Flowers...

Now, at the end of June, it seems like a lot of the flowers in the garden are already exhausted - whilst the second wave hasn't quite arrived yet. This proves that I'm not a gardener yet, otherwise I'd have planned things a bit better! The front garden is looking slightly worse for wear after starting off so well (below), and providing me with enough Californian poppies to be able to sacrifice some for an indoor treat...

Sadly, someone decided that the two beautiful hollyhocks by the wall, just about to flower, were perhaps overkill, so they broke one stem, and the next day someone pulled up the other one and left its leaves strewn up and down the street... Mindless. I guess it's the risk you run with having flowers outside the garden wall. Never mind, the garden is still providing a haven for lots of bees, bugs, butterflies, frogs and birds, so it's all fine.

...a starling invasion...

...my first peony...

...very blue delphiniums...

...raspberries...

...and poppies, an unexpected gift from the birds!

House and home...

After her mother died, a friend had the task of emptying her house of a lifetime's accumulation of bits and bobs, collections of linen and ceramics, clothes and ornaments. I went with her one day, as she wondered if I'd like any of her mother's art materials. Just as I'd hoped, the house was fascinating and crammed with unusual and interesting things.

A child's 'correction chair'...

A very sweet little painting by her mother.

Another lovely little painting, and a great wall colour.

The garden, with its ramshackle sheds and dilapidated greenhouse, clay pots piled high, and toppling statuary, was equally fascinating.

 

 

It's been a while...

A bit like tidying up the garden shed, the longer you leave it the harder it is to just get started... And so too, I discover, with blogs.

The spring flowers have all faded and gone, leaving behind some interesting seed heads, or yellowing leaves.

The blossom has bloomed and fallen, and now there's the promise of apples, pears and plums in the autumn.

Nests have been built, and baby birds raised, and tadpoles have kept me entertained with their antics in the 'more successful than I realised' pond - there are little froglets in there now, some with both back and front legs.

Bees have been buzzing around for a couple of months now, and the Californian poppies have popped their hats and are dazzling everyone in the front garden.

There have been 'fun runs' and birthdays and, at the end of April, my aunt sent me her wedding dress - the 'something borrowed' for my mother's own wedding, on a snowy Boxing day in 1947. 

My niece, wearing her grandmother's wedding dress.