
A gift that cheered
Bright lights in the gloom
Startling red
Yellow glow
White as snow.
Soon the daffodils will be out
Snowdrops already here.
Spring might spring early
This year!
New paintings and regular art updates.

A gift that cheered
Bright lights in the gloom
Startling red
Yellow glow
White as snow.
Soon the daffodils will be out
Snowdrops already here.
Spring might spring early
This year!

Friends sent me a lovely get well card and flowers. Thanks to them, they really lifted my spirits. Very shaky selfies!
I was just wishing someone would visit when there was a knock at the door, it was a friend from choir who was dropping off a card, flowers and a pot full of daffodils for outside the house.
I can’t tell you how overwhelmed I felt. I’ve gradually been feeling better, not recovered but 3/4 of the way there. The house is a tip and I’ve barely been out of the house for 4 weeks. I burst into tears while trying to say thank you. It’s so nice to realise people really care.
Love and hugs to you if you are ill or feeling down at the moment. X

I started this at art group last November and I hadn’t touched it till today’s art group. That’s about 2 months. I feel guilty that it’s taking so long but with illness and one thing and another it’s taken me this long to get going again. It’s a work in progress and I want to try and get a better feeling of three dimensions to the teapot.
I working the pattern out as I go along and I need to take into account the lighting aswell. It’s been four hours and I didn’t want to stop, but the session only lasts till 2.30pm

One of my photos that I got in a local calendar for this year. There was a photographic competition in the summer. People were asked to submit pictures of our local village of Penkhull for it to raise funds for the village hall.
In the end three of my pictures were chosen, that’s a quarter of the twelve monthly images! There was also a thirteenth one that was chosen for the front of the calendar. I’m so proud to have had my work included for 2025.

Someone sent me this photo of lentil soup and suggested I try it but I wasn’t up to following the recipe. But I did like their photo. Apologies if it is copyright but I don’t think so? The table was visible in the original and the dinner mat was twisted but I straightened it up a bit and cropped it to lose the table. I just like the orange bowl and the thin blue line round the edge. It just seperates the bowl from the white and yellow of the mat.

My hanging baskets are surviving cold conditions. I thought I would play with a photo to make an interesting pattern. I didn’t realise it would end up so complex.


Sport in Botany defined by Wikipedia :
In botany, a sport or bud sport, traditionally called lusus,[2] is a part of a plant that shows morphological differences from the rest of the plant. Sports may differ by foliage shape or color, flowers, fruit, or branch structure. The cause is generally thought to be a chance genetic mutation.[3]
I saw a sport once. Eight or nine twigs on a forsythia bush, each fused to the next, like a pan pipe. It still had leaves and flowers. I was reading sci-fi books at the time, I was only young and found the strange formation almost creepy. I cut the sport off the bush and it never grew back. But I always remembered this sporting image!

There’s not enough space
I can’t get past!
I have to hop over the hose
Skip over the empty pots
Jump into the back door
When I’ve watered it all.
I’m watching the Olympics
Thinking could this be
A new green event?

Red and green begonia. The flowers were blooming in the pots at Dorothy Clive garden this weekend. I was amazed at how many had proliferated in numerous containers around the garden. There were other lovely plants but these were the most noticeable.
Describe one habit that brings you joy.

For years I have filled the back yard with hanging baskets and flowers. This year I had to get help from my sister to hang the baskets as I can’t climb ladders. Then I got plants from a wellness group I visit every week. Some of the plants were going over so I got them for a small amount of money.
I love this habit, but it has its dangers. I use a hose to water the plants as I can’t lift my watering can up. But it’s a trip hazard! I have to be very careful not to fall, luckily I have a grab handle by the back door. But sometimes things get very precarious!