Looking up

The weather,

(sorry it's all I can talk about at the moment)

is looking up.

Warm enough to shed the 'shmere,

and tempting enough to plant out the tomatoes 

and think about filling the pots, troughs and baskets
which are still full of tulip stalks.

Much though I love Sarah Raven's planting combinations,

it is more economical to take her suggestions to the local garden centre.

I can also choose my moment rather than being worried 

that I won't be here when they arrive and they will shrivel on the doorstep.

The window man is back.

Work has started on replacing our rotten garage doors,

so that's going to be a welcome facelift for the house. 

and quite by coincidence I managed to bump into

Mark Rylance again, while lurking outside The Mousetrap

which I perhaps inadvisedly decided was one of those things 

I ought to have seen by now.

And no, I haven't seen Star Wars or read War and Peace.

We fitted in a trip to Avebury, which was a full winter garb experience

but still very uplifting.

We heard our son's plane fly in over the house this morning.
I looked up but couldn't see it as the clouds have rolled back in,
but it will be lovely to have him back for a little while,
until he takes off again for Japan.

It was all going so well

Lush flowers. 

Blue skies.

Serene swan.

Fresh ferns.

Smiling lambs.

Sparkling sea.

And then the wind changed.

And it has been grim grey ever since,

with a side order of chilly wind

and a return to winter clothing

of which I am heartily sick.

So I took a leaf out of Lotta's book

and culled the towels

and then felt happy for Freda

and anyone else who isn't sitting under a cloud.

Perhaps some of you remember 

Neither Use Nor Ornament.

I get updates from there from time to time

and have vicariously enjoyed a recent trip 

to the tea plantations of Munnar

and an Ashram at Kurisumala.

Time to pack my bags perhaps.

That will guarantee an improvement in the weather at home.

We are the people who arrive at any destination to be greeted by the words,

'Oh if only you had been here last week. It was glorious.'

Running

 just to stand still.

 Although this cold spell may stem the advancing tide a little,

the alliums are opening and the irises too.

Daily postings required to keep the record in order.

As someone cheerily pointed out on the radio this morning,
only eight weeks until the nights start drawing in.

This little one is away on tour.
Such is the life of a Thespian's child.
She has already had her first speaking part on the radio.

Colour saturation

Wakehurst Place and a private garden showing off their

rhododendrons and clematis.

This little pot and its contents, yielded by our garden.

Tulip time

Inspired by the school of not-doing-things-by-halves

as exemplified by this garden

and many others

I decided last year to have a cutting patch for tulips.

When it came to actually paying for them and considering the effort

of planting such quantities of bulbs,

I reverted to type and managed only half a bed,

amounting to about forty tulips.

These I have been mightily pleased with however.

I supplemented my vases with some taken from Great Dixter.

Not stolen I hasten to add.

They were being sold for £1 a bunch.

I passed one of my old pound coins to them.

They have to be used up by October 15th.

At Kew they have planted a tulip meadow.

It's very effective but I'm not sure if they intended them

to be in flower at the same time as the pink blossom above.

Everything is so early this year.

And finally a display at a Spring Flower show,

the three identical blooms in a vase category.

I didn't enter.

Maybe next year.

Post script:

lovely even as they faded.

If it's Wednesday it must be Milwaukee

Brilliant sign sent by son from Milwaukee airport.

He was surely in urgent need of this facility 
as he hurtled around the USA for his work this last week. 

His thirtieth birthday was spent in transit.

Some recombobulating needed here too as I

  think back to his first emerging in Arrivals.

His Emergency emergence indeed

after spending far too long in transit!

My own birthday was spent in hospital with him 
where time stood still in a private room miraculously provided
by the NHS and filled with early Sweet Peas by my mother.

We brought him home after five days, in a carry cot
strapped onto the back seat of the car.
I remember that they gave me the little tin foil bowl
that they used to 'top and tail' him at bath time.
I clung to that bowl like a talisman until it wore out
and I realised that I would have to replace it with a bowl of my own
and that it would probably be alright.

Treasure

I dug this up in the garden.

Isn't it sweet?

Measuring just 6cm in diameter,

probably a little souvenir pin tray from the 1950s.

It is so Parisian,

and such a charming thing to find when one is being

scratched by brambles and stung by nettles.