welsh hills again

For the last couple of days the sun has shone in a clear blue sky.  Everything is diamond bright.  The hills have edges.  The bare trees make intricate shapes against the newly greening fields.  Snowdrops shine.  A jet trail rises against the vivid blue sky.  I love this.  For weeks we have been living in a grey world where the hills disappear and merge into the grey sky.  Grey and mud underfoot, grey and lowering cloud overhead.  It has been like living in a wet dustbin.  And all of a sudden everything sings. I wander round the garden and pick some hellebores for the kitchen table.  Everywhere the snowdrops, which have been lurking for weeks in tight bud, are open to the sun.  Under the apple trees are the promise of daffodils in great fat snouts, green but here and there the odd one faintly flushed with yellow.  There is enough warmth in the sun for me to sit outside, wrapped in my scarf and with three layers on,...

Here is the side garden.  The hardy geraniums are blasting away, the peonies are just finishing and the poppies are about to come into flower.  Come closer and you can see it all surging upward. And closer still Out in the field the daffodils are long since over, the apple blossom is gone but the wild flowers in the orchard are coming into flower. You need to take the path to get in amongst them to see them properly. This is fox and cubs which I mentioned in an earlier post. Around them the ox eye daisies are just about to open, late I know to those who live lower down and further south. A spire of self sown white foxglove pushes up through grasses and plantain. The cutting garden is still more promise than plenty.  It will be good this year I hope.  Everything in it is timed to be in flower for Ian's birthday on 1st July.  I realise this makes me sound like a Chelsea wannabee and really it will flower whenever it wants to and the weathe...

Just a few photos to share.  Here are some of my crocuses.  I used to be a bit sniffy about crocuses but have come to love them.  There is something about the way they open their faces to the sun that makes me smile. Also making me smile is my son and daughter in law's dog, Flora, who is staying with us for a month while they are in India for a month as part of their medical course.  She is such a good natured dog, keen to please, struggling slightly with the loss of her usual place and her usual people but always happy for a walk or a throw of the frisbee or just to be allowed to odd about outside when we are gardening.  Here she is setting off with me down to the little river in the bottom of the valley.  She loves to swim.  Labradors used to be called "water dogs" and she is truly at home setting out for sticks, swimming or splashing about, diving in and scrambling out up the bank to deposit the stick ready for it to go in again. On the way dow...