Garden Flowers

I took a few photos of the garden the other day when I was out there enjoying the sunshine, I'm glad I took them when I did as yesterday rained most of the day and today is very gloomy and overcast (very warm too though, feels very close).

I wanted to show you our beautiful foxgloves and thank everyone who identified them when they first appeared.

Looking quite glorious now, lovely trumpets for the bees to go in and out of.

We have a few tubs around the garden, this one has petunias tumbling out of it (I kept Honey in the photo, she's nice and relaxed in the sunshine).

I'm rather fond of Geraniums, good staples to have in pots providing such vivid colour.

The camellia has finished flowering it's beautiful full pink blooms.

This is a new addition, a Honeysuckle to grow up our pergola. It's in a pot so I'm hoping it still manages to thrive, there are lots of buds waiting to burst into flower.

The rambling rose climbing up the other side of the pergola, also full of buds.

Lupins too,

more Lupins along the back of this raised planter.

 Pretty anemone, closing every evening then waking up each day and stretching open it's petals.

Couple of hanging baskets starting out

Sweet williams and our heuchera.

It's had a lick of paint this year, our tiered planter. Full of trailing petunias, lobelia and some geraniums too. It's just started flowering, so hopefully each tier will grow and reach down to the one below, filling the garden with colour.

Looking over everything are the green men

The vegetables are doing well too, we have lettuces, cauliflowers, peas and brussel sprouts in the trugs and tomatoes and cucumbers in the greenhouse. There are a few things we haven't planted this year such as radishes and potatoes, which I shall miss, if only there were a few more hours in a day (more space would be nice too).

Andrew's watching the rugby so I'm going to go and sit in the conservatory and do some patchwork while the light is still good.

Take care

xxx

Flying Through May

What a lovely month it's been, we've had a good amount of sunshine, the garden is starting to bloom, we have a new little friend and there was even a royal wedding.

Little Zackary (who is actually not so little now) is 9 months old and all over the place. We've bought him a little push along walker to play with when his here and he loves it. I don't think it's going to be long before this wee munchkin is running all over the place.

Our house is looking a bit like a nursery, we have a highchair and a pushchair as well as plenty of toys (though his favourite appears be an empty water bottle). We were going to pass along the bouncy chair we used, but have been informed that we may need it again in a year or two, so I think it'll be going into the loft.

The garden is starting to come into it's own. I took a photo of the Alliums last week and our new Honeysuckle.

The difference between the garden just from last week and this week is quite amazing, so much colour is appearing all over the place. The dogs are enjoying the cushions being out on the chairs again.

As well as spending time in the garden (I've managed to get through quite a few books recently), we've also been venturing out and about and just having a jolly good time browsing garden centres and enjoying a cup of tea or coffee in different places along with the odd lunchtime bite

and a little bit of craft shopping. These felt sheets are 3mm thick so ideal for felting pictures.

My favourite thing about May though, has to be the addition to our family of a little feathered friend, a budgie we've called Petey.

We've thought about having a budgie for a while, but when I see them in shops I always worry that you don't know how old they are and it's unlikely they're used to being handled. On our way to Hornsea one day we saw a sign saying baby budgies, so we went to have a look. I fell in love with Petey straight away and it was reassuring seeing where he came from. Petey has settled in well

Andrew's doing some DIY today and Imogen has some friends coming over later this evening so they can enjoy burning their revision papers from the exams they've finished (they're halfway through taking their GCSEs, 2 more weeks when they go back to school after half term, then freedom... until September when they enter 6th form). I think I'm going to make the most of the garden for now, catch up with some blog reading and do a bit of crochet, ah bliss.

Take care
xxx

A Spot of Sunshine

It didn't last long, but while it was up there not covered in clouds, we made the most of it. We've been spending lots of time in the garden, tidying, painting and some planting. I had hoped today would be nice and I could take a couple of garden photos, but it's been raining on and off for the last few days.

I've been wanting to take little Zackary to our lovely park for a while now. It isn't easy to plan a trip out with our little grandson as he still needs to be in his pushchair and I use a wheelchair and we only have one Andrew to push us! It was such a beautiful sunny day on Friday last week, it was perfect for me to use my brilliant new scooter (the one my parents so generously bought me for my birthday back in February). We reminded Holly and Adam to drop off the pushchair with Zackary in the morning and set off after Zack's lunch. Andrew pushed Zackary and I rode alongside on my scooter, we had a lovely walk around the park then went to see the animals.

They've introduced some new ones since we last went, some gorgeous tiny marmosets, they were so deliciously cute. We also had a cockatoo shouting 'hello' at us as well as all sorts of other feathered friends. The lamas were sunning themselves, watching the people walk by.

 I held Zackary up to see the birds, but he remained unimpressed

There were wallabies, deer, emus and peacocks

It was such a beautiful day and I'm hoping that we shall be spending many hours over the coming weeks and months showing Zack what a wonderful park we have. I think it was quite tiring being pushed around all afternoon.

Though he soon woke up when we came home again, here are Andrew and Zackary having some boy time together.

He is growing so tall, already a big boy for 8 months old. He crawls around so fast, but that's only when there's no furniture (or fingers) to pull himself up on and walk around. We've had to move things and push things away from the edge and those small hands that can't wait to get hold of his nanny's things.

Someone else was enjoying the sunshine last week, I think Gary is looking quite chilled out posing in the sun.

Take care
xxx

A Catch Up

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post. I've been a bit sporadic with my posting this year, so do really appreciate you all hanging on in there.

Half way through April already, it amazes me, but at least the better weather appears to be coming... I'm so ready for the summer, I hope we have a lovely, long summer this year (not too hot though) and can spend lots of time outside in the garden and at the park.

We've been a bit slow on the garden side of things this year, mainly because of the weather. Andrew went out the other day and used the jet washer on the patio after getting rid of all the bits of grass and weeds that grow between the slabs. He also found this plant growing in one of our containers. We didn't plant it, but it seems to be thriving.

I tried putting the photo into a reverse picture finder and it identified it as Impatiens even though it didn't actually look like the pictures it showed. I know a lot of you have beautiful green thumbs so if anyone can give me any information about it, I would love to know.

My boy has had a birthday since I last blogged. Big year for birthdays this year, Adam and I have had our big ones (Adam turned 30) and Imogen will be turning sweet 16 a week on Friday, then little Zackary will have his very first birthday in August.

Not impressed with Daddy's birthday

I didn't get to see my boy on his actual birthday as he went on a 24 hour fishing trip with a group of friends. He had lovely time even though it was very muddy.

I haven't done as much baking as I planned to, but did use up some left over bananas to make our favourite banana cake the other day.

I treated myself to a couple of new eggcups the other week, I think they're rather cute.

I recently read this book by C.L. Taylor, The Fear. I thoroughly enjoyed it and found myself picking it up whenever I had a spare moment. A good, pacey thriller, I recommend it.

I thought it'd be nice to round off with the flowers on my mantelpiece that my lovely Andrew brought home from the shops today.

It's quite late, so I'm off to bed and will make a start on catching up with everyone else's news.


Take care
xxx

SaveSave