And that’s spring run her showery, overall chilly, spectacularly blossomy, frilly-tuliped course.  Wasn’t she a goddess? It was a bit more woolly hats and thermos-clutching than some springs, but the flowers seemed to crack on with their blooming and delighting, so why should we not.

I’ve had a busy (for me) run of things on, which has been interesting and nice.  I’ve emerged from most of that now, with the exception of the workshop build which is ongoing.  In fact, the builder, lovely Graham, will be finishing and handing me keys TODAY which is quite a thought.  Then it is up to us to get the place painted and kitted out.  We’ve been working in the garden this weekend – trying to persuade bushes to be resilient and healthy but not that resilent and healthy that they spread over the whole garden – so that it looks worthy of it’s new larch-clad inhabitant.  I’m beginning to find my feet in gardening, I think, so it generally feels like more of a collaboration than a war, but sometimes you just have to declare war, don’t you.  Otherwise you’ll have a bramble monoculture with a really beautiful workshop rising out of it like a sleeping beauty palace.

I’m growing lots of bits and bobs (the nice bit of gardening). I’m growing wildflowers and sweet peas and cosmos and calendulas. And tomatoes and cucumbers and aubergines. And the allotment is gradually filling up with attempts at vegetables.  There’s SO MUCH to learn about gardening and growing and wildlife and land management that I usually just feel overwhelmed and silly, but when I look back at how much I knew when we moved here, I feel like steps are being taken in the right direction.  This is the optimism of a chaotic gardener in May: get back to me in August and I shall be despondant and quitting.

Anyway, here are some sketchbook pages from April & May: