Thanks Mum xx

A little behind the times

I believe I've said this many times before on this blog, but one of the best things about moving house in winter is finding out whats in the garden come spring.



 

Behold, a wee banksia rose. Its on a very un-wee bush on our deck. In about 3 more days, the bush is going to be smothered with these tiny, delicate, lemon flowers. There are also fruit tree blossoms, who knows what sort yet - definitely apple (first flowers out today!) and maybe a stonefruit. Its definitely spring. Its sunny and warm and there is blossom and magnolias in bloom, and its clearly spring.

 Thus, I cast on a jumper. Hmmm. To be honest, given my current knitting rates of completion, I'm pretty safe that this won't be done until next winter.

Its a lovely pattern - Flowing Lines by Veera Välimäki ; they are Ravelry links. The yarn is (as almost always at the moment), Cascade 220. I bought it at a fabulous yarn shop here in Hobart called the Stash Cupboard, which is delightful and potentially debt-inducing.

Pretty

I know they aren't really indoor plants.

I know the blue pots poking out the top are naff.

 

But they are pretty.

Flowering

Moving continents brings lots of surprises and adjustments. The garden of our rental house has mainly shrubs, lots of which are camellias. I had forgotten that these are winter flowering, and how much brighter and un-wintery they made the garden. I am missing my 'proper' garden but these are very beautiful.

Timely

Well, with one thing or another, I missed posting for a whole month there. Turns out that working a busy job, having a family, a few hobbies, remnants of a social life and the odd holiday takes up pretty much all my time. Oh, and sleeping. Or not sleeping, as the case may be. Anyway, I'm still here, I have many, many blog posts in my head, and intentions of sometime maybe actually posting them. In the meantime, there are new cyclamen in my house, which can only be good. 

ongoing

While we were on holiday, the garden kept growing. And blooming. Turns out those scrappy old leaves I'd been wondering about, dotted around the garden, were irises. Out of focus irises, but still pretty :) And the roses are turning out to be pleasantly old fashioned and wonderfully smelly.

This is my favourite view from inside at the moment. The pot is fresias, but I think the leaves are rather lovely. Outside is the mock orange, which is carpeting the grass in white. Its all very crisp and springy.

On my mantel this week...

Blues.

Charmer

 In the wild

In my garden.
Snakes head fritillary

Growth

The garden is just bursting into life. There are a few flowers scattered around, but most of the drama is coming from the leaves. The rhubarb astonishes me daily; obviously neglected when we moved in, with the most cursory care it has made a triumphant comeback.

Some of the roses have joined in, opening beautifully coloured new leaves. And almost every day I find a new rose that has been strimmered to the ground, or buried under rotting apples or a mound of climber, and has sent out a few wobbly shoots. I'm sure some won't make it, but others look like they'll give it a go.

Yesterday's discovery: violets! Tiny, stunted, neglected things but now I know they are there I can help out a bit.

On my mantelpiece...

Are you sick of daffodils yet? Not me....

Mellow Yellow

Our garden is currently green (grass, weeds & moss pretending to be lawn), brown (trees and bushes about to have leaves) and yellow (daffodils and forsythia). I'm hoping that this trend won't last and that there will be a lot more green and additional colours in the coming months, but right now its kinda cool. It keeps drawing me outside, promising spring. And these duck bootees keep making me laugh (thanks mum!)

Moving on (3)

And the snowdrops:

Moving on (2)

Flowers in the garden too.

Moving in to a new house has the added delight of discovering a new garden. In older UK houses this often means discovering just how many bulbs are in the garden. Luckily, this house is no exception - in addition to very old, established (and long-neglected) rose beds and a stonking rhubarb patch, there are huge swathes of bulbs now popping up. The garden is currently bisected with a great patch of crocuses and snowdrops under the central apple tree. Its hard to get a good shot of the thing in its entireity (maybe if the sun comes out this week), but here are some close-ups. Today, the crocuses.

Moving on (1)

Signs that we are steadily moving on through winter towards the glory of an English spring...I have been looking at these for a week, gradually changing from red buds to golden tipped goblets. I love their wayward leaves too. A beautiful surprise present - thanks S!

delicate

Anticipation

I can never bring myself to throw out these golden syrup tins, they are so lovely. At last - a use for them!

Fuschia fairies

Gardening is different in England. Its colder, there's less light for much of the year, and more for some of the year than I'm used to. Plants that I think of as perennial turn out to be annuals or biannuals. It makes for adventurous times in the garden. Last year, I had good fun growing sweet peas in pots. This year, I thought I would try some different potted colour.

When I was small, I had a book about a fuschia fairy - the child 'popped' the fuschia bud (as they are so tempting to do!) and the fairy fell out as she wasn't quite ready. She played with the child while her wings dried off and she flew away. My mum had (and possibly still has) a large fuschia with tiny pink flowers, and I loved to pop them. I always felt a delicious combination of fear and hope that I would disturb a fairy! I have really enjoyed the four that I've grown this year, although they are quite small as plants. They don't have the wow factor or the scent of the sweet peas, but they are very pretty. One of them is a trailing variety, but I didn't have a hanging basket so it isn't shown to best potential.

This is the highlight of my garden though - my neighbours garden! Our back gardens aren't fenced off, so while we take responsibility for looking after our own patches, we get the benefit of feeling like we have a much larger garden and enjoying each other's gardening successes (we got the better deal this year!)

Slacker

Yep, big fat blog slacker. Not only have I lost my knitting mojo, but I seem to have slipped badly in the blogging stakes! Maybe it is related - no knitting, no blog...but this seems silly, so I am at least going to try to blog a bit more. Maybe I just needed a little rest. Anyway, back into things!

We had snow:

And we had sunshine:

And as you can see, my lovely tulips survived admirably! They are new this year, and I really like them - they are a bit of fun. There are black ones about to come out in the next few weeks, to balance it all out with a bit of elegance.

A while ago, I won a blog comp run by the lovely Skeins Her Way, and in my lovely parcel I found (along with the most delicious chocolate ever, yummy tea, a pattern and a cute tape measure) was this fantastic yarn! I can't wait to use it....

I really struggled to get this colour somewhere like true, but trust me, it is a gorgeous deep, touchable red.
And finally - my latest project (yep, its not knitting. There is knitting on my table, but it just isn't being knitted). This is for my newest nephew (well, as good as a nephew). I started out with a knitted baby blanket, which turned into an enormous horrible mess. Enough to turn me off knitting for a bit (!). So I turned to an older hobby, which I knew I could get finished in time. In the picture, it isn't quilted or finished, but it has taken me so long to blog that I have now finished it! So I might have been very quiet, but I haven't been completely unproductive!

Sunshine, Lollypops & Rainbows......

Sunshine aplenty for the last four days and I am feeling grand! Amazing what a little light therapy can do for the stress levels. After a horrible week of workplace stress and disorganisation, a few days in sunny Bristol have sure done the trick. We made sure we have had Easter Monday at home though, to thoroughly catch up on things and get un-house-stressed as well. I am determined that this week will be better!


Anyway, the garden is looking wonderfully rambling, and there are all sorts of delights popping up hither and thither....
































These are seeds we are growing in a beautifully home-made glass case on top of our shed. Turns out the seeds love it! They are getting ready to live up the road in our new allotment...there is rocket, cos lettuce, cherry tomato, basil, two types of parsley and runner beans all trying to germinate in there! Hopefully this will be for planting out round one (for an early harvest), followed by planting out round two and maybe even seeds in the ground later on?! Growing stuff in England turns out to be a whole lot harder than growing stuff in the antipodes! But still fun.

There is knitting to show I promise...it is all still gift knitting though. But very soon some of the gifts will be shipped off, which means I can almost post! Betchya can't wait!