fairy skirts or fairy hats?

If I were a fairy I would want to wear these. But as a hat, or as a skirt? Such a dilemma. I think as a hat would be too twee, so a little skirt made of hyacinth blue chiffon might be just the ticket.

In reality of course, they are just the gorgeous little dancing bells of campanula rotundifolia-the harebell, or bluebell as the Scots call it. There’s plenty of folklore about them, but I especially like the story that says they warn hares of approaching danger. Perhaps that is why they are called harebells.

We found these today growing on the Devil’s Dyke in Cambridgeshire, close to the villages of Reach and Swaffham Prior, in that big flat fen country so very different from our gently rolling hills. It was glorious-the wheat, barley and oats all turned to gold, waiting for the harvest, against grey, white and blue bands of sky.