Tulips

Such nice spring flowers. Bright, colourful, petals like satin. Soft and shapely. It’s no wonder that there was a tulip frenzy a few centuries ago. Tulips with colours that look like flames due to a virus. A single tulip bulb could cost more than a house. I think this was in Holland. My favourites are the dark coloured ones, deep magenta or purple, almost black.

Yes tulips are one of my favourites. You have to remember to plant them deep enough about double the depth of the bulb I think? They tend to fade a bit in their second year but they give a good show if planted in drifts.

Short walk with bluebells…

Finally had a short walk today! We went to Cherished Chimneys which is a shop that sells chimneys and pottery at Longport, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. and the Waiting Room gallery across the road in the same place. Then we walked round Westport lake, which is just half a mile away along the canal. We saw blossom and bluebells along the canal and round the lake. We avoided heavy clouds as we walked. I think it had rained heavily in Stoke as the path was soaking wet when we got home.

Plum blossom

View from the kitchen window. This is the little plum tree ar the bottom of the garden. There is a cherry tree trunk in front of it and branches from that obscure the view. I decided to leave that out. I painted with watercolours. Palest first, then the pale greens and blues. It’s hard to fit the dark colours in without leaving white edges but I have never used masking fluid to hide the paler areas and I don’t want to start now.

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As I walk

As I walk I’m looking at trees, I’m waiting for the buds to burst, the leaves to stretch and expand. But we need some rain now to get the buds to swell. Then I will have more idea of what these trees are.

Oak before Ash,

In for a Splash.

Ash before Oak,

In for a soak….

The old rhyme of what to expect from the weather this Spring…

Also the weather has been very windy after a quiet start to March.

The saying for that is :

In like a Lamb

Out like a Lion.

(it can be vice versa), old weather saws that my grandma told me…