Stand still

Queen of the Castle

Hermi 1

A good book

Summer blues

Juno on the beach

Juno

test

I post entries on this blog via the "blog this" feature on Flickr. Therefore, several entries may appear on one day, each with its own photo. All these pictures and more are available to view on my Flickr pages or by clicking the individual pictures.

Christmas rose

DSCN4045, originally uploaded by anab1.

Well Christmas may have come and gone but this Hellebore doesn't seem to care. I bought this last year as a "mystery" hellebore from a nursery that specialises in them. By mystery they meant they didn't know what colour or species it would be. The flowers are distinctly green with a bit of burgundy stippling to the inside of the petals. Not bad for 4 quid really. This particular plant has LOTS of flowers on the end of 2 strong new stems. It seems quite happy where it is. The other plant I got at the same time was planted in too deep a shade, so I moved it at the end of last summer to my other flower bed where it is doing ok, but has yet to bloom. Maybe it will surprise us next year.
The garden is in a state. There's lots of work to be done. Least of all mowing. I haven't mowed it since about October of last year. It's just been too wet.. and it's wet today. It's nice and sunny though so hopefully it will eventually dry out and I can get a mower out onto it. But first I need to buy a new mower. my cheap little electric model died a death last season after being asked to mow grass that was too high, too thick and too wet. Lancashire is definitely a place for a gas-powered mower. $$$ gulp. Will need to bite the bullet soon. I can't keep borrowing the neighbour's mower.

Waiting for the Sunshine

DSCN4020, originally uploaded by anab1.

The shortest day has come and gone but 2008 has been very grey and wet so far. We've been on a few muddy walks but nothing much worth taking pictures of yet. Hang in there.. the sun will come back eventually.

Colchester

DSCN3850, originally uploaded by anab1.

A couple of weekends ago I went back to Colchester to get away from it all up here. I took Hermione and Max (as I had no cat sitter) and had a thoroughly good time celebrating Julia's birthday. I took Hermione for a quick walk up in Highwoods Country Park and it provides this view of Colchester. Most notably is the green-roofed tower on the right which is Jumbo, a victorian water tower and the thin tower on the left which is the courthouse (or british equivalent)

Weekend getaway

DSCN3857, originally uploaded by anab1.

I wish it were mine but in reality this was the venue for a party that Jenny and I went to this past weekend. A friend of her's from university turned 30 and she had a big celebration. There was food, drink, friends and fun to be had. I got to use my tent for the first time in Britain and discovered it still works. Yay! This was Hermione's first adventure in sleeping someplace other than a nice warm house and bed. It wasn't very cold and in fact the tent stayed really warm. However, i don't think Hermione slept all that well because when we got home on Sunday she marched right upstairs and jumped on my bed and took a very long nap. If you click the picture you can see more photos on my Flickr page.