View from my back veranda

View from my back veranda

Spring

I've been sick for a while.  I got a cold, and then as usual it turned into bronchitis and dragged on and on.  I think it's been four weeks since it began.  I felt very washed out and lethargic but my energy is gradually coming back.

I thought I'd share this photo of the daffodils coming through the lawn.  Spring is here!  The two blackbirds that live in the garden are nesting busily, the ash tree is thick with sticky buds, the daffodils are wonderful -- they look as if they are the source of the light, not as if they are merely reflecting it.  At the other house I had a much bigger daffodil patch--I planted over a thousand.  But this one will grow in time.  Next year in autumn (April/May) I'll plant some more so that the patch is twice as big next spring.  I lost a lot of temperate bulbs because summer was so very hot (global warming), but this year I shall make sure they're well watered over summer, and I shall cover the patch with a thick layer of straw, so the soil doesn't heat up too much.

Anyway, they cheered me up no end, when I was in a fit state to start enjoying life again.  So beautiful and full of hope!

Spring haiku

Spring cannot be far
hopeful daffodil spikes reach
for a warmer sun

Officially, here the first day of spring is 1st September. But it already seems like spring. The daffodills are flowering, the buds are appearing on the tress and the birds (apart from the cockies who have such hideous calls when they come in to roost) sing with a piercing sweetness.  In a coupla weeks I can dispense with my longjohns till next winter.

Well, unless I can catch someone like this.

Poppies

Since it's nearly summer in the northern hemisphere.

Summer time...

Tonight we switch to daylight saving time.  I love the long evenings of summer time, but I hate the switch.  I feel discombobulated for ages.  And we lose an hour in bed.  Bleagh.

But it couldn't be a nicer day to welcome in summer.  Not a cloud; a sky of washed, happy, baby-blue; the Japanese maples in blossom and leaf; the ash tree's buds fecund with promise, even the pinoaks (always the last to come to the party) swelling visibly.  In the lawn there are tiny purple stars, perhaps a fraction over a centimetre across, and even tinier white stars, with yellow and black centres.  White daisies, the underside of each petal edged with purple.  I think they're a kind of bellis perennis.  They're perennials, as the name suggests.  There is also another kind of daisy, an annual, which my dad used to call gousblom, a wonderful warm yellow with a black centre.  Oxalis are everywhere, lining the freeways, filling the roundabouts, blanketing the grass of the freeway interchanges with an acid yellow, so bright it looks as if it could be used to etch metal.  We have some in our garden.  How joyful they are!

The cuttings I took at the old house have almost all taken, and need transplanting.  The wisteria, newly planted last year, so not yet prolific, has 4 or 5 fat hairy buds just ready to burst into flower. Wisteria in flower remind me of many happy times in the past:  sitting on the stoep with my best friend, the air mauve with blossom, sweetly, headily scented; sitting with my mother when she could still sit, on her veranda,  sharing a Sunday drink.  The penstemon seedlings and cuttings are all in flower, with flowers ranging in colour from white through pale pink to hectic crimson and deep purple.

For me, my garden, and other people's too, is a source of great comfort and joy.  Despite all the things wrong with my life, I have all this beauty on my doorstep, and all the evidence I need that I am part of nature, part of the cycle of life.

Haiku conversation

My spring haiku:

Sacred ibises
Wings whispering slow grey silk
In a blue spring sky

My lady's haiku in response:

Cat rolls in spring sun
Dizzy abandon, dog more
Wary, winter aged.

and my daughter's:

Tiny animals
Unfurl themselves to the dawn
As the sun rises

Haiku -- Spring

Spring


Dismal spring downpour
Pewter streets glitter silver
Lavish daffodils

Spring is Sprung

Today, the 1st of September, is the first day of spring. Officially. Natch, it's hard to credit, since it poured with rain, and there's more on the way. But it is warmer than it's been, and everywhere there is evidence that Nature knows what's coming up: trees in bud, bulbs in flower, birds a-singing. Positively Chaucerian. There is a daffodil festival in Kyneton (20 k's further into the Central Highlands) starting tomorrow, and a tulip festival in Canberra.

Meanwhile, this is the season when a young man's thoughts are supposed to turn to love. This somewhat older man's thoughts have turned that way too, but that's for tomorrow.

Meanwhile enjoy the photo of Kyneton, which is a town relatively unscathed by vile modern architecture, mainly because modernist architects are put to death as they cross the municipal boundaries.