In full glory:

A tiny shrub that L. bought four or five years ago for our front garden is blooming intensely at the moment: due to lack of space we didn’t manage to plant a *real* lilac (they are fairly large), but the mini version isn’t bad at all! It’s luscious, and fragrant, and as beautiful as its big counterpart.

We had a lovely mostly dry March and so far April gives us lots of sun, but because last year was pretty much sunless and dull, all the flowers in the garden started later than usual. The first of a bunch of these opulent fairy-tale-like tulips are finally here:

It’s been a hot minute since I posted any garden updates, and this situation needs an improvement.

So, here we go: our young apple tree and a first (peony) tulip:

Fiat lux.

Those are certainly not the first crocuses and narcissi you will see, but not the last either. Their bloom in our back garden grows exponentially, despite the volatile weather.

Snowdrops-2025

It was a hassle to catch up with the snowdrops this year (they emerged two or so weeks ago), as the weather has been particularly ghastly this winter—idiotically warm, bleak, sunless and damp. But today I finally got a chance to take a few pics, and here they are.

Nothings and [garden] trivialities

After coming back from Cromer, L. and I almost immediately spotted several deep holes in the back garden, close to the places where we had planted tulips and whatnot a few months prior. We were puzzled: the holes were indeed quite massive to be created by squirrels (although ours are very pleasantly round-shaped and tend to look more like balls of flof, it could still be an incredibly difficult task for them), and neither would our flying dinosaurs (mistaken for wood pigeons) be able to do so.

Well, the mystery was solved earlier today: when I went down to the kitchen for lunch, I noticed a certain familiar silhouette in the window. He joyously jumped around the dull winter shrubs and remaining foliage, sniffing the soil and barking to himself, and his tail wagged at the speed of light. He, however, was quick enough to recognise me behind the kitchen window and ran away (being NOT ashamed of himself at all).

Since we completely forgot to mend that one place in our garden fence where we put our little trellis for a climbing rose bush, our guest decided to invite himself in, apparently in order to join our existing menagerie (squirrels, jays, black birds, robins, dinosaurs and you name it). Not that I mind, but I am not sure he would like to trade his kibble for fresh nuts.

The weather was so ghastly today that we were stuck inside the house (and cancelled our usual lengthy walk): the animals outside also looked quite miserable, and I was left with the impression that our cheeky blackbirb wanted to come in.

Who said that November had to be grey all along?