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endlessraritiesBlackcaps in December, wind, rain, more wind, more rain... What is the world coming to???
I thought I'd give you all a garden post, mainly to show to those of you trapped in the realms of the Snow Queen and Jack Frost that there is hope, and that spring will soon be on the way.
I was doing a bit of weeding on Boxing Day (hey, it's me!!) and I discovered a hellebore in bloom. Here's a photo, just to prove it:-
I thought this was just an abherration, but then on a garden perambulation this morning, I found another hellebore at the other end of the garden doing exactly the same thing:-
Now, I know they're popularly known as the Christmas Rose, but I've never actually seen one blooming at this time of year before. They're usually the harbingers of spring, coming out around February and March. We also have a snowdrop about to bloom under the weeping silver pear tree in the front garden.
Most of the hellebores are, by contrast, being stubbornly sensible:-
I'd call this normal hellebore behaviour...
I shall of course be having my annual hellebore fest as next year progresses, because spring just isn't the same with hellebores, and I've managed to fill my garden with loads of them.
One last thing...
Just to add to the general weirdness, here's what I snapped in the front garden:-
One of the David Austen roses - Eglantyne - has graced us with a bloom, albeit a mangy, pitiful one, right in the depths of winter. Weird, or what?? What's weirder still is that I've actually been able to photograph that elusive beast, the blue sky, which has been absent during much of the last month or so. The far end of the back garden, where I photographed the second hellebore, is so soggy and waterlogged that I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper as I positioned myself for the shot.
[I also tried to photograph Squinty. Who, when she discovered that I was out and about doing Odd Things in the garden, decided that she was very hungry indeed. But I couldn't dispatch Fruity Nibbles and take photos simultaneously, and she scarpered smartly when I took the camera out...]
And tomorrow, I think I'll feature my Top Ten Fiction reads of 2011...
I thought I'd give you all a garden post, mainly to show to those of you trapped in the realms of the Snow Queen and Jack Frost that there is hope, and that spring will soon be on the way.
I was doing a bit of weeding on Boxing Day (hey, it's me!!) and I discovered a hellebore in bloom. Here's a photo, just to prove it:-
I thought this was just an abherration, but then on a garden perambulation this morning, I found another hellebore at the other end of the garden doing exactly the same thing:-
Now, I know they're popularly known as the Christmas Rose, but I've never actually seen one blooming at this time of year before. They're usually the harbingers of spring, coming out around February and March. We also have a snowdrop about to bloom under the weeping silver pear tree in the front garden.
Most of the hellebores are, by contrast, being stubbornly sensible:-
I'd call this normal hellebore behaviour...
I shall of course be having my annual hellebore fest as next year progresses, because spring just isn't the same with hellebores, and I've managed to fill my garden with loads of them.
One last thing...
Just to add to the general weirdness, here's what I snapped in the front garden:-
One of the David Austen roses - Eglantyne - has graced us with a bloom, albeit a mangy, pitiful one, right in the depths of winter. Weird, or what?? What's weirder still is that I've actually been able to photograph that elusive beast, the blue sky, which has been absent during much of the last month or so. The far end of the back garden, where I photographed the second hellebore, is so soggy and waterlogged that I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper as I positioned myself for the shot.
[I also tried to photograph Squinty. Who, when she discovered that I was out and about doing Odd Things in the garden, decided that she was very hungry indeed. But I couldn't dispatch Fruity Nibbles and take photos simultaneously, and she scarpered smartly when I took the camera out...]
And tomorrow, I think I'll feature my Top Ten Fiction reads of 2011...
