Lilies Day - 14 Oh dear......................

The last two buds look like they are going to pop soon!

BUT.................

Noticing some brown on my perfect white Lilies

and........

I like this one has lost part of its petal..........

Lilies Day - 13 and more of my garden

As you see still awaiting for two more buds to open.

My Carnations are still going strong to!

Taken from bottom of garden

This morning our next-door-neighbour knocked on our door just to let us know that someone would be cutting the rest of the leylandii trees down.  Personally I will be glad to see them go but now I'm worried about my Bay.

Take from the top of garden. 

The ground is very dry there now because the trees suck all the moisture and nutrients out of the ground. It is lowest part of the garden and we are at the top of the hill so the water flows that way!  We usually take our family photos in this position as it makes a nice backdrop.  My Bay has been there fifteen years it started out as a little herb in a pot with a sell-by it was 10p and it was from Somerfield which no longer exists.  I have never been successful in drying the leaves so I just break them off when I need a Bay Leaf.    It will be interesting to one of its branches as some of Bay leaves can be seen at the top of the leylandii.

We have tackled the Bindweed now we have got to tackle the Welsh Leek, it is like a snowdrift in the front garden and it stinks!

We have two clumps of English Bluebells in the garden.

What colour does Spring mean to you?  

To me its Yellow!

Lilies Day - 12 and......

Still awaiting for last two heads to open!

Spent another hour and half in the garden this morning.  Still digging this out!  Hope we have dug the majority of it out now before it tries to take over the garden as it has in past years  These roots are Bindweed!  Think we may have found the main root base now.

In yesterdays post I mentioned the hedge.  Well a small piece got missed by the digger and it is my garden, I thought I would keep it because it was there.  This was once three foot wide and six foot high, now it a measly eighteen inches high and very straggly and it is staying that way! 

Lillies Day - 11 and the garden

Still two stubborn buds to open!

Looking down the garden from prickly corner. 

Since Monday we have spent a couple of hours in the garden everyday, we have got as far as the top post.  About another three feet to go.  Our neighbour put the wood there after the wind caught the fence, that was about five years ago!  Now I am going to plant climbing roses!

Looking up the garden from the bottom towards prickly corner.

Our garden is about 60 foot long and 30 foot wide and when we moved in  there was a hedge which was about three foot wide and six foot high, we then had new neighbours about sixteen years ago they knocked on the door and asked would we mind if they took out most of the hedge and leave just a little bit at the bottom of the garden.  It was not a pretty hedge, it had nothing going for it, it was just more trouble than it was worth.  When I said I wished it would all go their faces lit up and I was happy, they put the six foot fence up mainly to keep their dogs in.  We gained two foot of garden.  I had always planned on a 1950's garden.  Our house was built in 1955.  It is all lawn and now we have a border down one side.  We did have a path that went down the centre of the garden in traditional style but that led to nowhere.  That was removed when we had the grass done about the same time as the neighbours moved in.  In that time both us working full time we only had time to cut the grass.  But as spring was very late this year we thought we would make a concerted effort and just get on with the plan.

Prickly corner!

Prickly corner, so named because this Yucca is trying to take over the garden.  Mum and dad gave me one reasonably sized piece and now I have five or six and it occasionally flowers.   It is a single woody stem with lots of bell flowers - its really beautiful when it flowers but doesn't that often, twice in about twelve years!  If there is anyone out there who might know how to separate them please let me know. It is covered in bramble too, which the sparrows seem to love because.............

Can you spot the nest?  It is empty, the little ones must have flown.  It is a well made structure, it amazing!

Forget-me-knots which have self seeded in one of my tubs which are next on the list!

Lilies Day - 10

Only a few more heads to open!

Does anyone know how to bottle the perfume?

Lilies Day - 9 and what the best dogs wore!

Not much change from yesterday.

As you see still more buds to open.

Knitting pattern from Needlewoman, January 1934.
If you cannot read the pattern and would like a copy please email me

Lilies Day - 8

They are gradually waking up!

Aren't they spectacular! 

Lilies Day - 7 and my belated birthday present

Not much change again but the perfume is beginning to come through now too.

I treated myself to these few magazines on ebay as my birthday present to me!  The bidding finished last Sunday.  There was about twenty of them all going for a reasonable price, they were put on the watch list and even with three hours to go no one wanted them, well that was until I put in a few bids!  It was actually only one other person, but I really wanted the early ones as there was one dated 1928 and a couple for 1930, my collection starts at 1932.  I wasn't going to bid for them I just put on what I was prepared to pay and left it.  I managed to get these seven, I wanted ten of them so that wasn't bad!  I am a great believer things come to those who wait.  The top right - the one with the white cover is 1932.  As most of you know I already have vast collection, and I had already bought some of these actual magazines at a boot fair many years ago before vintage was fashionable.  The blue one tucked in bottom left, my copy someone had taken the guillotine to and taken out the articles they wanted and left the rest lots of loose pages and the strips of adverts they didn't want.  I kept the copy in hope one day...........it was one of the first I put a bid and got it for what I wanted to pay.  I saw a few early Needlewoman and Needlecraft recently and put bids on.  But one of them went for £41 well out of my league!  Not sure if the person sells it on will get his/her money back.  

Lilies Day - 6 and a visitor..........

Something is beginning to happen..........

and the perfume is beginning to arrive

That is my husband's foot - that is how close we were!
There is a worm just inside the pot.

A few years when we had a shed that was only held together by will power and the door only fitted where it touched.  There was a rather large hole at the top of the shed door, no one took much notice of the shed until one of our son's wanted something from the shed and went in the shed to get what he wanted, he left the shed empty-handed and called me and his dad to see what he should do next......  

You see in the shed was a nest, we didn't know what sort of nest just a nest with blueish eggs in it, we hadn't seen any comings and goings.  Anyway we carefully moved the nest, son got what he wanted and returned the nest slightly lower than before but it was still in the same place and we forgot about the nest and carried on with everyday life.  

A few weeks later the back door wide open and commotion of a bird and it was a robin making so much noise and flying back and forth getting rather over excited!  When I went to look there was a cat walking around and round waiting for someone to open the shed door to let it in the for the chicks.  No chance!  I chased the cat out of the garden and the robin flew in the shed through the hole in the door and I just went back to the kitchen to continue doing whatever it was, tea I think as it was late afternoon.  A few minutes later I heard chirping on the doorstep, went and looked and there was the robin chirruping away as if to say thank you for saving my family.

Lilies Day - 5

Things are beginning to happen!

The tight buds are beginning to loosen and opening to reveal their white petals

This is the bud from yesterdays post.  The pale bud in centre of the left in above picture

Saved from the lawn mower this morning, these few Primroses were growing in the centre lawn.

Lilies Day - 4 and Facebook

Not much change but

one.........

two more buds opening

Inside the head of the above picture

I also managed to post something on Face Book today too!

Big achievement for me!

Click on this picture on the sidebar and it will take you to my Face Book page.

Lilies Day - 3

Still no change

But wait a minute.............

what is this peaking through?

Thank you and Lilies - Day 2

First of all I would like to say thank you for all the birthday wishes, that was kind of you all.

I said in my post yesterday that I would take a photo of my Lilies Robert sent me every day.  As you see nothing much has changed since yesterday they are still in a tight bud.  I can't wait to see the pretty petals and smell that distinct perfume.   

Happy Birthday to me....................

It was my birthday on Monday (15th April)

Our good friends David and Jane had afternoon tea and cake with us on Sunday afternoo, and they bought me these lovely bright pink carnations, and chocolate, and a gift which I will reveal another day!

On Monday Alex and I met my dad who is 81 and half off the bus from Okehampton and we played tourist and walked round one of my favourite places Exeter.  Bloomin' seagulls even follow me there too!

My friend Denise gave me lots of remnants of vintage Laura Ashley fabric.  I think I will have to find some special to make with them.  The pieces are aproximately 20 inches long and about 6 inches wide and there is about a hundred of them.

And today Interflora delivered these Lilies from our son Robert and his partner Anneka.  He sent them today because of us spending twenty-four hours with my dad.  He bought us a meal out on Monday evening in Okehampton.  

As these Lilies are in a tight bud I thought I might take photo every day at the same time and blog them on the their progress of opening.

My dad and his great-grandson Liam

What have I been doing...............?

Not much!  I have been knitting, the result can be seen here.  I met some friends for lunch this week, oh and I put a recipe here last week, but other than that not much.  Just lately I don't feel as if I have achieved much, I certainly haven't done much.  I suspect like everyone else I am waiting for the long awaited sunshine.  Its been a year since I lost my job.  And with all good intentions  I was going to spend time tidying and decorating fifteen years of neglect.  Housework in certain rooms which are now piled high with stuff.  Stuff I don't want anymore, stuff that needs sorting and either chucked, charity shopped, or boot fair, but at the moment no incentive to do anything.  I need to give myself a good talking to and as my mum used to say I need to buck my ideas up!  Mum made the mistake of say that to one of my son's who instantly replied I haven't got any ideas to buck up! I certainly haven't I am in what is called the doldrums!