Tulips

I do so love tulips and this week they are looking their best.  There are reds and yellows,

 top L - unknown double, top R Golden Artist, bottom L - Bright Parrot, bottom R - unknown/forgotten

and pinks and whites

All unknown except bottom right - Huis Ten Bocsh

Doll's Minuet

Unknown

Also flowering today is this pasque flower, I love the hairiness of it,

and this delightful little plant, which I think is a wood anemone, but I have no recollection of planting it, although I must have done.

It's very pretty!

Spring Is Late

It's official, spring is late! How do I know? Well Facebook very kindly showed me this photo yesterday, taken exactly a year ago, with the exochorda in flower amongst tulips and dicentra.

And this was the same view yesterday -

no flowers on the exochorda yet, tulips still in tight bud and the dicentra has only just poked its head above ground level.

But even with this lateness spring is evident in the garden

and I hope that with a few more warm days, as is predicted, the rest will catch up too.

A Little Detour

After a day of cleaning and gardening at my parents' yesterday I took a little detour on the way home and went to Castle Acre.

The views from the top were impressive, but all the time I kept thinking that it wasn't how I remembered it from visiting as a child.

I had a good wander round, it was nice but I was puzzled as to where all the arches were that I knew had been there before.

I wandered back to the car and saw a sign to 'The Priory' and the penny dropped - that was where I'd been as a child not the castle! As I walked out of the village the priory came into view across the fields.

It's managed by English Heritage and when I got to the entrance there was only 20mins left until they closed so I didn't pay the £6.90 to go in, instead I wandered around the perimeter on a footpath.

 Now I could see the arches that I remembered.  Arches from the cloisters,

and from windows long missing their glass.

I will go back and pay to go in as I'd love to get up close to those arches and see the re-created herb garden showing the herbs that the monks used to use for medicinal purposes.

But even from a distance it was a lovely end to the day - a day where I found this gorgeous cloche hat in mum's cupboard, bought and worn by me in the 80s!

Hope you all had good Easter weekends too.

Taking Something Old....

Back in April I bought a little, tatty, unloved footstool from eBay for £15.98.  I'd been looking at new ones and they were all either:

1. too big,
2. too expensive or
3. both of the the above

It arrived and sat looking sad in my conservatory until this week when I finally had time to tackle it.

First off all I removed the green cover and found another pink one underneath, so that came off too.

The padding/wadding seemed in good condition do I left that on and sanded the nasty brown varnish off the legs.  At this point it hailed so progress halted!

Today I removed the legs and waxed them, found some fabric in my ever increasing stash and armed with a staple gun set about re-covering it.  

I didn't really know what I was doing but I'm pretty pleased with those corners!  Then I put the legs back on and voila! I think it looks good alongside the free chair I obtained 18months ago.

I did some digging in the veg garden today and was supervised by this little chap and his mate; I don't know where they're nesting but they were certainly busy collecting grubs.

On my way inside I noticed the euphorbia fireglow has emerged - such vivid colours.

I also picked some hyacinth blooms on my way back up the garden and they're now filling the house with a heady scent.

Now if you'll excuse me I'll just put my feet up for a few minutes :-)