Yellow for A

Today was the second anniversary of the death of a little friend of ours. He would have turned ten next month. I can't help but think how fundamentally altered his parents lives are from losing him. Two years must still feel so raw.

My eldest girl who was so tuned in to his mum's feelings around the time of his death has recently proclaimed her favourite colour to be yellow. Until now, she has never wavered from pink. She doesn't know it but it was his favourite too.

The daffodils in our garden are blooming splendidly. Perhaps they know too.

The Magic of Mushrooms

There's a space under our house which I call 'the cave'. When I first went in there the rich, earthy smell evoked thoughts of the delicious fruits of the earth that would grow and thrive there.

Several weeks ago we went to St. Andrews market and picked up a mushroom kit to get our little funghi crop started.

Everything we needed was contained in the kit. All we needed to provide was a dark space and a daily spray of water. At that point I ditched the plans to grow our 'shrooms in the cave and for lack of better judgment put the box in the linen cupboard.

Within days, tiny white spots began to appear in the soil.

Black spots appeared throughout the linen cupboard.

I re-housed the mushroom box to a spot under the kitchen sink and washed my towels and sheets.


And we've had a plentiful supply of fresh, buttery swiss brown and white mushrooms ever since!




For now the cave remains empty, but may well come in handy when I can get my hands on some shiitakes.

Happy, er, third day of spring!

Daffodils

Sorry about the daggy formatting but here's some snaps of what's been popping up in my garden since the sun decided to shine a little with the change of season. The palette of blooms appears to mainly be pinks and reds, not my first choice for flowers, but I will embrace wholeheartedly and add my favourite blues and whites, and silvery foliage as I go. The the ususal mountains suspects - Camellias a'plenty, the ubiquitous Rhody and Azalias - all of which I've never grown before.

Grape Hyacinth

Hellebores 'Ruffled Lady' (I only know that because I saw them a t the nursery)

Azalea

Azalea

Rhododendron

Camellia

Not quite sure

Snow drops - not onion weed

Camellia bud



Lavender
Camellia


The first day of Spring involved a first trip to the 'famous' lolly shop up the road. It was aimed to be a minor celebration of Spring but also a bribe to the the elder of the two littles out for a walk. So much wet and cold weather and indoor days had led to a bit of a stand off regarding outdoor activity and use of the legs. Said oldest little was given $2 to choose something in the shop and I was so curious to see where she'd go with that.


The little sweetheart chose the most modest and plain little lollypop for 50 cents and was quite happy to pay and leave it at that. It was she giving me the hurry up once her treat had been selected as I was nostalgically sniffing in the scent of musk sticks and wine gums and sherbets and all sorts of sugary goodness that once cost about a cent per sweet - or less. (For some beautiful and colourful photos of confectionary have a look at what Shula's been up to over at Poppalina).

The previously sweet-treat deprived small child carried her "ollypop" in it's wrapping all the way home and devoured it in the Spring sunshine once we got home.