at 10pm (BST).

More details about them can be found here, please remember they are collectible items only and not suitable for children under 14 years.

So that’s another month done and dusted, enjoy what’s left of September and have a lovely October, it’s definitely autumn now according to the Green Rabbit Calendar! 🙂

 

july days

As mentioned in my last post during July my Hb and I have had some lovely days out visiting gardens, parks, castles and the seaside.

The weather didn’t always behave itself but in this country if you waited for the sun to always shine, well quite frankly you wouldn’t get very far.

So these are just a few photos of some of our days out.

The above photo is the lovely lavender lined paths in the gardens at Clotworthy House at Antrim Castle Gardens.

Antrim Castle gardens are always well worth a visit.

Another place well worth the visit is the walled garden at Bangor Castle, it is particularly well cared for with many flowers, shrubs, vegetables and herbs.

These amazing sunflowers (my favourite flowers) were at the entrance to Ward Park, Banger, Co Down, for a moment I actually could have believed I was back in France, the sun was even shining that day!!

Somewhere else we always love to visit at this time of year is Sir Thomas & Lady Dixon Park in Belfast for ‘Rose Week’.

The roses are stunning!!

Just a shame I can’t share the scent.

Of course no summer would be complete without a visit to the seaside (cue the not-so-sunny skies again).

The seaside photos were all taken at Groomsport, Co Down.

It wasn’t a day for playing in the sand and making sand castles but we did enjoy a lovely walk!

Speaking of sand, I’d like you to meet my new little bunny….her name is Sandy and she’s a beachy kind of girl!

Thank you to those of you who took the time to comment on my last post.

Just as I was about to publish it I realised it was my 500th post, so I had a little secret giveaway of all you lovelies who left a comment on that post and the number chosen was 13, who was Helen, so a little pack of goodies are on their way to you Helen.

Again thank you to all of you who so faithfully visit and leave me a comment, I really do appreciate them all.

Wishing you all a happy new week! 🙂

 

castle ward

This past week and a half we have had a few trips out and about as my HB has been on holidays from work.

We usually have our little holiday at home at this time of year and usually the weather behaves itself unfortunately this time it was a mixed bag of sunshine and showers but we were determined to still get out and about.

On one of the more showery days we headed to the National Trust property of Castle Ward on the shores of Strangford Lough.

Castle Ward has been the home of the Ward family since around 1570 and the most interesting thing about the building is its dual architecture, reflecting the differing tastes of Lord Bangor and his wife, Lady Ann Bligh.

The entrance side of the building is built in a classical Palladian style favoured by the Lord (above photo) and the opposite side of the building is Georgian Gothic which was the preference of the Lady of House (photo below). These differences weren’t just confined to the outside of the building either as they continued throughout the interior with the house being effectively divided down the centre with two very different styles.

If you are a fan of Game of Thrones, Castle Ward is used in the filming of the series, more information about the property can be found here and here.

The view from the house overlooking Strangford Lough, in the rain, I might add!!!

Castle Ward has beautiful grounds and gardens too.

One of the things I really enjoyed in the grounds was the beautiful wild flower meadow!

With so many buttercups!!

I suppose this is as good a time as any to introduce you to…………..

Buttercup!!

I actually had a real little bunny called Buttercup, she was a tiny little black Netherland Dwarf with a huge personally, I don’t know why it has taken me so long to make a Green Rabbit Buttercup!

Thank you so much for visiting and thanks also for your comments on my last post, so glad you liked Oceana!

Enjoy the rest of the week! 🙂

P.S. I’ve just realised this is my 500th post!!!

 

tall ships

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

from Sea Fever by John Masefield

Belfast had a visit from the magnificent Tall Ships this past weekend!

These wonderful vessels were enjoyed by thousands of visitors under both cloudy and blue skies.

It really was brilliant having them visit.

So, inspired by these fantastic ships I’ve made a little nautical girl……

I’d like you all to meet Oceana, who is my 200th bunny!

She even has a little “star to steer her by” in her ear! 🙂

Enjoy the rest of your week and thanks as always for dropping by!

 

riviera sunshine

As promised in my last post I’m here to share some photos of my wonderful French holiday, be warned though there are quite a few, you maybe need to fetch yourself a cup of tea!! Apologies too, to those of you who follow me on Instagram, as you may have seen some of these before!

So let’s start off with the beautiful Antibes marina!

I think this is my favourite of all my holiday photos, I love the evening sunshine through the poppies. It was taken on the Place de Gaulle, Antibes.

No trip to the south of France would be complete without a visit to Cannes especially when the film festival is on! I actually managed to put my foot on the bottom of the red carpet as I passed by, nice to be able to say I was on the red carpet at Cannes, even though it was with Crocs on and not Jimmy Choo’s!! 😉

The Place de Massena, Nice, busy with pedestrians, cyclists and where you have to watch out for trams!!

Early evening sunshine over the Promenade des Anglais, Nice, a view I could never tire of!!!

Grasse, the home of the perfume industry, pretty provencal flower gardens and where there is a constant scent of perfume in the air!

Juan les Pins is a very busy place on a Sunday afternoon and it’s not the smell of perfume here but the strong scent of sun tan lotion!!

This is the breathtaking coastal walk at Cap D’ail, full of stunning views…..

…..amazing houses

…..beautiful beaches

….. and pretty flora

…..and where we walked

…..and walked

…..until we reached here, the border between France and Monaco!

We walked around another corner to arrive at Monaco’s Heliport…..

…..where the rich and famous were arriving by helicopter from Nice airport, most likely for the Grand Prix!

The walk back again in the late afternoon sunshine was pretty amazing too!

It was market day when we visited the pretty little village of Biot!

This pretty little walled hilltop village is St Paul de Vence, one of my favourite places on the Côte d’Azur.

It’s quaint narrow streets are full of pretty little shops and art galleries.

And with this view from St Paul de Vence towards the Mediterranean Sea I’ll bring my wonderful holiday on the Côte d’Azur to a close!

If you managed to get this far with me well done, there were a lot of photos!!

It’s not the end of them either (sorry), during June my bunnies are going to be south of France inspired, so there will be a few more images along the way.

Although my June Girls won’t necessarily look French they will have been inspired by the sights, scents and tastes of the Riviera.

And speaking of June, have a lovely one, with fingers crossed for a lot more sunshine and heat!! 🙂

 

eastertime

In my last post I hoped for better weather, well my wish came true, we really couldn’t have had better weather for Easter and with my Hb off for the week we made the most of our days.

After a lovely lunch out on Easter Sunday we headed to Hillborough Forest park for a walk, where nature was beginning to wake up.

We took a walk around the historic village of Hillsborough too, this is the Queen’s official residence in Northern Ireland.

Divis Mountain, the highest peak in the Belfast Hills was our destination on another day out.

And as you can see we made to the summit (that makes it sound like Everest!), not too hard really and the thought of the flask of tea and the chocolate Easter egg in my Hb’s backpack to enjoy at the top, spurred us me on!!

The views of Belfast city from the top of Divis are pretty amazing!

If you’ve ever flown into Belfast International Airport you will flown round behind this mountain and if you’ve never flown into Belfast International, then why not???? Come and visit us, it’s lovely here and we’re very friendly! 🙂

On another daytrip we drove through Carrickfergus on our way to Whitehead, Carrickfergus has a brilliant Norman castle.

Belfast Lough looked almost Mediterranean on that day!!

In Whitehead they like to paint their houses pretty colours, some bright and ………………

……………….some pastel.

This is Portmore Nature Reserve which is run by the RSPB, it was on the BBC’s Countryfile programme a few weeks back where they featured Irish Hares which are flourishing there. We thought we would pay them a visit in the hope of seeing some. Sadly not, the hares live beyond the lapwings breeding area and no one was getting anywhere near that at this time of year and rightly so, I would have liked to have seen the hares though.

On the way back from Portmore we drove around the shore of Lough Neagh, the grasses were very pretty in the sunshine.

The gorgeous weather has meant some garden time too which has been great.

There have even been opportunities for some stash enhancement over the past week too because you know how it is, I have very little yarn! 😉

And of course I have made time for some bunny making as well, with a start made on the April Girls.

All in all it has been a lovely Easter with temperatures reaching 20 degrees C on most days, my favourite time of year was certainly everything I hoped it would be.

 

easter days

I am enjoying these days leading up to Easter, as a chocoholic bunny lover it is my very favourite time of year!

I’ve been doing a bit of Easter decorating and my garden is putting on it’s Easter show.

Some nice weather would be good though, March is definitely going out like a lion!

Thank you to everyone who joined in with my 6 year blogiversary giveaway to win Dora.

So many lovely messages, thank you!

After allocating everyone who wanted to join in with a number I employed the random number generator and the winner chosen was ………………..

………………….Anne!!! 🙂

Well done Anne! Dora will be with you very soon!

Thanks as always for visiting and for all your lovely comments.

I hope you all have a great week and a lovely start to April.

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter!

Eat lots of chocolate, it’s the law at Easter! 😉

 

spring garden

My garden is gradually coming to life again and that makes me very happy.

There are lots of little crocuses, daffodils, pansies, violas, wallflower and primula in bloom now and my tulips and bluebells are pushing their way through.

Trees and shrubs are in bud….all is good! 🙂

Crocuses are such pretty little flowers,especially when you look at them close up and as is the case with all flowers, inspiring too!

Meet Crocus enjoying some sunshine in my garden, her little dress is covered in blue and yellow crocuses.

By the way I looked up the plural of crocus just to be sure and apparently it can be either crocuses or croci, although crocuses seems quite clumsy, croci seems a bit strange, so I went with the former.

Today is actually the third anniversary of my first little rabbit, Lavender Rose (Happy Birthday Lavender Rose) and Crocus is bunny number 176.

I can’t quite believe it myself and I could never have imagined back then what that first little rabbit would lead to but I have had a lot of fun creating all those little individual characters and I still have so many more to make, so I’m not stopping anytime soon!!

Thank you so much to all of you who have given one of my bunnies a home, some of you more than one and that pleases me no end knowing that you like them so much that you come back for more!

It’s Mother’s Day here in the UK today and I would like to wish all you mothers and those who fulfil the roll of a mother a very Happy Mother’s Day, I hope you all have been completely spoiled!

I’ve been a very lucky girl with lots of lovely gifts from my HB, son, daughter and son-in-law, I thought I’d share a couple with you.

My children bought me the gorgeous sheep cushion, on one side it has a lovely woolly sheep and on the reverse, balls of wool and knitting needles, I love it.

I was also thrilled to receive a lovely DollyBird Art print from my husband, I have admired Eimear’s work for a while now and have been a follower of her on Facebook and Instagram. Do take a look at her work, she is very talented.

Thanks as always for popping by, happy Sunday and Happy Mother’s Day!! 🙂

 

solstice

Happy Winter Solstice!

It’s no secret how much I love and look forward to this day, probably from about the end of September, truth be told! I feel the worst is over, now I know we may have lots of poor weather to come but it’s all about the light, the light is coming back and that feels so good. Tomorrow even though we won’t even notice it will have slightly more daylight than today and that is a wonderful thought.

I had a walk around the garden this week and even in depths of December there is colour out there but more importantly there is so much hope in the form of bulbs and buds, just bring it on!!!

However I’m not so caught up in pre-spring that I’m overlooking Christmas, it is of course happening here at GRD HQ. My son is home from Berlin this evening and along with my daughter and son-in-law we’ll have a lovely festive week together as a family.

I’d like to thank you all for visiting me here this year, it is always lovely to have you stop by and leave your wonderful comments, which are always appreciated.

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas with those you love!

See you all in pre-spring! 🙂