September 15th

Welcome to my new Followers - Ruth, Shane (got here at last!),
Jennifer and Gleise......!
I've had a lovely time to-day adding two more Giveaways to my
sidebar - Anna who is celebrating 300+ Followers and Vicky of
Lovejoy Bears who is celebrating opening her Etsy Shop. 

Shane, I notice you haven't yet been to visit Anna's blog.  With
your expertise on Libraries and her skill with books, I think you
would enjoy it.

Ruth, I got your email and your post and will follow it up soon.
Meanwhile I hope your preparations for moving go smoothly.

At a risk of losing my fairly few Followers, I'm going to pop in
another couple of 'Nature studies' as I'm still not being
particularly productive except with the camera. Certainly not
mini-wise.

The very beautiful Red Admiral butterflies have been quite

successful this year but the Buddleia is nearly finished now so

I've started putting out rotting fruit - apples, pears, plums which

the butterflies seem to be enjoying.

The Large Red Damselfly which introduced itself to me last week

has become a regular visitor and is still very tame so I'm including

photos of her as well.  She's not the only one around - I've had

three on the table all at once, but the other two leave as soon as

I go near.  My 'tame' one is exactly the opposite. I held my hand

out as she was flying around above me and she landed on the

back of my hand! Unfortunately no one around to record this!




September - Gorgeous so far!

September started very nicely for me - I'm a keen lover of all the
forms of life which visit my garden and I had a treat earlier this week
when I spotted an unusual butterfly on our Buddleia.  Before going out
to investigate I had a look through the binoculars and couldn't believe
my eyes!  It was a Camberwell Beauty!  We have lived in Lincolnshire
for 24 years and this was the first one we have ever seen in our garden.
Its a rare and infrequent visitor to the East Coast of England (we live
not too far away from the Wash) and although we used to get many,
many varieties of butterflies, in the last three years or so  we have 
noticed that we see only a fraction of those who used to be regulars.
This year in particular started off very badly and when it came to the
Weekend Butterfly Count, I would have had to say - 'no sightings at
all'! However, after having carefully checked with the binoculars in
case I disturbed it, I grabbed my camera and proceeded very
carefully towards the Buddleia.  I need not have worried. Luckily this
is one of the less nervous species!  It just carried on feeding! 
I took some shots but then it very co-operatively moved down to a
branch just on my eye level and I had a field day!  It posed for me at
every possible angle!  Here are the results!    And to 'ice the cake' so
to speak, it stayed all day on that one large bush often accompanied
by Red Admirals, Peacocks and a couple of Small Tortoiseshells. 
When I enlarged the photos I even found one which had a Silver Y
sharing the flower but unfortunately he was out of focus!

 

Also, as promised I want to include a photo of the Bird Cage similar to the one which Jazzi filled so beautifully with 'An Afternoon Tea Party'.  I am going to include one of  Jazzi's photos too, hopefully with a link to her post!

My Bird Cage - Height is 17" and diameter 10"

It is made of cast iron and I think the mesh part is steel.

 

Jazzi's Afternoon Tea Party

Back at last.........

Well after several attempts at getting back into the habit of adding

to my blog, without any success, I'm going to have another go now!

Cant believe I could have forgotten everything  I  had learned two months ago! I'm going to have to get this attempt right first time

because all my other attempts went completely wrong when I went

to 'Preview' before publishing the Post! When I tried to go back to Compose my whole Post completely disappeared!

What I'm aiming to try to do is add another page to my blog - calling it 'SWAPS' on which I can put photos of any swaps I get involved in. I got the idea from seeing Drora's photos of her Christmas in July Swap which is how I got involved with blogging in the first place. Jazzi's great idea appealed to me - she mentioned it on Minis4all - but I needed a blog, and a whole lot of help from her to set up my blog before I could get involved. And my goodness what an impact this has had on my 'Miniature' world! 

The adventures of Mini Jazzi on her World  Trip are  now keeping me on the edge of my seat every day! And how widespread her 'fame' has become is really quite amazing. Have just been reading about her Invitation to a London  Fashion Weekend - an actual Full Size Fashion show, not a Dollshouse version!   And  that comes after she has been sailing on the Aegean Sea and getting involved with Greek Dancing which may end up in the Guinness Book of Records!
I will now try to publish this - but I might just highlight-and-paste to a Word document in case it also disappears!
   
And just to see how much I've managed to remember....(?)....here
is the photo I tried to put in to enrol in Jazzi's Monday Mini Link Party!
I managed to mis-crop it - showing only the bottom of the skirt!
(I made the Chatelaine but not the Doll!)

Hi folks
Just a short post to explain my absence from my blog - I have been having some problems and cannot use my left hand. Awaiting results of various tests to determine what is wrong but in the meantime I haven't been able to do anything with it - so definately no mini-ing and worse still no driving! I have now been spirited away to stay at my daughter's for a few days for my Birthday. I will be taken back on Thursday.  Unfortunately I didn't get time to make sure I had all my contact email addresses with me, so although I've been given a small lap top to 'play' with my only way of communicating has been through my blog!  I was involved in Jazzi's Christmas in July Swap but didn't get it finished before the problem with my hand.  Hoping that my attempts to leave messages on Debbie's blog and Jazzi's too, including my apologies, will have worked! Just my luck to create such a bad impression with my new blog contacts!      Hopefully I will be back soon.........many good wishes to all. 
Annette B.

Still experimenting folks - bear with me! At the very least I hope that a visit here leaves you laughing - even if its only at all my blunders! Having succeeded in getting a working link in my side  bar for biwubaer giveaway - but still no picture, I am now going to insert a picture into this post......


This 'Giveaway' picture
from BiWuBaren
is out of date but...
I like it too much to
delete it!

 ....... till I've published I wont know if it has worked but its looking good!

Birgit, I tried the instructions you kindly sent me but I wasnt given any opportunity to add a picture?  Obviously I must master this and
I will visit Jenny's "How To" page to-day but so far this morning I've
only managed to go and leave a comment on your Giveaway....then
another visit to your Witchtower which diverted me to Nicky's blog! 
My goodness, I couldn't believe it! At this moment in time my
particular passion is Dragons, Wizards, Skeletons and Steampunk
in any combination or setting that is crazy enough.  For me exploring
Nicky's work was like letting a chocoholic loose in Thornton's!! 

But I must now come back to some sort of reality - my two cats,
after having walked across my keyboard a couple of times
(near disaster!), made determined attempts to sit on my lap, they 
are now in the process of tying up spotted hankies on sticks and are
pulling on their walking boots - they are still waiting to be fed!! 
Be back later!

It seems that all I've written just lately has been 'thank you's' to visitors! Promises to keep adding interesting things haven't been kept so I better try a bit harder.  I have had a couple of days of visiting other blogs and Etsy shops and being so, so impressed and rather intimidated by the quality and standard, not only of the things people have made, but by the wonderfully professional way they have been presented.  It has been a joy doing this.  But a lot of frustration arises when I cant immediately find the right way to comment on the blog I'm visiting!  So until I've learned how to achieve that, I will just have to scuttle back to my blog and post about my visits and name names!
Yesterday I spent a long time on http://www.plushpussycat.com/ reading the lovely stories about Jennifer's characters - such great ideas. 
From there Jennifer provided a link to the wonderful world of Vicky at http://lovejoybears.blogspot.co.uk/.  That is a really special site and I'd love to ask Vicky some questions.  As she lives in the U.K. (so do I) - where is the beautiful beach she obviously visits a lot? 
To-day I've been browsing through http://biwubaer.blogspot.co.uk/. Thank you for the translation - I enjoyed all that I saw - I think I managed to leave a comment..?? I also spent ages reading about The Witchtower Crew - great fun. Got inspiration from one of your photos, near the end, of what I could do with all the tiny creatures and people I've been 'rescuing' from charity shop kids  boxes for longer than I care to remember. At last they might find a 'life' out side their carrier bags!!
But here goes - I'm now trying to include the biwubaer giveaway picture.

If it doesn't work, feel free - all you seasoned bloggers - to let me know how I can put links, with picture, into my side bar?  
Another quick question - too much writing for one post.....??  Honest answers please!

Still not sure what I'm doing!  But I have just added some photos with descriptions.  Before I do any more I'm hoping I can check and see what they look like! A Small Sample......
Then I should go and try to catch up with Jaz and Debbie......

Well in the hope that this last attempt actually succeeded -  hello fellow bloggers......? I must admit that setting this blog up has cost me quite a lot of frustrating hours on my computer.  Must be losing my ability to follow instructions!  This is all the fault of Jazzi and her Christmas in July swap which she promoted on Minis4all.  Everyone else who signed up had a blog - not me! 
But if this has worked this time - I shall be eternally grateful Jaz. 
Now all I've got to do is make use of it.........!!