We were given a lovely bunch of Sunflowers on Sunday and they are still gorgeous though dropping their bright yellow pollen.

We have a family of Magpies in the garden but they are very skittish and I cannot get a photo of them all together. I’ll keep trying! There are six altogether, two parents and four very demanding youngsters. Six is good as the old nursery rhyme tells us:

One for Sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret never to be told
Eight for a wish
Nine for a kiss
Ten a surprise you should be careful not to miss
Eleven for health
Twelve for wealth
Thirteen beware it’s the devil himself.

A good friend sent me the following poem a couple of days ago. It is a gentle evocation of a beautiful place, written by Edwin Waugh in 1864.

‘Tis sweet in pleasant Silverdale,
All in the blossom-tide,
To watch the hardy fishers sail
O’er the blue waters glide.

There, changeful ocean’s
Murmuring waves
Sing in the smiling lea;
A paradise upon the land,
And wonders in the sea.

Edwin Waugh (1864)

I looked him up as his work is new to me and found the following on Wikipedia. There is more to be found here.

“The son of a shoemaker, Waugh was born in Rochdale, Lancashire, England and, after some schooling, was apprenticed to a printer, Thomas Holden, at the age of 12. While still a young man he worked as a journeyman printer, travelling all over Britain, but eventually returned to his old job in Rochdale.^[1]

Waugh read eagerly, and in 1847 became assistant secretary to the Lancashire Public School Association and went to work in Manchester. By 1860 he was able to become a full-time writer; but in 1881 he was in poor health and was granted a Civil List pension of £90 p.a.”