Under a sign named Sanders: Various Thoughtful spots

We all have special, "Thoughtful Spots," like Pooh, where we like to go...and...sit....and...think....and humm...and tiddley..  Thoughtful gardeners provide such refuges amongst their "bits of earth." As my friend, Margaret, from Envie Recipes was departing for the Midwest, I asked her to record all the "spots" she found during her garden tour. She is a wonderful photographer, a spectacular cook, not to mention--friend. So, she went on a bench stalk, instead of a heffalump hunt. Follow her footsteps through her expedition and on her blog, as well! 

If I was a little girl again, I would make a fort here. I would invite my girl friends in, and kick my 4 little brothers out! After various entreaties, I would make a grand show of letting them in, but they would have to do Everything I asked, for the rest of the day and let me watch whatever I wanted on T.V.!   This bench by John Makepeace, is a magic circle at the edge of a wonderful allee. It takes me back in time, as I regress and digress...maybe, if we sat there on the Solstice....

Following Margaret...Who is not a Wozzle or a heffalump!!

Going even farther back in time.

“Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.” 

A. A. Milne

This sacred niche in Margaret's hunt, is far away from our mental Woozles.  A perfect spot for poetry and hums to whisper in your ear. The creation of "thoughtful spots" within and around your home is the gift of love, memories, and growth for all those who surround your family. It is not personal statement. It is more of a series of fall-our shelters and chapels.

Margaret is a moody cook--she cooks what captures her mood. Another book has tumbled out of her moody, photo essay. She has found the rusty key, and unlocked the vast forest of English literary imagination,  beyond the 100 Acre Wood--"The Secret Garden." Here is where Mary and Dickon rescue the occupants of Misselthwaite Manor.

"To speak robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman"

Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden)

Perusing our English imaginary landscapes and shores. Margaret has taken us down this garden path, where Elizabeth Bennet tells Mr. Darcy: 

"No! No. You may only call me "Mrs. Darcy"... when you are completely, and perfectly, and incandescently happy."

-Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

Following moody Margaret, we've discovered a willow, wattle bench, perfect for the moody Badger.

"Badger hates Society, and invitations, and dinner, and all that sort of thing."

- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Ch. 3

A little hidey hole bench behind a fence is perfect for craving solitude. 

“Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.”

-Winnie the Pooh (A. A. Milne)

Milne's rediscovery of childhood, through his son, joyfully reminded him of the imaginary, thoughtful and thoughtless world. 

"Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”

-A. A. Milne

Margaret brings us back to the magic circle. We can always arrive where we began.