Pink snow

It's beautiful at the moment as the cherry trees have blossomed heavily and now the rain and wind has bumped off the blossoms so they're all lying around like pink snow. It's gorgeous...apart from the rain and wind. When you drive down the street, the blossoms swirl up like a little pink snow storm. It makes me feel glad to be alive. Sometimes it's good to see the beauty that's all around you in one form or another and try not to get too bogged down in the negativity that surrounds us. Because sadly there can be lots of that too sometimes! Look for the smile from a stranger at the supermarket, the kind motorist who lets you in to the traffic when they could have easily kept going, the younger person who offers their seat to the pregnant lady or the elderly man on the bus and the children who appreciate the kindness of a shop keeper and show their appreciation with a polite and genuine "thank you".

Flower Power

With spring being here (it seems like I've been waiting a long time!) the winds have really picked up. Wind is Blenheim's best kept secret. We might get in the top three for sunshine hours every year but noone ever talks about the wind. The wind is so rough and strong it makes me cranky! It slams doors, makes my hair blow in my eyes but worst of all it smashes my lovley flowers. And I love flowers. I love them for their awesome beauty, their beautiful colours and those that smell good too, delicious!!! When you stop and really look at flowers, I mean really look closely at them, they are in fact pieces of incredible and structural wonder. With that in mind when we bought our new camera with its macro setting, I went straight to the park and spent hours just taking photos of flowers, nice and close. It was such fun. Here's some of my pics, enjoy!

Oh joy. Spring is here!!!

I love spring it is such a wonderous time. It remindes me of fresh begins and hope of great things to come (see the koru blog). I'm busy planting seeds and seedlings. Well busy-ish, as we are still having the odd frost and my very wise husband has counselled me not to rush these things as he knows how heart broken I get when my plants die. Not to mention the fact that I am quite busy with my felting addiction, jewellery making and fitting in the odd bout of exercise in too. Oh and there is my teaching as well....where does the time go?

I just hope that my very smart (he's worked out how to get the lid off the compost bin so he can eat the scraps ) but also very naughty dog (see compost bin antics!) does not dig up my Christmas Lillies this year. I love smelly flowers (just one more great thing about spring) and having Christmas Lillies smelling the house out at Christmas just fills my little heart with Christmassy joy. So when the dog demolished them last year in his desire to escape by tunnelling under the fence I could have cried!

All of my fruit trees are bursting with buds and flowers and the peonies are well on their way too. Isn't it funny how gardening grows on you as you age. When I was young I hated being dirty and bugs freaked me out, so gardening was completely out of the question. Actually I still don't really like dirty hands and the soil plays havic with my skin so I wear gloves. As for the bugs, apart from cockroaches and wetas I'm really brave now!

I discovered gardening about 12 years ago when coming through a bout of depression. Someone suggested a garden. I lived in the city but turned the little balcony of my bedroom into a garden of sorts. What a wonderous idea! The tending of little seedlings eased me and gave me something tangible to look forward to. It really was just what the doctor ordered, and the Prozac of course. Now I don't need Prozac but I still need gardening.