Back yard

It’s growing,

a bit of water

It’s gone mad!

Pots overflow

Burgeoning leaves

With green waterfalls

Bubbling out of the soil

Brown turned green

Ferns in the wall..

Yellow Welsh poppies

And dark mauve geraniums

Fun to see it grow

But no room to walk

A path is required

But raspberries

And blueberries

Have flowers

Now I need bees!

Gone

Snowdrops gone, daffodils fading, tulips opening… Winter is over and Spring has sprung. I hope for warm spring days and new flowers opening. Blossom on the boughs of the cherry and pear trees, open already on the old plum tree and the walnut tree is starting to transform.

There are strong gusts and April Showers. Heavy rain and lightning, but we await the warmth of the sun. Not too hot. But the garden is growing and buds are breaking. I hope the hedgehogs and frogs reappear. It’s an effort to maintain things like the pond which needs a new liner. I must take some photos soon.

Outside

Yesterday, 1st December, a pelargonium (sometimes known as geranium) outside our front door. It’s still in flower since we planted it this summer. In flower for almost six months. We have other plants in the garden like nasturtiums. But today is probably going to be the coldest day and night this winter. I will be sad to see everything wilt and die. We can only look forward to next year. We will be planting more of these and some manage to survive the winter too.

Lamp

Batteries replaced in this garden light. We have a few random lights dotted round the garden. Its too shady for solar powered ones so we use battery ones. The trouble is, the garden is big and I can’t get enough lights to make it bright. We just place random ones on the paths. Just enough to wander round at night. But then you have to go out and turn them off again!

Cat sleeps

He’s there again, on the arms of the chairs. He has a cushion balanced between our two armchairs. He’s in from the cold, curled up. He will sit there for a couple of hours, then get bored or two warm, and go off again, outside one exploring, or he will go and eat and drink then come back. Yes his belly is big, he’s a happy cat. X

Urban sketch

I finally got out and did an urban sketch! Hanley Park bandstand yesterday afternoon in the mist. I drew it from the cafe terrace. I coloured it in at home because I’d been out singing carols with the Mystery Singers choir and only took a sketchbook on the off-chance I might draw.

Looking at this and the photos I took I can see I’ve exaggerated the perspective on the bandstand, but I think that helps as I was looking down on it from the cafe terrace.

Reflected sky

When I come out of our art group this afternoon I saw a wonderful dappled sky. This was the aftermath of storm Arwen last night. There were still freezing gusts of wind and snow was lying in small patches (most had melted). I’m in love with cloudscape, I’m a member of the cloud appreciation society although I’m rubbish at identifying clouds! Anyway I decided to mirror the view so it looks like there is a calm icy lake . X