Dandelions have been everywhere the last few weeks, my daily walk to the allotment passes a church yard, a park and several grass verges, non of which are being mowed due to Covid-19 restrictions.
When I see dandelions often I remember a refrain from a story I loved as a child.
"Dandelion"... come to the party
...its like a scrap of text in amongst a collage of other memories.
The story is about two field mice, having a birthday party, different flowers are thrown out in the breeze to invite all the different animal friends, dandelion is the last flower and is sent out as a kind of wild card, with no specific guest in mind, a 'Stoat' gets the invitation and turns up hoping to eat the mice for supper....que miraculous escape.
These were great story books in my memory and researching online I have found some links to them, the author was Alison Uttley, more famous for Little Grey Rabbit books, but I remember these two mice Snug & Serena and the Little Red Fox stories. 
I just find it interesting this line runs through my head, an invitation to summer and wild possibilities.
I found a recording of one of the other stories, a nice link with anyone with small children, not sure it beats actually holding the little books but this is nicely done...
Dandelions seem to have many uses, one that intrigues me was the work of Alice Fox, here making cord from the stems... I have my own harvest of stems drying in my shed, to make cord and then possible soft basket like vessels...
The colours as the stems dry out is lovely!
While this project will take some time, I quickly revisited the block prints I did, hoping to spark something inspired by botanical drawings.
I love the metamorphosis of the flower into the seed head, a poignant reminder somehow of being stuck in some kind of limbo as we endure lockdown. While some of the restrictions are lifted, hopefully the end is in sight, there is something of an endurance as the weeks wear on.
I like to think of the seeds floating away, inviting new adventures into my sphere, if I cant get out, maybe some new adventures can come calling.
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