Just back from a wonderfully exotic and quite crazy 2 weeks on the island of Nevis, in the Caribbean. I was on a Ben Waters ‘Rock n Roll holiday’ , he was playing at the Nevis Blues Festival – more to come on all of that!
Driving home from Gatwick airport on Thursday I was struck by how beautiful England is – cherry trees and others full of blossom… and bluebells – so early! I’m trying not to be concerned about that and enjoy their beauty.
Before I even went through my front door, I checked round my garden to see how everyone had been doing in the two weeks I had been away. Aquilegia already flowering and so many Spring bulbs needing dead-heading. The Pulmonaria was past its best and flopped over from the middle, so I grabbed handfuls and cut it back. There were still some pink blossoms to enjoy so I plonked them all in a couple of white jugs.
I nestled them amongst some exotic blooms that greeted me inside the house
I’m delighted with this one on a cactus and am entering it in Cee’s Flower of the Day
The red Amaryllis weren’t planted until January, but they don’t seem to have minded their late planting. The one still in bud is one from last year, flowering again – the first time I have had one flower a second year – I’m thrilled.
A couple of Vases from my holiday:
This one greeted us as we arrived at our luxury home up on the mountain
and I put these few blooms from the garden in a wine glass on the last day, with IAVOM in mind
leaving it as a little thank you to the house.
It is taking a while to get back in the swing of things and I know you have had glorious weather in England whilst I have been away as my garden needs watering.
As much as it is fabulous to experience foreign climes, other cultures and meet some wonderful people – it is so good to be home, especially at this time of year.
Pop across to Cathy to see all the April wonders of ‘In a Vase on Monday’.
Such wonderful photos of flowers. 😀
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Thank you Cee – so good to re-visit them, reminding me of warmer times.
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Such exquisite detail on your FOTD, I love it. The fine drops of moisture on the inner petal – beautiful. 🙂
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Thank you. It is always so good when the finer details are noticed. 🙂
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Totally agree with you on that! 😉
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Those exotic blooms are lovely, but I must admit I would choose the Pulmonaria any day! They are one of my favourite flowers, and what a pleasure it must be to have enough to fill a vase! 🙂 Welcome back!
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Thank you Cathy. I do like Pulmonaria too – I have a huge clump, it needs dividing, which will give me more clumps along the border – hurray!
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WElcome back, Daffy. I am glad you had such a great time and I look forward to hearing about it. Your spring flowers are gorgous 🙂
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Thanks Eddie.
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Happy homecoming! It’s nice to get away, but it’s also nice coming back to home-sweet-home. 🙂 Your garden missed you.
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Aah! Thank you Eliza. The gardens here in Spring are a joy to behold. I expect yours is as well, or will be soon.
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I look forward to reading more about your wonderful holiday, welcome home; the vases might be quick but they’re very effective.
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Thank you Christina. Lots of photos to edit and then I’m looking forward to sharing them.
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It sounds like a lovely holiday and your garden greeted your return with flowers – what could be better?! Welcome home!
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As you say Kris “what could be better”!
Thank you for my welcome home.
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Wonderful gallery of photos for this week. 😀
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Thank you Cee.
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Beautiful flowers! I look forward to having a flower garden again. May your return to yours ease the transition from vacation to home. 🙂
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Thank you for your thoughtful good wishes Cathy. Transitions can be tricky can’t they, I’m taking it easy and allowing energies to ebb and flow as and when they will. 😉
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My Franco-American mother often said, “Travel changes the mind.” She often said it in French, but for the life of me I can’t remember the exact wording. But, so true!
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It certainly is true – it reboots the body, mind and spirit. I like to be a traveller as much as possible immersing myself in local life, rather than a tourist. This holiday, travelling with a group, was a balance of both.
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Wlcome home. Is the Wild back? Lovely flowers.xx
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It certainly was a WILD time on Nevis! Plenty of crazy dancing, rum punch and late night swims – booooooooogie -woogy- tastic!!!! Feeling a bit drained right now though! Recharging the batteries by doing masses of crochet. Thanks for the welcome home Cathy. ❤
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It’s funny to travel at this time of year–things change so quickly! We were just a couple states away recently and I was still shocked at how far spring had progressed here in the 5 days we were away!
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You are so right! Makes one’s head spin! 😉
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I always hate to leave the garden at this time of year. Yet when I return it is such a wonderful welcome full of flowers and the garden always needs attention. Welcome home and Happy IAVOM.
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Thank you for the ‘welcome home’ Lisa 😉
Like you, I really don’t want to leave the UK at this time of year, this particular holiday was too good an opportunity to miss – a one-off!
Ben Waters lives in my village and I have been wanting to go on one of his holidays for ages – I’m glad I did – but now, back to the garden!
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Wow – lovely to see your pulmonarias – like old friends. But your other vases made me feel much warmer and more exotic on a cold morning. Just the ticket!
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Glad to have warmed you up a bit Cathy. 🙂
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One thing that’s wonderful about them is how much the bees love them when there’s not much else about.
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Crikey – that must have een some holiday, Sandra – look forward to hearing about it but am pleased to hear how much you appreciated the English countryside on your return 🙂 I keep intending to write down from year to year when first blooms appear, but apart from this grown from seed in each year I haven’t doe as yet. My bluebells are certainly earlier than last year as there were only a handful to use for Younger Daughter’s wedding on Apri 30th then – and yet I think my pulmonaria are later than usual…! I love pulmonaria so it’s good to see handfuls of them in your vase – and a second year amaryllis…whoohoo! Thanks for sharing ps thanks for my lovely snowdrop card which was much appreciated. I intended to email you but it came when we were away and I got engrossed in catching up when we got back…sorry 😦
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It turned out to be more of an adventure than a holiday (!) but a great deal of fun.
So glad the card arrived – I quite understand about catching up with emails – I had nearly 800 in my Inbox when I got back – somewhat overwhelming! I’m wondering how to weed some out but a high proportion were from blogs and newsletters I follow – not easy to choose which ones to stop. No wonder I don’t have time to read novels!
Weeding is overwhelming everywhere I look: the garden, my inbox, household clutter, paperwork ………. and on!
I’m ignoring it all for now!
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Good luck with the 800 emails!! I finally cleared a year’s backlog of emails which had built up when I got a new phone and hadn’t worked out how to delete them from there – now I can get rid of the ones I am never going to read straight away! Ignoring it all in favour of what…?! 😉
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Crochet of course! (With a little light dead-heading and watering to enjoy the sunshine)
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!! 🙂
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Beautiful ~ even after two weeks of being left to their own devices. Is it me, or are the Aquilegia flowering early this year?
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The aquilegias are definitely earlier in my garden this year – so you and me!
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Are you thinking the bluebells are early? I have always had apple blossom and bluebells and forget-me-nots all out together about this time of year. It is almost May.
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When I was driving to Gatwick on 4th April I saw bluebells, I think of bluebell time as the beginning of May. I used to have 5th May in my diary as the peek time for them, and go out and about to see them in my favourite spots around that date.
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Of course my ‘bluebells’ are the garden Spanish ones.
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Yikes, I pull those out when I see them! As I understand it they are muscling our English ones out – maybe eventually out of existence.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=426
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But not in my garden. They were there when I moved in.
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