February days

Yesterday was cold and dank, with a high windchill factor. I left the village early to do my weekly shop at the bakers and the supermarket. I dashed home with car heater on high and windscreen wipers banging to and fro fiercely as the rain lashed down.

I couldn't get warm all day, and when I climbed the stairs to bed last night, hot water bottle in my hand, there was such a gale a howling and growling around the cottage, I couldn't get to sleep. My bones ached and I wished for spring, summer and sunshine, before giving myself a talking to. After all those days will come and life's too short to wish time away.

At least it was sunny this morning as I walked the dogs, Boo, Eric and Winnie, although the biting wind inspired us to walk just that little bit faster. Before going inside though, I had a quick walk around the garden in the sunshine to check for wind damage.

None fortunately, but I noticed the dusky pink hellebore at the side of the house has not come up this year after eighteen years of long and loyal service. I swore. The purity, beautyand hardiness of all the snowdrops at this, the grimmest time of the year, made me feel thankful though.

 

 

The pot on the table in the courtyard filled with iris reticulata was a welcome sight too....such a vivid splash of colour before the tete a tete daffodils open, followed by the bluebells.

Meanwhile it was lovely to see the crab apple beginning to blossom , a sign that spring will come.



Sometimes it 's the little things that change your mood. I came into the house feeling much more cheerful, until the hailstorm, with the hail hitting the sitting room windowpanes like bullets. Then came the sleet....

A day of hope, hellebores, snowdrops and a surprise

 

During the summer,  our old ash tree in the garden  needed attention. After a couple of storms and a week of windy weather, quite a few big branches had snapped and fallen to the ground.

 

 The tree  urgently needed attention as a few larger branches higher up had died. If one of those crashed to the ground, and we happened to be in the way, we would be brown bread. Dead .(It's cockney rhyming slang)

That wasn't an appealing prospect, so after permission from the local council, we called in Tom,  the tree surgeon.

 

 

When I came back from work that day, Tom and his men had put the logs just in front of the piggery on the right hand side of the photo above. And there they stayed until November. Well, it saved me having to weed around there...

 



But by then , I was worrying about my snowdrop and daffodil bulbs under the soil and all those logs. So one dreary Sunday in late November I spent hours moving them all a few yards away under the box hedging...

Boo, Eric and Winnie were very curious..scratching and digging. They were admonished .Would my bulbs survive, I wondered.

So this morning it was wonderful to walk to the bottom of the garden and see the snowdrops and daffodils and the promise of spring.

And elsewhere ,snowdrops were showing their pure little flowers which mean so much at this time of the year.

And at the shady place at the side of our cottage, the hellebores were there to greet me, just like they have every January for the last twelve or so years. I bought one plant from a small nursery a few miles away....it cost £2.50 I recall...what great value for all those years of the pleasure of seeing them at such a bleak time of the year.

And then, the biggest surprise of all was outside the French doors of the dining room. There's a stone planter there filled with lavender and pinks which I planted up about  fourteen years ago. One of them was in flower...really!

So in the space of a five minute stroll around the garden, my mood had transformed. It's amazing how restorative a splash of colour, and a hint and the hope of the spring and summer to come, actually is.


 

a day of sunshine and snowdrops

It doesn't take much to make me happy. My glass is always half full, I'm always ready to have a laugh, and I love life.

But, to say it has seemed like a long winter is an understatement. A cold, grey, wet and snowy season which has sapped most of my inner reserves of optimism, and joie de vivre. Not being to go into the garden or out without freezing to death or being drenched makes me miserable.

There have been a few days where the sky has actually been blue...and these have stood out as beacons of hope, that the light of sun will shine again and that spring won't forget to visit.

Yesterday was one of those days. It wasn't exactly warm....but the sun shone, bathing everywhere in a glow of comforting sense of that a corner is being turned.

Even in the dullest days recently, it's been wonderful to see all the snowdrops....but in the sun yesterday they sparkled and put on a show....

To see the daffodils in bud at the top of the garden by the piggery was a thrill

And the pretty pink hellebores were a  sight for sore eyes.....

Plants are like people....sun , warmth perk us all us all a treat.....yesterday showed the promise of the spring and summer to come.

And  as I walked the hundred and fifty paces down to our village church with my darling daughter and her best friend to check exactly how many people could be seated in there for a very special wedding next year, we sang in the sunshine ( well I did...the others were laughing...) and my natural optimism bubbled up again.

Then as we came out of the church the sunshine beckoned.....and all was well with my world....

And you know what...the sun is shining again today.....so today's track has to be
" Lovely day" by Bill Withers. Like the sun, this track never fails to put me in a good mood.