May...or may not!

 Well April was dry...and now May is wet, windy and cold.

But even so the hidden garden at The Potters House Penketh is blooming.

The cherry tree has excelled itself with blossom...the hope is ripe cherries in June...as long as those pesky birds don't pinch the lot.

Although I curse the ever expanding plot of bluebells in June when the leaves turn slimey after the bells have seeded......nevertheless in May when they glow in the evening golden hour...I'm always glad that they are still there. 

Forgetmenots and bluebells...they grow themselves.

And that's a good thing...as I'm not the world's greatest seed sower.

Carole Klein may say.."Just throw them in...they want to grow"...I must be buying the wrong seed packets!

However I must have done something right as the Japanese chocolate vine has also rambled into an even more wonderful concoction of twisting stems and branches over the wood shed...I suspect it is even responsible for holding that old structure together!

I'm not sure if this is Walt..(wall brown) or Woody..(wood brown)...but I love how they dance together in May. 

Almost always seen in pairs...may be just brown but oh how they can dance.

"Let nothing trouble you...Let nothing scare you...All things pass"!...St. Teresa of Avila

...queen anne...her lace and other wild flowers...

The last week in May and the roadsides and lanes are white with the delicate florets of the wild flower called queen anne's lace.....Anthriscus sylvestris...to the afficionados of "Spring Watch"...

..or wild carrot...

Queen Anne was tatting white lace. (Tatting is the all-but-lost art of making lace by hand.) The beautiful white lace she was tatting became the white lacy flowers of the wild carrot plant. She pricked her finger and one drop of blood oozed out. This became the central dark red or purple sterile floret that is present on some, but not all, Queen Anne's Lace flowers.
Legends disagree as to which Queen Anne was tatting such lovely lace. Some say it was Anne (1574 - 1619), the first Stuart Queen Anne, who was brought over from Denmark at fourteen years of age to be a Queen to King James of Scotland. Others argue it was Anne (1665 - 1714), the daughter of William and Mary, and the last monarch in the Stuart line. Both Annes died in their forties!

Read more at: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1459/#ixzz3bHPDmQJj

...Cant help but stop every few yards and take another pic..."wait potter..I'll be with you in a minute!"....patient man!!!

...and all on the magic lane that leads to "Jack Scout" and "Jenny Brown's Point ".

A Poem for Thursday...."The Aunt"

AUNT HELEN
I once heard them call her the weak one,
The youngest, the runt of the pack.
Without grace they said, weak-boned
Hen-chested,  round backed.
Taken away from her mother perhaps
Taken away too soon?
Taken away from family
And the comforts of her home.
I loved her, I love her still,
It was never a slight for me
To get the sharpness of her tongue
Or the sting of her repartee.
Dympsy pink, eau de nil!
Mauve and duck egg blue.
Cherry trees in the late spring
From the veranda viewed.
Garlic flowers in the woods behind
And the heady perfume of bells.
I gathered up armfuls in April days
Of the blueing crooks in the dell.
Now all I have is the ground I stand on,
That and nothing more.
And fast fading memories of our walks
On the  lough's grey stoney shore.
And the smell of tweed skirt from Donegal,
 Damp in the moist-laden air.
With a whiff of the essence of violets
That told you the aunt had been there.

Sun up...Sun down...

Bird song...loud enough to wake the sleepiest...

...daylight creeping through the gap in the curtains earlier and earlier...

... and I creep out of the bedroom without waking the sleeping potter...

...down the creaking stairs...why do all stairways creak?...

...kettle on for a cuppa and a hottie...a hottie?...well I'm going out into the garden and traipsing down the field to the summerhouse with camera and book and a hottie just in case it's a wee bit chilly down there.

...snuggle up into a wicker chair with a  blanket 

tucked over my legs.......excellent...luxury....wonderful!

The sun is just rising at the front of the house and a mist has turned the trees to pale gold...

...six in the morning ...and all is well...

..

....and the sun makes it's way through the alleyway  where the sunbeams dance in the mistiness...

...soon the mist  dissapates and the old apple tree receives the strengthening sunbeams  

filling the path in the potter's allotment...

I settle down to listen to the birds...and watch them search for food in the dew washed grass...

...food to keep their progeny plump and happy.

The working day soon takes over 

and the garden is deserted.

But evening brings with it the western light...low in the sky...and a glimpse out of a window reveals another garden altogether...

...no mist here...

... the air is sharp for a May day this year... but that brings with it  hard light and long crisp shadows stretching along the grass.

...the blue of the bluebells seems almost iridescent in this light...

... May's foliage is soft and emerald green...

..the smell of the bluebells intoxicating..

...it draws me out..back down the path ...

...under the arch..

..into another world.

Not a Great Gardener.

Considering that we live in the middle of a suburb

and have 16 neighbours around and about the place,

we have quite a bit of land...well nearly an acre.

So people think that I am a good gardener

as there are a lot of flowers and trees in the garden.

Well part of the truth is that a lot of what you see at the moment...

...was there before we came.

So the question is,

  after the lemon and yellow of early spring

is it only our patch that starts to turn blue?

All of the bluebells were there already, so I've just let them multiply and shed their seeds and spread themselves about.

I've heard people say that they're a menace...they take over if you turn your back.

And also say that they aren't even English,

the Spanish have somehow infiltrated them!

Oh, that's exciting!

I love Spain.

So...then...there's another thing,

why is it that in the middle of all of this blueiness

suddenly

arrives an anarchistic

orange?

Now I like a bit of complementary colouring

with the best of them,

but I didn't plan this .

And blow me if it isn't another country getting in the act with the Iceland poppies!

Forgetmenot?

How could I ever!

You spring up in all the right places

just to be seen with the right companions.

Well I just had to compete.

So I went out to Beetham Garden Centre and got me a pile of blue and, well fairly nearly, black.

Beat that you  pesky,  pretty, pop-up everywhere beauties...

[hope they come back next year! ]