:: flower and a duck ::

today's photo was a malfunction of the operator...so here is a duck and my favourite felted flower brooch, instead! ;-)

:: althaea officinalis ii ::

Like this marshmallow, the garden is definitely wearing at the edges, winding its way right down into the still, quiet resting time that is Winter...

...after two weeks of very cold and wet weather, these past few days I've been able to redeem myself in the garden a little...

...like all things, I think I like to work in phases and had just left the garden to its own devices for a little bit long...and then it got REALLY WET and I couldn't do anything in the garden...but watch all the mess being created by NOT having done the Autumn jobs in a timely fashion...

...ah, well, the weeding has now been super fast and easy!

:: trifolium ii ::

with generous friends helping fix the roof of our sleepout today and yesterday we really did feel like "we were living in clover".

:: narcissus iv ::

An egg-yolky sunshiny beautiful Winter's day with lots of outside time...bliss!

:: verbena iii ::

Aha! got 'em! Well, as best as able to today...I stood between the sun and the verbena (?) flowers and the photo, while not fantastic, is way better.  Love how the near-to-opening buds are like little pentagonal cushions...

...and it was so sparkling bright again...sunshine in crystalline relief - another crispy cool frost morning...left it much later before walking Miss Olive...and even then I realised I'd worn flimsy socks - ice block toes - which became apparent the longer I stood chatting to a neighbour down the street...

...enquiring after the care of dahlias at this time of year, as I noticed him working his row of dahlias, I was delighted to meet an inhabitant of our street of 54 years! Isn't that amazing?  

He and his family were the first family to buy and move in down the road.  He was 21 then, in 1962 and today is his birthday, so he's 76 today! He very happily gave me the advice I needed and my day has indeed been much the happier for that little chat in his driveway. 

Plus I now know what to do with the dahlias! 

Bonus!

:: verbena family? ::

Taking pictures of flowers is such a large learning curve for me...here I had the exposure set at -2 and still this is a bright, bright shot of the unopened flower buds...

...the wee flowers are all 'blown out' (what I was really trying to photograph!)...

...ah well, there's tomorrow - and maybe I'll stand between the incredibly harsh morning sun and my delicate subjects?

I don't know what this plant is - thinking it is a shrub in the verbena family...any ideas?

:: nigella damascena ::

Just what I need today - a little bit of 'love-in-a-mist'...

...been a busy last few days and spying this on the way to feeding the hens (oh, and a definite boy, by the sound of it this morning!) was like a tonic for the heart and soul.