Spring board

As well as being seduced by Instagram,

I have been brought to a grinding halt by my old computer.

Now I have something new and shiny 

but I don’t know if it will let me load photos

or what anything will look like.

So here goes:

I know that magnolias are rather old hat now and are mostly

a rather thickly padded brown carpet for most of us

but I wanted a record for posterity anyway.

Moving swiftly on, we have apple blossom,

and lambs.

The garlic persists but with added flowers

Wood anemones are holding their own,

but have been joined tentatively by bluebells.

The Open garden season is upon us

and tulip mania is in full swing.

Today has been so warm that the belted Galloway

have sought shade under the hawthorns.

Well nothing about this short post went well.

Clearly an iPad is not suited to this sort of endeavour

and despite the tranquil scenes you see above

I have been tearing my hair out and gnashing my teeth

on the other side of the screen.

I cannot scroll.

I cannot stop the typeface reverting to Times Roman.

I cannot break a line without it inserting an initial cap.

I cannot enlarge the photos.

I cannot prevent the whole page from flicking back up to the top

While I type.

And there’s that blasted cap.

I must regroup.

It will be Autumn leaves before we know it 

and the whole summer will have gone unblogged.

Bear with.

in absentia

Yes I do see how Instagram lures

one away from the blog.

It's so breezy and bite-sized.

Even on a dodgy phone with a broken screen that has to be jabbed

multiple times in order to 'share',

it still wins hands down over the old computer for immediacy.

Mac struggles to load photos to Blogger in under an hour.

I have to take myself off to while away the time more profitably

and then completely lose my train of thought.

So in the absence of a coherent narrative,

I'm going for colour graduation,

because this autumn has been all about

the most spectacular colour changes

and dramatic skies.

Much to be thankful for.

What can I tell you?

I have been blogging lite.

Coupled with the struggle my ageing computer has 

to upload photos to the blog,

and the amount of time I have spent away from the computer indoors,

Instagram has been all too seductive.

But September is nearly over

and as it has been so splendidly abundant

Instagram cannot satisfy the need for a splurge,

so here it comes.

An arresting sight on the beach.

Fruit picking at Maynard's Fruit Farm on its last open day.

(Premature I felt - the trees were groaning.)

A pebble beach can seem a tad dull until

you have time to look at each stone more carefully.

The colour range in the shingle at my feet was astounding.

The last of the Open Gardens on a rare wet day,

but the colours sang out and the crowds were absent.

Sad for the charities but in some ways kinder to the borders.

We went to an Open Garden at Perch Hill (Sarah Raven's Cutting garden).

It was magnificent but the crowds...

there must be so much colateral damage.

I don't know how I managed to give the impression that

we were the only people there!

On the other hand a late afternoon at Wakehurst Place

was very peaceful.

This little chap is also a very peaceful sort.

He smiles and gurgles and puts up with

his sister's tender ministrations.

He is growing apace and my knitting barely keeps up.

And now I must find my passport.

There is a big chap to visit soon.