Rose tinted tarmac

It's so hot at the moment I can barely think. Words keep coming out wrong and I'm getting (more) forgetful. Can't wait to just stop and stay still for a few hours in the summer holidays next week

Managed to stop a moment to snap this lovely at work yesterday 

Time passes

What a difference six months makes.

All good in terms of pots.

Mostly pants in other parts of life.

Mum has been gone for most of those six months and it daily floors me and dissolves me into tears.



The summer holidays start next week and for the first time in ten years, well, six I suppose of school holidays, there is some serious juggling to be done as I no longer of the option of giving Mum the school term dates and knowing she'll just be there, doing it all, filling in the days with fun and sunshine.

I just hope that in another six months, or even six years if it takes that long, that my life can fill out and bloom again.

Pin It. Done It.

I was actually a bit more creative in the first week of 2013 than I gave myself credit for. Which is handy cos nothing has been done in week two.

I've actually followed through on a couple of ideas from Pinterest so far and once we took the Christmas decorations down some form of colour was needed on a wall in the living room. So this pin was dug out.

Obviously I took no tutorial photos. And the light in the finished pictures is pants. But it's up and I kinda like the results. The smaller of the canvasses was our test run which the three of us liked too much to just ditch. No one else has commented on it yet so maybe you just had to be there.

Pot luck

I'm not doing hugely well with my 'do something creative every day' resolution.... which should come as no great surprise to anyone really. But rather than dwell on it, I'm going to keep chipping away at forming new habits and notice the things I have achieved for a change. When it's even remotely light enough I'll take photos of the two (2!) pieces of jewellery I managed by last night... but for now I'll flag up my third creative thing from the first week of 2013. 'Three out of seven ain't bad' as nobody as ever said after all. 

The pots by the front door are a bit a bugbear of mine. Obviously they should be fabulous antique lead massive pots with some kind of stunning standard tree or maybe a Buxus pyramid in.... but they're not, they're cheapie fibreglass lookielikies and the conifers I've put them in over the years always eventually give up and are then a bugger to get out. So last Autumn I filled them with Chrysanths, but they'd finished before Christmas even and could be ignored no longer so it was time for a do-over. I've settled on a couple of shrubs, some fail-safe Heucheras and a bit of seasonal colour which can be changed/added to etc. For now at least that's what I've settled on. They need a bit of filling out. Maybe they could try my diet, it seems to be doing wonders for filling me out! 

 















Obviously there are no 'Before' pictures. I'm not very good at this blogging malarky yet. 

Winter Gardens

Not the Blackpool kind... the garden kind. I realised today that plants for winter interest should be where they can be seen from the house as much as possible because frankly, that's the only place the garden is seen from whilst the weather is pants.

This stroke of genius came when I ventured out to get something from the shed (can't even remember what now and it was only yesterday) and saw how lovely the Garrya elliptica looks at the moment... tucked down at the end of the garden 'behind' the Viburnum opulus that sticks out miles into the middle of the garden, the Garrya just isn't seen at this time of year. And this is its moment. (Ignore the dodgy looking Christmas tree next to it.)

I wonder if I'll be looking at this garden this time next year, or a new one. This one I should imagine since Mr. Moneybags doesn't like spending too much money on anything (apart from new computers natch).