My Garden :: May

Hello Lovelies, 

are we in the second half  of May already ?! Time to share a little mosaic of the plants and flowers which are looking pretty in my garden at the moment.

 This is the second of my monthly updates , I just thought it would be a nice record for myself and I hope you enjoy these images....

left to right from the top 

1. Hosta leaves (pre slug attack...it will happen ) 2.Saxifrage 3. Alchemilla Mollis.

4.Welsh Poppy 5. Dicentra ( one of my favourtite garden plants ) 6. Tulip

7. More Tulips 8. Euphorbia Fireglow 9. Daisies in my lawn.

Here is my favourite border...if you compare it to April's picture you can see it's much more lush now , but again there is not a great deal of colour. The bright green Euphorbias are stunning and the Lung Wort is still going strong. The geraniums have a lot of foliage but are not in flower yet .....

It's such a lovely time of year for the garden, lots of fresh growth and anticipation of flowers and edible plants. I really feel blessed to have this plot of earth, especially in late spring.

It's nice to share my garden with you lovelies, I hope you enjoyed your visit.
Jacquie x

A Floral Walk

Hello Lovelies,

I'm continuing to get outside as much as possible and enjoy the beauty of my favourite month. I hope you are happy to come on another walk with me :0)

Monday is usually a work day  but not this week. So when I woke to sunshine I knew what I wanted to do....spend an hour in the fresh air with my little camera, before getting on with the housework.

The beautiful deep pink blossom on this young tree caught my eye.....

 This bench must be a lovely place to rest in the shade on a hot day.

But on Monday it was quite cool with scudding clouds and a fresh breeze........

I wandered along the roadside , enjoying noticing the return of many familiar wild flowers......

 Dead Nettle

I love to see a cultivated and cared for garden, but I love to see natural wild flowers just as much.......

 Forget-me-nots

I wander along enjoying the pretty views........

 and the more I look the more gorgeous wild flowers I find........

 Pink bells and blue bells

 Alkanet

I wasn't sure of the name of this plant , but I've since looked it up....

 Garlic Mustard ( with Honesty in the background )

And here's another tiny flower I hadn't noticed before........

Ground Ivy

After a while I turn down a path to visit a favourite place of mine and on the way I'm delighted by more wonderful blossom..........

Here we are , tucked away in a quite spot is this simple little church..........

It's such a peaceful and contemplative place  which looks especially beautiful at this time of year.......

I get lost in my own thoughts for a while............

Round the back of the church there is a quiet footpath with some interesting glimpses of buildings........

 And once again I'm delighted by the pretty wild flowers. None are particularly rare. Some are very common place and may even be regarded as weeds by lots of people, but they are such a welcome sight to me....

 Herb Robert

A mass of happy Daisies 

Just today I found a lovely 1950's  Ladybird Book on wild flowers in the charity shop and I couldn't resist it.

I love this illustration and excellent information, with plants I saw on my latest walk.......

You can click on the picture to see it more clearly.

thank you for coming with me on this little walk....it may be a bit familiar if you have been reading my blog for a long time , but I hope I never tire of sweet, familiar places and natures beauty.

Jacquie x

♥ 52 Weeks of Happy ♥ 19/52

Hello Lovelies,
my poor old camera wonders what's happening to it at the moment. It's working overtime as I seem to take endless pictures at this time of year. And thanks to the kind advice of you lovelies I now have an external hard drive backing up all my precious photos. It's mainly the pictures of my rapidly growing and changing boys that I was worried about loosing.
 I'm a bit of a techno dummy but in the end it was really easy to set up and I do feel much easier now I know there is a safety net......so thank you for the advice.... that is a happy thing from this week.

Here are my other happy moments.........

1. Flowers in my front garden. Last Autumn I planted some extra tulips and they have been gorgeous, along with the Pansies which looked really sick all winter but are now flowering their heads off........

2. Chimneys....well O.K. not just chimneys.
 I love interesting old houses with pretty roof lines and I do love interesting chimneys . This cottage had a huge chimney stack and check out the cottage in the background.....

 Diagonal chimneys with zig zag edges.....love it :0)

3. My garden........it's just such a great time of year in the garden.....my little greenhouse is full of new seedlings and I've planted out my peas....they are a dwarf variety so I hope they will be ok in a container........

I know it's only a very small amount but I'm very happy to be producing some of our own veg this year....it feels good.......

"little gem" lettuce

 4. Mums newest painting that she brought round to show me in the week......

It's such gorgeous Spring scene.....a very happy picture don't you think?

I hope you find many happy moments in your week.

Jacquie x

Wonderful World :: part 2

Hello lovelies ,

I'm carrying on with my posts celebrating spring ....hope that's O.K. with you :0)

At the moment I just want to get outside and revel in the beauty that mother nature creates in May.

Yesterday morning was lovely and sunny and I headed out along a footpath I haven't explored for ages.

It runs along the edge if a field..........

and then straight through the middle of it.........

it seemed a bit wrong to walk among the farmers crops but as you can see here it's a well trodden path......

In the corner of the field I climbed over the style.........

 and this time I was among the livestock, saying hello to the sheep, who did not seem interested .......

I do think the protected footpaths we have in the U.K. are wonderful.....I really appreciate being allowed to wander over private land, getting away from busy roads and closer to nature.

In the corner of this field was another style....which led into a wooded area. The thing that struck me here was how wonderfully bright green everything was.......

The cow parsley has just begun to flower.....oooh I love this stuff.......so lacey and delicate.....in a few days the verges will be a mass of these tiny white flowers........



I love the dappled sunlight on the path......

 Here there is a little bridge over a stream and huge willow trees...

Their branches hang right down to the ground in places..........

Delicate curtains of fresh green waving gently in the breeze created a special and very enchanting atmosphere...........

 May is my most favourite month, everything is new and fresh....and summer is still to come.........

I hope you lovelies are able to enjoy the season , whether it's Spring or Autumn where you are.
Thank you so much for all the wonderful comments you continue to leave me, they are very kind.
Jacquie x

This Weeks Drawing.....Withernsea Lighthouse

Hello Lovelies,

when we visited the coast recently one of my favourite things was this beautiful lighthouse right in the middle of town ( it was placed there to protect it from coastal erosion).........

I loved it's neat garden round the back and wished it had been open so we could spent more time there...it must be such a lovely place to sit for a while with a nice cup of tea and a cake.........

It's beautifully preserved as a museum and thankfully were are many lovely images of it online for me to use as a reference for my drawing as my own photos were a bit close up. THIS image was the one I used.

This is a progress shot.....it's a bit hard to see but I wanted to add flowers and leaves in the foreground for colour and interest.
I'm very inspired by beautiful paintings that use this technique like these and this by the lovely Julia Crossland.

I decided to change the flowers a bit after this picture was taken. And loose the leaves at the top (but I now wonder if I should have kept them).

You can see I printed out a couple of reference pictures ........

And used an old gardening  book to get inspiration for the flowers........

And here's the finished picture.........

As usual you can click on the picture to see it more clearly

Again I've added people...this time a couple of friends enjoying tea on the lawn...one of them has come on her bike which is leaning against the wall..........

And I couldn't leave out the super friendly cat we met there, so he is with them.

Here he is again in real life.......

I added some sea gulls in the clear blue sky........

I'm not sure what type of  flowers these are exactly, but I think they turned out O.K. 

I really like this part of the picture too, if you look at the photo I was working from you can just see the old "visit the light house" sign in the corner of the lawn. I did change the shape of the conifer a bit as I didn't like its flat top.......

I also re positioned the bench and the bird table a little ....and remembered to add Tom Tit this time :0)

It was tricky to get the perspective right.....with the large flowers in the foreground and the placement of the friends on the lawn but I'm really pleased with how it turned out in the end.........

Just don't look too closely at the little building on the right...it went a bit wrong !

Withernsea Lighthouse is such a lovely building and it looks great in a photo, but I like the way you can add extra interest with a picture, while still keeping all the lovely details which make it unique.
I hope you agree.
Jacquie x

Wonderful World

Hello Lovelies,

the weather has been beautiful over the weekend and everywhere looks so pretty.

Our neighbours Magnolia tree looked  lovely in the evening sunlight yesterday.

and just this morning, when I went out for a run, I had to take my camera as I knew I would see things I wanted to photograph , like this wonderful blossom........

 I was jogging along when I saw another gorgeous tree  so I crossed the road to get a picture........



I didn't see the older  gentleman walking his dog as played about getting a better angle.... and obstructing the pavement ...."ooops sorry" I said, a bit flustered....."I bet you don't see that many runners stopping to take pictures of flowers" were my next words.
 I don't know what I expected him to reply to that but to my delight he said  "No but I would be  if I had remembered my camera"....."Yes, yes"... I agreed..... "It's so beautiful at the moment, there are wonderful pictures everywhere" . " Yes indeed" said the man "even the dandelions look lovely".

Awww, it was just a simple little conversation but it really touched me. It's great to know I'm not the only one who is literally full of the joys of spring...........

Now I wondered if I could ask you lovelies for some advice......
I have so many pictures stored on my computer and worry what would happen if it broke down. Do you know what is the best thing to do to ensure they are not all lost if this happens.
Thank you for all your comments and advice.
Jacquie x