The joys of spring

Halfway through today's walk I could bear it no longer and pulled out the camera to record some of "the joys of spring" along the way -

Most of the camellias and magnolias are nearing the end of their bloomtime - all the more reason to have a good look at them -

 Over the hill and down to the dale ...

 ... to Rathcoole Gardens, where the wallflowers have come back in glory -

and tulips, skimmia, forget-me-nots, and small self-seeded plants with an unknown name are bursting out too -

Later in the week I'll bring secateurs and get to work, before a trip to the garden centre ... the window boxes need attention, and there's a plan to put a planter in the sunny spot beside the back door to grow herbs, instead of paying ££ for them at the supermarket. (I do love a trip to the garden centre!)

All this burgeoning certainly raises the spirits. Shine on, sweet sun, shine on...

The last nerine

It lay bent and broken, covered in raindrops, the last of the ten I planted in the first excitement of having my garden at last. They were spectacular the first year, but have been fewer each year since.

Outdoors - unnoticed; indoors, a few days of joy.

A rose by any other name...

They're saying it's a good year for roses, and indeed they are out in abundance. My camera is snapping them up, especially "Kiftsgate", the vigorous climber that rampaged along back fence in Wrentham Avenue. When I see it I get a bit nostalgic, and out comes the camera, "for old time's sake" -

At "the pretty cottages" just off Hornsey Road

Against a clear blue sky

Along the wall at Hampton Court rose garden

Poppy season

Last week, a single bloom caught my eye -

This week, a panoply of poppies -

 In another north London garden -

 In Vauxhall -

In context -

After you notice a thing, you keep seeing more of it, don't you find?

Basted before breakfast

Didn't quite get finished with the basting last night - had to put the project away and lay the table for dinner* - so I got on with it immediately on coming downstairs this morning, and now, at last! it's ready for the machine -

Start in the middle... The horizontal pins mark 10" intervals, and the masking tape will be moved along so I can keep an eye on the straightness of the quilted lines.

While handstitching (and listening to continuous podcasts!) I've been looking forward to the quilting, and its sense of systematic progress after the many revisions of the layout. Of course the tidying of ends will be tedious, but I'm looking forward to more continuous listening, catching up with some favourite radio programmes.

The machine awaits - not the newer model that fastens the stitching at start and finish, and cuts the thread, which then unthreads itself. No, not that one, with all its electronic "leave me alone, I'm thinking!" noises.

I'll be using the non-computerised straightstitch, quite old now, one of the first "speedy" models with a big throat (for bulky quilts, ah when did I last make one of those...) -

Before the back could be basted on (yes, it could  have been fused on, but that would have meant a search for the fusible!) I stitched round the edges of all the pieces, and for the lightweight and slippery silk pieces, put in some background stitching - perhaps to remove later, perhaps to leave in. That handstitch took raaather longer than expected, and in the end some tonal adjustment was needed -

Once a few rows have been stitched, I can estimate how long the quilting will take - current guess is 6 hours, but this could be a wild and grievous underestimate! Only five days are left till the deadline. The race is on!

*When he came for dinner last night (and stopped my basting) my son brought these, which gladden my heart and adorn the now-serene surface of the table -

Unabashedly floral

Returning home yesterday, I found it warm enough to spend, door keys in hand, a few minutes in the garden, doing a little (one-handed) tidying. The bulbs are shooting up, and the miniature irises are actually in flower, so they needed the weeds clearing around them so that they can be seen. 

My keys were in the non-weeding hand and no hands were free for taking photos ... but I do have lots of other floral pix available from the past few weeks of walking around and looking around -

Hellebores etc at Estorick Collection

Old tiles on pub at Highbury Barn

Outside a florist on Highbury Park

Semi-floral - hanging baskets at Sable d'Or, Crouch End

Gorgeous (huge) Chinese plate in V&A ceramics gallery, 6th floor

Victorian tiles, Green Lanes

Flowers of light! Through a steamy bus window

Sad sight, a ghost bike, Seven Sisters Road

Japanese textile design seen at Works on Paper fair

Floral table decoration ...

... and the real thing, at Works on Paper fair

Floral portrait inside the envelope, one of a series by Margaret Mellis

Drifts of snowdrops and aconites, Hyde Park (on a raw day)

Spring flowers at 136A earlier this month

And this? ... it's one of those photos the camera takes when you're
not looking - my floral quilt

Winter flowers on bare branches

This is flowering quince ...

... but what is this?

Poetry Thursday - In the Trenches by Isaac Rosenberg

In the Trenches

I snatched two poppies
From the parapet's edge,
Two bright red poppies
That winked on the ledge.

Behind my ear
I stuck one through,
One blood red poppy
I gave to you.

The sandbags narrowed
And screwed out our jest,
And tore the poppy
You had on your breast…
Dawn – a shell – O! Christ
I am choked ... safe ... dust blind, I
See trench floor poppies
Strewn. Smashed, you lie.

Written in  1916 by poet - and painter - Isaac Rosenberg while serving with the British Expeditionary Force in France. A year and a half later, in April 1918, he was killed during a wiring patrol near Arras. This article suggests a comparison with his later "Break of Day in the Trenches": "'In the Trenches' turned out to be one of those poems a poet in a hurry considers finished, only later to discover, it was actually draft."

Break of Day in the Trenches

The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet's poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver – what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe –
Just a little white with the dust.

I found the poem(s) via BBC Radio 3's "The Essay" series on the meaning of flowers. Programmes on the rose, lily, magnolia, sunflower and daisy were broadcast in September 2016; catch them here  or via the podcast (each is 15 minutes); the programmes on poppies, lavender, orchids, daffodils - series 2 - was broadcast in November 2017, just scroll down the list on the podcast page to find them.

Gathering ceramic poppies at the end of the installation at the Tower of London, 2014 (via)