Royal Wedding and Shadows

Andy and I went up to Edinburgh this weekend, to see his Mum. We joined in the Royal Wedding festivities in the communal bit of the sheltered housing complex where she lives. It was great! A couple of the residents had organised the whole thing, and for a modest fee there was breakfast, lunch, cake, coffee and cava, plus a comfy sofa and a large tv! The lady who did the organising also cleverly made this knitted royal family wedding scene. Great isn't it?! We met lots of her friends who were all really sweet. When the hymns were being sung lots of people (myself included) were quietly joining in. I quite often take photos of the tv-second hand photos through someone else's eyes-weird! These are three of my (someone else's) favourite shots.
There was so much speculation about the dress which was beautiful. The strangely innappropriate BBC commentator's remark, as Catherine Middleton left the hotel for the Abbey was something about the dress being 'unsoiled'. Thank goodness!

Here are the shadows for shadow shot Sunday-in the folds of the train and skirt. I love this picture for the fact it is monochrome apart from the red carpet.

I like this one, as I wonder what Camilla is thinking. She looks very wistful.

After the wedding we went to the Botanic Gardens for tea. We walked through the gardens and saw lots of activity on the pond-swans, moorhens and lots of tiny ducklings.

The plant below is a Trillium. It is such a strange looking plant with the three leaves and the flower poking up in the middle. I would like some, but reading up on it I think it may be the wrong kind of garden here-it likes rich well soil and semi-shade, so maybe not!

When we go away my friend feeds the cats. They get along fine, but Lily finds it very stressful and does not usually forgive us for at least a day. They all had a mad half hour on the dirt patch when we got home, chasing after stones and sticks. Tiger even retrieved a stick! They are all settled down in front of the fire now so seem quite happy.

Shadow Shot Sunday is here.

I will pretend I meant it

I will pretend that the effect stumbled on by mistake when idly fiddling with photo shop was deliberate. The girl is from a painting of my fairy feller doll (one of my first dolls and my favourite I think) (inspired by this painting with the big legged ladies) She is cut out,(in a virtual way) made into a stamp, stamped black, then overlayed with a texture from Kim Klassen and a photo of Angelica growing on Sheppey. Then I will pretend that the way the garden has suddenly bloomed all in different shades of purple was planned all along. Actually, it may be down to Jenny's good taste in plants, (Jenny is the source of a lot of my plants!) and liking for purple that this has happened. The sun was shining tonight when I got home and I took yet more garden photos as everything looked lovely!

The wisteria was already here, the irises are Jenny's and some from school (the darker ones), the alliums are a present from Jenny and the cerinthe was from her garden.

A Rabbit as Big as a Cat

Shadow Shot Sunday

Cassie peeping through the shadowy machine.
Angular shadows on Sheppey this week.
It felt lovely and fresh there compared to London, despite the distant smog.
For more shadows from around the world, visit Hey Harriet.

One of my large tags with a half finished drawing of Cassie. Cassie has learned to do the cat flap! It has taken her a year but she did it. She got out inexplicably last week and we suddenly thought that maybe she went out the flap. We were worried she couldn't come in but she did, at speed, last Sunday, when being chased by a visiting cat! She looks very pleased with herself late at night when we want her to come in and she keeps sneaking out of the flap!

Some of my garden finds. One of the best things about digging is the little surprises in the soil-well this soil anyway. Though sometimes the cats leave me a little surprise which is not so good.

The leaves of my irises. Not all of them will flower I don't think but the leaves look so good in the sunshine.

Purpley-blue cerinthe and yellow dandelion.

Wooden lion-one of a pair from the market.

Pretty pink flowers that grow behind the pond and spread around beautifully.

I ordered my Chamomile last night and it will arrive around the end of May. I am excited! I have marked off the area it will go in and have been sieving the soil to remove the larger stones-and lots of glass. Sieving soil reminds me of panning for gold. The odd little piece of grass keeps pinging up, and when I remove it I find lots of roots underneath.

Faces in the Post

Lovely surprises in the post in the last couple of weeks-faces from Lynne Hoppe and a face from Kim Mailhot. The first faces Lynne kindly included in her package of large tags she sent me to paint-thanks Lynne! The second face as part of a postcard 'gift of jewels' swap organised by Se'Lah. I do love surprises in the post! Thank you Lynne, Kim and Se'Lah!

Great Dixter

Last year I posted pictures of Great Dixter here and here. It is interesting to compare what I was doing in my garden at the time, and what was happening here. I was clearing up like this year, and destroying the ivy, finding bird nests and moths. I prefer this year! The visit was a week earlier but I think Spring has been warmer this year so things are much more advanced.

I went with Jenny, and we spent quite a lot of time sniffing tulips and some other flowers. I have noticed that orange and red shades of tulip often smell orangey, which was confirmed to an extent today. This tulip was curry scented!

Is this some kind of orchid? I have not seen these before. There were lots in the meadow.

This Magnolia smelt like barley sugar to me and sherbet to Jenny. It was delicious!

Raspberry ripple type tulips.

These red tulips with the forget-me-nots were my favourite colour combination today.

But this pale yellow, pale lilac, grey and pink came a pretty close second.

The Mulberry tree is such an old gnarly thing, I love it! I have eaten a few mulberries from it in the summer.

The magical hedges remind me of whirling dervishes.

Sissinghurst Pictures

Twenty photos from yesterday. Last year's visit. I love it there! It is the sort of place that is not too big to picture yourself living there-in a different life of course. Ah well!

On a completely different subject, I am reading 'Next' by Michael Crichton. I am really enjoying it-it is a typical one of his thrillers-lots of action mixed in with lots of fascinating scientific information. The book is all about genetics, and I was having a look tonight for information on patents of specific genes-which I did not know happened. Already about 20% of the human genome has been patented. When a company owns a patent on a gene, it means no other scientists can research it. There is a shocking example of that related to a gene which indicates a likelihood of breast cancer. The article I just read is here. Scary eh?