Pale Cherry Blossom

Every year is different when it comes to the Cherry Blossom. This year the dark leaved cherries seem to be coming out at the same time as their leaves, long before the more floriferous pink ones which open up before their green leaves arrive.

I'm always happy when they stagger their opening times like that so that when one passes there is still the joy of more to come. Ours are still at the early stages of opening but the one above had the advantage of a few extra degrees of heat in the City so it was fully open and begging me to let it pose for the camera yesterday.

Update: This photo now available as a Giclée Print here, printed on archival paper using Epson K3 archival inks.

Spring shrubs enjoying the sunshine

Today was cold but oh so very sunny and many bushes and trees were filled, or filling, with colour. I love when the sun shines through the leaves of the flowering currants providing a glorious contrast in colour from the pink flowers.

Elsewhere I've been delighted by the flowers on the Winter flowering Honeysuckles - Lonicera Fragrantissima, which have been flowering since early December and this month have been providing a much used early nectar source for some huge bumble bees in the garden.

It's funny how in October 12C means jumpers on, and in March it means jumpers off. Beautiful sunny weather and no cold wind! It's hard to believe that this time last year we were under snow that lasted right through April so we could barely see the snowdrops or crocuses. Not so this year, they are abundant and basking in Spring sunshine. They hovered as 'drops' from mid Jan through Feb and then when the warmth came they all opened up in crisp white perfection, just like the clouds.

Pink and Purple May flowers & foliage

Hard to get the colours right on screen, the Azalea is pink but the others are all a tad more lilac or purple than they look here. Azalea 'Girard's Hotshot', Hebe, Wallflower Erysimum Bowles Mauve and 3 shots of Tulip Attilla which I was amazed survived the wet winter as it's in clay soil.

Late but lovely Spring Clematis & Tulips

Clematis Alpina & Clematis Broughton Bride finally opened in the garden with the Tulips, not sure which type of tulips they are, I must have it written somewhere, but they are so crisp and clean looking in green and white, I really love their purity.

As the month comes to a close it has managed to squeeze in the opening of the White Lilac and the Spanish Bluebells which I like to have in a jar beside the computer where I can enjoy the scent when I am catching up on my long neglected emails - it's been quite a year so far, I am so far behind with everything, but I guess that just makes me more in tune with the higgelty piggelty lateness of the seasons. I can hardly believe we are about to enter June already when only a month ago the garden was covered in snow!

Cherry Blossom rain clouds

The impending rain shower only made the blossom more beautiful in the garden today. The tree is still tiny but it packs a lot of petal into it's dainty frame. On the other side of the garden teh flowering current came out last week...

Bugs, Buds & Birthdays

So much life in the garden after some fine Spring weather last week. The ladybirds (ladybugs) are making hay while the sun shines! I've only pottered gently but already I can feel my joints and muscles getting a bit more movement in them. Feels like I'm stretching out in tandem with all the buds and shoot tips. Here are the first red leaves and buds on the Berberis...



Clusters of Spring flowers have emerged in the dappled light under the trees and I imagine most of the trees will come in to leaf in April. So much change. See my garden in detail here

It's been a weird month, lots of crappy things at the start so I had to postpone my own birthday but when I finally opened my presents it was amazing, beyond my wildest dreams type of amazing. My brother bought me a MacBook Pro and my parents got me Adobe CS5. I was utterly flabberghasted. I don't think anyone has ever seen me speechless before. I don't think I can ever thank them enough. The whole drive home I just kept saying 'I can't believe it, I can't believe it'.

I can finally make my books and edit years of archived photo's and designs without it being an archaic grind. Well, I will once I can afford to get all my peripherals to work with it, it's so whizzy and new it doesn't recognise my scanner, cables, camera, printer etc. That was one reason I could never get a new Mac, because if I spent any money on it I'd have nothing left to get it workable with all the extra bits. Now I can afford to do that over the next year or so - which is probably how long it will take me to learn all vastly updated software.

I've been fiddling with some old designs just to get a feel for what's new in Photoshop CS5 (I was using Photoshop 7 and I abandoned Illustrator about 9 years ago). They are so much faster though freakishly more complex. I can see there will be tears ahead trying to get to grips with Illustrators bazillion new options. I'm glad I don't have any deadlines.



And as for In Design, it didn't even exist when I got my last Mac, I've always been a Quark Xpress girl. I can tell it's going to take ages to learn since my brain struggles to remember my own phone number these days, but it will be so worth it. Learning curve here I come. Just think, no more compromises, no more workarounds, no more frustration as I wait an hour for a book page to save. These things are annoying at the best of time but when you have M.E. every little bit of wasted energy is like a huge chunk of wasted life. With my memory coming and going I really want to get things put into more books to keep it all from slipping away completely.

I'm so excited I can barely contain myself. And so grateful. With all the shit happening around the world I feel guilty about something so good happening to me, but then I think that I should just appreciate how lucky I am, when lives can be upturned in an instant it would be crazy for me to make the most of something so positive happening.