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!

Happy 1st of May

The flowers are a month late this year so I found some photo's from 1st of May 2004.

Spring at last in lilac tones

Eeesch, just realised March has pretty much been and gone and I've posted nothing so on a rare moment of energy (the sugar high from too many medjool dates!!!) I thought I'd squeeze one in quickly before bed.

It's been the most unusual March ever, in terms of the weather and my energy, both not what they should be for a month that normally signals the start of Spring. The 1st of March held great promise with real heat in the sun showing up the earliest of the flowers and buds. Then boof, snow, heavy snow, light snow, dry snow, wet snow, sleet, hail, fluffy snow, rain and then more snow, for pretty much the whole month. And oh so cold. But also so white, which I always love.

The crocuses in the South facing raised beds had started to open (along with snowdrops, still doing well from February) and some of the early daffodils (and by early I mean the kind that should arrive in late January, goodness only knows when we'll see the ones that were due in March). But the poor crocuses were quickly buried by several inches of snow and have not been seen since. Luckily the north facing ones hadn't popped their heads up yet so I hope they will appear in April when warmer weather arrives (hopefully).

So much cold is hard going but part of the trouble with my health lately has had a side effect - it radically increases my temperature, so cold weather helps cool me down a bit - or my body helps warm me up, depends what way I look at it. Either way it is working out quite well.

Visually it really has been lovely to see so much snow, and it's made me feel less like I am missing Spring when I'm stuck in bed. Plus it bounces lots of extra light into the house when the sun does shine, which it often has. I'd never before seen really big snowflakes on a sunny day, or rainbows over snowy ground. Delightful treats for someone like me, though I really do feel for sheep as it's lambing time and I know a lot have died. I always feel so sad for animals when there is extreme and untimely weather. And for people too, there have been a lot of people with much worse snow than ours and who have lost power. I really do feel so sorry for them and hope that none of you have been at the bad end of natures blast this Winter/Spring.

Mosaic Skulls by Crystal Thomas

I'm absolutely loving these striking Mosaic Bison skulls by Crystal Thomas from her Flickr page. They are exactly the sort of patterns I draw and cut, but elevated to something so much more. Her website includes a link for a tutorial to make your own. She does them in all sorts of designs an colours but these black and white ones grabbed me the most.

January sunsets from the window

Days of snow last month

Winter Garden snapshots

soundtrack to winter days

I rarely buy anything non essential these days but I needed a treat. I really really needed a treat, so, tired of forever wrestling with ear buds that fall out of my ears whenever I move, I bought some proper white headphones. And yes, the colour was a  bigger factor in my choice than sound quality. I can't afford quality. If I have to buy cheap then it must at least make me happy to look at them. And to be honest, they sound fine to me, definitely not amazing, but perfectly good for blocking out the sound of vans sitting outside with their engines running.

But in the mornings there is a sound better than my music, the birds out in the garden. They seem to have been especially chirpy of late, which I tend to expect more in Spring than in Winter so it feels like a lovely bonus track to the season. I haven't taken any good photo's of the wee critters, they are too busy avoiding cats pose for pics, so instead these are my Christmas deco birds to represent my flighty feathered friends.