Water, Water everywhere

This what happens when a drought is declared in England. The heavens open and it rains and rains and rains.

In 1976 it took the appointment of a Minister for Drought to bring on the wet stuff. Not sure who was doing the rain dance this time around but just as the hosepipes were banned, the water came at last.

Its been pretty torrential for a good week or so now. I'm quite enjoying it to be honest.The right weather at the right time of year for once and the plants are surging on at last. Its time for April showers after all.

I had a quick walk down by the river tonight. The rain was so hard its made all my shots go blurry. The river is higher than I've seen it a long time and  when I drove over the bridge this morning it looked like the little picnic island was about to be swamped, but by tea time the flood had fallen back a little. Safe.

It was fantastic to be out in the rain after yet another day cooped up in our stuffy office. No wind just straight down stair rods and the sounds of sploshing and splishing. There's a beautiful wash of green beginning to cover the trees and hedgerows and its brightness and zest is always amazing after a long, brown winter.

And why is it that birds sing so loudly in the pouring rain? The air was absolutely thick with robins singing their hearts out, along with blackbirds and thrushes.

Back at home there's a familiar flush of the brightest blue in the garden and I had to bring in a few for the mantlepiece. Picking flowers I've grown myself is one of my favourite treats. Forget-me-nots remind me of the garden at the house where I grew up. Briar Cliffe forget-me-nots for a rainy day.

Tulip Time

This is the first time I've had a proper display of tulips to enjoy. Because I was under the impression (wrongly it turns out) that tulips in pots needed to be planted later in the autumn, most years the sweetie-coloured packets of carefully chosen bulbs, have mouldered in the back of the vegetable cupboard until they've turned up in March looking very folorn.

Planting goes out of my head by November when my gaze turns firmly indoors until March. Last autumn was so balmy however that I sorted my act out for once and treated myself to several bags of bulbs with the idea that I'd spend more than usual and it would spur me into action. Well it did. My £12 investment is looking fabulous so far.

A combination of offers on websites and the ever reliable Wilkinsons, is producing a display I can't take my eyes off at the moment. Predictably I've completely forgotten the names but who cares, I can enjoy choosing them all over again.

This particular pot is my curent favourite. What I wouldn't give for a lipstick just this colour! There are more pots emerging so hopefully this little show will last a fair few weeks.

I have to get up much earlier than the rest of the house to get to the office on time so, before the boys emerge and need feeding and watering, I've taken to eating my breakfast sitting on the kitchen worktop so I can gaze out of the window on my cheery pots. There's no better way to set up the day.

I'm quite obsessed with the garden at the moment, hence all the recent floral posts. Trays of seedlings crowd the windowsills and there always seems to be a tray getting a drink in the sink. Peas and potatoes are on the way for the "patio allotment" as B calls it and here are sweet peas, cosmos, ammi majus and sunflowers on the way up too.

My bed time reading is Monty Don's fabulous Ivington Diaries and this week I found myself having an accidental email chat with a producer on Gardener's World (he has the same name as a local BBC contact). It was a  fab, friendly exchange of me saying what I loved about the programme (Carol, weekend jobs etc) and what I'd like to see more of (flowers, how to design a planting scheme, keeping colour going etc). On last night's programme I'd say they've got it pretty much spot on. Really enjoyable.

Better push off and get on with some potting up I think. Have a super weekend.

P.S. Thanks for all the lovely comments recently, especially anyone who's been finding out more about Totally Locally (- check out the new Foxlowe Arts Centre website to find out more about our town's new community arts venue) and many new visitors from across the Pond. Thanks for visiting, your comments make me smile so much.Xxxx

Springy

Springy is a pretty good word to describe life in general at the moment. I can hardly believe we're a quarter of the way through the year already though. My new job I started in January has dominated things rather a lot and I've found it very hard to switch the old brain off but so far its all been extremely rewarding.

This week a colleague joined me which will make things much more manageable and its given me a bit of a boost. The job is great and I've never known time to pass so quickly. Being so busy has made me focus very hard on our weekends - basically I do nothing! Well nothing that's isn't fun anyway.

This weekend was a very relaxing one as I had day off on Friday and I spent a whole precious day at home with my even more precious boys. Star Wars Lego is featuring very highly on their "favourite things to do" list at the moment. I told them I'd watched the films years ago and hilariously they have somehow got things mixed up and for some reason think I am a bit of an expert of all things Jedi!

Nothing could be further from the truth but I haven't the heart to tell them so we spend many hours talking over the merits of the X or Y wing fighter, Droids versus Bounty Huntersetc?!?!? I kid you not.

So you can imagine, I needed a bit of a Sci-Fi escape route and I persuaded them to hang up a few Easter decorations. Not a bad job all in all if you don't focus too much on the bunch of eggs in the top left hand corner - bless 'em!

All is Springy about the house indeed. After 12 years together, Woody has realised the quickest way to make me smile (mint chocolates aside) is a bunch of spring flowers when I least expect them. This is my second bunch of tulips in as many weeks! Cynics would say I should be worried but honestly, a rather large penny has just dropped!

Outside too you can feel and see that Spring is beginning to burst out all over. We headed down to the Manifold Valley at the weekend with bikes and boys in need of fresh air. It was a cool, clear day with bright blue skies and buzzards soaring. Beautiful.

Underneath the trees wood anenomes blanket the hillsides like a starry carpet. I remember the woods close to where I grew up being full of these in early spring and it was such a treat to see so many of them en masse.

Sometimes I get the bus to work so that Woody can have the car. Most times an elderly gentleman and his lady neighbour get on and sit behind me. Sometimes I catch what they're chatting about, always delightful subjects such as all the old shops and stores in the town where my grandma used to shop, or what birds have been visiting their gardens.

On Monday the old chap said "And have you noticed the green in the hedges coming in. Wonderful isn't it."

And it is you know.

You can just see my little hedge at the end of our garden flushing green too. Springy indeed!

P.S. Thanks for all your lovely messages after my unintended abscence, they were all just lovely and very much appreciated. Especially to Aqeela,  you're spot on, I've definitely got a damson tree haven't I, which is 100 times more exciting than a cherry I reckon. I'm thrilled to bits. Thanks!

Enjoying...

*** A treat of a weekend - summer in springtime. And looks what's turned up in my hedge. After five years of wondering where I could squeeze in a cherry tree in our tiny garden - one's appeared from nowhere and bloomed for a fortnight in amongst the hawthorne.

*** Splashing about in a shallow stream and making new friends.

*** Spring bulbs on the kitchen table

*** Spring flowers on the verges and in the garden

*** A new / old garden chair that I can't decide if it should get a re-paint in cream or sagey green?

*** Feeling the sun of my face, back on my bench with a brew in hand

*** And my camera being fixed at last and getting back into blogging!

Hello Dolly

My quest for a dolly tub has been a long and lenghty one I can tell you. If only I'd known how sought after they'd be when I used to play with the one my grandma had..

They did have a top loader machine by then, but her dolly tub and peg had seen plenty of use and I do remember seeing my great aunt use a mangle.

But I'm not planning to use a dolly tub for the laundry - oh no. The garden is where I want one

And look - here one is! Standing rather overwhelmingly over my pots of bulbs that are just beginning to emerge. I've seen these tubs used as planters in so many lovely magazines and they set off lots of plants and foliage beautifully.

In the Sarah Raven catalogue I saw them stuffed to the brim with scarlet parrot tulips and I thought they'd look just the thing in my plot where I've got tons of old colanders, buckets and troughs.

But blimey, they can go for an absolute bomb (£50+!) so I've been keeping my eye out for an affordable one for ages and yesterday I dropped on at long last.

First of all it will be home to a big pot of tulips, to be followed probably by some foxtail lillies, then agapanthus and maybe a little potted holly tree and lights for Christmas.

Its a hefty thing so instead of filling it with compost I've piled up some crates inside and then the pot can sit on top. Who knew that a rusty old tub could make me so happy - apart from me!

P.S. As you can see I've reverted back to the usual style of my blog because I think the format I changed to meant that lots of people couldn't actually see it - which sort of defeats the object really! So sorry, I hadn't realised! Well, here I am back in the old groove and it feels rather comfortable. Have a lovely week. Xxxx

Candlemas Bells

Sharp, blue skies and the promise of flowers brought me out of hibernation today. Finally we got to go off on our snowdrop walk and it was the perfect day. Cold, brisk and bright.

I've not been here for many years and it was lovely to return. There were more snowdrops in the woodlands than I remembered and fewer on the walk to the lake, but the display was just beautiful.

They were everywhere; carpeting bank sides, drifting through the trees, crowding together in pots and dotted singly here and there. The stiff breeze made their little heads nod and dance making the whole garden seem alive.

A short stroll through the trees brings you to a mile long lake, full of waterfowl and with an ancient boathouse. They're lovely things I think, but a bit sinister. In all those country house books and programmes, something terrible always happens in the boathouse!

The boys enjoyed a run about, collecting sticks as ever and Woody (although absolutely not a gardening fan) loved the gentle surroundings and being out in the fresh air.

Me - I just loved the flowers. Oodles of them, so early in the year was a joy. I'm getting fonder of cyclamen as I get older. There were some minuscule varieties dotted about that could have been bouquets for fairies.

Isn't this a clever trick? In amongst the borders are little mirrors so that you can see the delicacy and beauty of the inside of these little beauties. Genius.

And then, past this lovely private walk to the estate church, is the kitchen garden that one year I will definitely visit in July when it'll be fit to bursting with crops.

The Gardener's Cottage is still lived in and today smoke curled from the chimney across the fallow, turned beds. I find walled kitchen gardens fascinating, full of memories all those gardeners been and gone. Here there are espaliered fruit trees, Victorian greenhouses and traditional terracotta rhubarb forcers. One day I shall get to have a proper look around and not a two minute sprint, chasing small boys!

A truly lovely afternoon to remind you that winter is on the wane. There might still be plenty of time left for the frost, the snow and the cold but those weeks are numbered now. Spring is creeping up to the surface and even though we'll still be muffled up for ages, the flowers will flow. Crocus next then the narcissi and before too long the glorious bluebells. Bring it all on I say!

P.S. I've been faffing around with my blog again! You can choose to view it in which ever way suits you by selecting from the menu on the left - I rather like "magazine" but have fun choosing. Just select the picture in the top left hand corner for the latest post and I think commenting is the same as usual. Xxx