Colour and Cat

Blossom is such great stuff. Making pink and white trees and pink and white snow.

I was trying to emphasise the pinkness in this photo.

In my devastated garden things keep appearing in odd places. This Spring Green tulip sprung up in a pot. It made me think of a face with the two petal ears either side.

Lily in the unused compost bin. I am surprised none of the cats have sat in it before as it makes a good shelter from the rain or the sun.

I have done work today, and a little shopping and washing. Tomorrow I am finally going to finish the shrine and make donkey ears. I am also going to start the next stage of the garden. I will take off the tarpaulin which I hope has suppressed the rest of the weeds, and try to dig it over again and make it flat. Then I will look into trellises. Or through them! And camomile and gravel.

Cats, Dolls, Poppies and an Interior

Lily and Tiger flopped out in the heat yesterday. Lily has had an operation this week-I found a lump on her back on Tuesday, took her to the vets Thursday, where I ended up leaving her to have it removed. Poor thing. She has been back for a post-op check and the vet said the wound looks ok. Strictly, I am not supposed to let her out for two weeks, but I have gone against advice. She was so miserable being kept in on the first day and basically just wants to go to the loo and lie around out there. I am keeping her in at night.

Cassie is six months old now! She has grown a lot although her feet and ears are still too big for her. She fits in so much that it is like she has always been here. She loves Lily and gets on with Tiger now. She doesn't like being in the garden on her own-she likes one of the other two, or me and Andy to be there too!

This is Anachronistic Alice. My idea was that she would look like a Queen Anne doll, but be Alice in Wonderland. Anachronistic, because Alice was much later than Queen Anne dolls. However, she has turned out to look like some kind of hippy artist. I think the colours I have chosen for her clothes are brighter than I imagined, and so look more modern. I like the name though, so I am sticking with it. I will put up more photos at another time. Her hair is mohair wool from a great selection I got from the charity shop a while ago. It was all lovely muted colours and I just love this grey.
The photo below is from yesterday, and looking again today, it reminded me of one of those Dutch interior paintings. I have cropped the doorway from the photo. This was just as I left the medicine lady and one of the children had come in to talk to her.

This is the other doll minus hair but with clothes. The dress is too smock like at the moment but I am going to cinch it in at the waist with some blue fabric. I was watching a really good episode of Doctor Who as I made the dress yesterday-all about Vincent Van Gogh, so now associate her with Vincent somehow. She is sitting on a Box plant. I love Box. It has such a strange, almost nasty smell, but looks so good when used well. Andy's Dad was brilliant at making little box hedges and sometimes I was allowed to trim them!

These frilly poppies are on the river bank at Upnor and I have added one of the lovely filters from Kim Klassen.

Cake, Tea and Flowers

My simnel cake, which I am very proud of. It took three hours to bake and had a collar of brown paper and string. I only had room for eight disciples, and all my fruit sank to the bottom, but it tastes good! My Mum and brother were here today for Easter lunch. Andy cooked while we went for a wander in Greenwich. Delicious lunch and I managed to come second in scrabble rather than last.

Another tall, thin painting, representing the many cups of tea drunk today.

I have missed shadow shot Sunday again, but these would have been perfect. I do like green flowers. I have Euphorbias and Hellebores in the garden, and also a variety of tulip called Spring Green-if it appears again. Snowdrops have that little flash of green too. These are from the flower shop and are teamed with another green flower and two pink roses with green tinges.

Bye Little Car and Other Bits and Pieces

Here is Antony, about to drive away in my little Nissan Micra. His car, which I now own, is the black one on the left. I had a terrible hangover this morning (birthday drinks for my friend Clare last night), so was later than I intended setting off to my Mum's house to do the swap. Then, having arrived safely I was recovering before having some lunch, when I swore out loud, inadvertently, because I had left the log book, my cheque book etc in the hall at home-it was all ready to go, but I forgot to pick it up! So, about an hour and a half later, I drove my car back to London, followed by my brother and we did the exchange here! We had a drive around tonight in the new car, and I am getting the feel of it, but driving very slowly while I do so. It is slightly wider and slightly longer than the micra so I want to get to work early tomorrow to secure a parking space requiring no skills to get into!

I kept my little bear keyring. He is so old his stuffing is coming out.

I love this wrapping paper I bought for Clare's present-I have a piece left and might frame it.

Tulips from a lovely shop just up the road from here. It has beautiful flowers, plants, candles, soaps, flower lights, little hand made things, and does beautiful seasonal displays. It smells gorgeous too and has great cards and wrapping paper(see above) It is called Passion Flower-so if you are in the area of Blackheath Standard ever-go and visit!

Tulips displayed in lovely dark green charity shop vase, on the free trunk in the hall! I have never had somewhere to put flowers in the hall before-how exciting!

The painting is from Greenwich market-years ago. It is of a courtyard somewhere hot-I love the mysterious feel to it and the chipped and battered edges. It is on a piece of hardboard. As I think about it, I have quite a number of (bargain) original works of art, bought over the years, mainly in Greenwich. I shall do a post one day on them.

The thing next to the girl is some kind of dog, but looks odd. An odd dog.

Here is a 2 second snippet of my car leaving home today! Hope your weekends were good and

your week is even better!

Sissinghurst Castle Gardens

Sissinghurst garden was created by Vita Sackville-West. It is beautiful. You can read about it here, Vita here. The colours are mouth-watering, the sun came out and brought with it a
juggling lady on the lawn, honey bees and the colours of the plants. I bought a little book of gardening columns by V S-W. I love them-she wrote in a funny, warm, wise and inspiring way. In one article, she talks about a tussie-mussie that her neighbour bought her from her own small garden. A tussie-mussie is the delightful term for a posy of flowers. My sweet peas have passed their best so I am going into my garden tomorrow to get a tussie-mussie of my own!
P.S.-I did the pictures small as there are so many. In the draft version they are all in blocks. When I publish they get into one long line! They seem to be working when you click on them though so if you want a closer look!

In the Files, the many files

I have had a busy week, with puzzles to solve at work, which originated with the government having what they thought was a good idea and ended with me trying to work out how to do it. I am getting to breakthrough point. It made my head hurt, I had help from lovely colleagues and now it is nearly Friday and I am happy! My brother is visiting tonight and he has instigated an addition to the polka dot wall-I will tell you more on another day! Light relief has come in the form of a new doll-I am still making her but here is a glimpse.

Looking through old photos-I found these from last summer-these are the flowers on Titania's skirt.

These are my little sculpey heads-still residing in a box in the back room.

Lily through the looking glass.

The other exciting thing today was seeing a fly past of 17 helicopters at lunch time-something to do with a navy ship docking at Greenwich. I did not have my camera! I have asked a photographer on flickr if I can borrow one of his but if not just google helicopter flypast over greenwich. It was great! Thanks for the photo Paul! He has lots more great photos of the helicopters.