Let Sleeping Ladybirds Lie!

“Where have they all gone?” my youngest daughter asked me recently . “Who do you mean sweetheart?” I replied, absent-mindly thinking that she would mean her little dolls-house dolls, or something similar. “The ladybirds mummy!” she replied, whilst pointing towards the garden. “I haven’t seen one in ages!” Well quite! How right she is! We are now of course in the midst of November and ladybirds, along with squirrels, hedgehogs and other such gorgeous creatures are huddled and snuggled down somewhere warm, hibernating for the winter (lucky them is all I can say! I’d quite like to join them!)

I had never come across a picture of ladybirds hibernating before until this week, when I discovered the image below that is on the UK Safari website. I dip in and out of this wonderful website, along with other woodland related blogs, to gain writing inspiration for my Whimsy Wood children’s series for 5-8 year olds. I really do need to sit down and make a proper start on book 15 in my 35-book series, but my inspiration and imagination had run dry this week….. Once I’d looked through this website site a few days ago and discovered this incredible image, a new character in the form of ‘Letty Ladybird’ sprung to mind, along with the need for a spider character! I believe he may be named ‘Sidney Eight-Boots’, but I’m not completely decided on this just yet.

Ladybirds huddled in seed pods

Well, I’d better get on and actual write about ‘Letty Ladybird’ and ‘Sidney Eight-Boots’, or Whimsy Wood’s 15th book will never be created! If you’re stuck for something outdoorsy to do with the children over the next few days, then how about making a bug-hotel from piles of logs, twigs, stones and leaves. It costs nothing and is lots of fun! You even get to name your bug-hotel and the children can check on their ‘hotel guests’ regularly 😉 I’m sure insects looking for somewhere to hibernate, such as ‘Letty Ladybird’, would be delighted to come across a brand new bug-hotel to snooze the winter away in 🙂

For regular updates on my Whimsy Wood children’s series please follow us on twitter 🙂 We’ve got 3 Christmas fairs coming up in the next month, which will be lots of fun I’m sure 🙂

 https://twitter.com/WhimsyWood

Wishing you all a whimsical week, Sarah 🙂

FAN-FIREWORK-TASTIC!

Hello there! I hope you’ve had lots of fun celebrating bonfire night this week and seen some fan-fizzle-tastic fireworks, as ‘Ping Pixie’ would describe them! Incase you don’t know, ‘Ping Pixie’ is the boy pixie in my ‘Whimsy Wood’ children’s series of 35 books. He appears in book 4, ‘Posie Pixie And The Fireworks Party’, which was published by Abela Publishing in May this year. ‘Ping’ loves making fireworks and in the words of his cousin ‘Posie’, “….sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t and sometimes they set his hair on fire!” Please see below the link to book 4, ‘Posie Pixie And The Fireworks Party’.

http://abelapublishing.com/posie-pixie-and-the-fireworks-party–book-4-in-the-whimsy-wood-series_p27279864.htm

Front cover of ‘Posie Pixie And The Fireworks Party’, book 4 in my ‘Whimsy Wood’ series

After the fireworks party that ‘Posie Pixie’ held for her cousin ‘Ping’ and his enormous new ‘Pixie Wheel’ firework that he’d created, the woodland folk spent the next few days tidying up outside ‘Posie Pixie’s’ copper kettle house where they’d held the party. The firefly party lights had blown off the trees and got taffled up around a clump of giant funnel mushrooms. It took poor old ‘Mrs Spottisdowne the sparrow’ most of the morning after the party to unravel those lights! ‘Bromley Badger’ had his usual sore head after a party and had to lie down in his dark, quiet set all day, so he was absolutely no help whatsoever! ‘Florence Fox’ and ‘Raspberry Rabbit’ had gathered up all the left over party treats, shared them out and delivered them to the woodland folk the following day, so nothing was wasted.

If you haven’t already, I hope you get to nibble on a few toffee apples, munch on some hot-dogs and toast some marshmallows this weekend! In the meantime I’d better carry on tweaking book 6, ‘Posie Pixie And The Snowstorm’, but I shall wish you all a wonderfully whimsical weekend and leave you with this fabulous firework poem that I stumbled across this week 🙂

“Bang there goes another one,

Screaming as it goes.

It’s getting high, up in the sky,

And fizzle-there she blows!

WHOOSH! Up high above the house,

Behind a trail of sparks.

Yellow, orange, red and white,

Exploding in the dark!”   Anon