Spring Sprung then Winter Walloped!

Well it was Spring for a couple of weeks. Jim took a few photos before the temperature dropped and we spent a lovely day gardening:



The narcissus are all gradually coming into bloom, the daffodils in this bed are not quite out yet









Annoyingly, I can't remember the name of this spring rockery flower. It has blue and pink flowers and silver spotted leaves. It always get mildew after a while too!

Thank you Weaver of Grass, it is, of course, Pulmonaria.












This 'host' (small one) of golden daffodils is just outside our orchard. These are now well out.










The flowering currant blossoms are really long this year. They had a hard pruning session last year.







It was indeed a lovely sunny day. Jim went off to the UK on Tuesday morning. Look what happened then:




What a crazy place this is!













The snow shows up in front of the trees









The figure in the yellow jacket was poor Martin, our builder, who carried on valiantly putting up scaffolding throughout the storm.













It does show up Jim's painted shed rather well though.











Martin's still at it, the snow looking like rain in this photo but it was as above, the same big lumps!












Then it all stopped, the sun came out and I carried on with the weeding I'd been doing before the snow came!





The 2 shrubs sparkled in the sunshine with melted snow. Look at the shed now!









A closer view. It's worth clicking on these to get the full effect and see the drops sparkle. You can also just see the old plough behind that Jim has painted black.













I took some from inside the house through the new extension. You can almost see rooms taking shape!

This is my new bedroom/studio, the hole is where the patio doors will be. I look through this window as I type. It will become the door to my room. See the sunshine out the back?








This door will be moved to be the door of my room if it isn't too damaged by the weather. The room you can see will be our new bedroom. It has splendid views across the garden, then the hills.















I just caught Martin going past the 'window'.











Buster thought he'd remain in the porch area while it snowed. He thought it needed guarding...












Some time later it snowed again. In the morning the scaffolding boards had about an inch of snow on them. Then the sun came out... It was a very odd day and it's still really cold with the addition of a biting wind today. I was going to stay in but decided about 2pm to go and do some weeding. I had 2 jumpers on and my big coat, a balaclava with a hat on top of that. I wasn't going to be cold. I was quite successful in my endeavours and only gave up because my feet were frozen and Buster wanted his dinner. It was also dropping dark. If I get it finished tomorrow I'll take a photo, though it looks rather bare.

I have been inspired to do some more ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) having found a blogger called Marianne who is Dutch and paints ATCs and also makes Mandalas. So yesterday evening and today I've been crafting, something I haven't done for a while. I really enjoyed it too. I can't wait for my new room to be finished. Needless to say there was a distinct lack of builders about today.

Just to finish with a Buster story. When Buster comes in at night from his rambles to goodness knows where, he does this rather weird trick of trying to fall asleep standing up. He'll often rest his head on something, a chair seat, my lap, a box, and yesterday evening it was the loft ladder. I took two photos of him and I think you can see in the second one his eyes are closed. He usually wobbles a bit then before he falls over, finds another spot. This goes on until he gives in and goes to bed. Like a child!





His head drops lower












Now he's asleep!







Now I've let the fire go out so I'm off to bed, it's warm there. Jim has the car so I'm stranded here and have run out of chocolate. What a disaster.