Flower Fleur Blume

Spring has now well and truly arrived. The weather has been grey and indifferent for so long, I had forgotten how warm warmth can be! The front yard, as I mentioned in my last post, is literally bursting with all of the flowers that began their lives under my grandma's careful nurturing many years ago and which now appear every year as a beautiful testament to her and her deep love of plants and gardening.

It's funny but these photos I took remind me so much of the playing cards that she bought for me when I was a child. They were flash cards of a sort and each one showed a flower and gave its name in several languages. Although she loved the Sturt's Desert Pea and also the flower of her home state, the Waratah, European plants and flowers were her first love. And so I often spent my visits to her house identifying alpine flowers from far distant lands. 

More music today...pretty, meandering and a little strange. Just the way I like it!

Blogtober Days 14-15 - A Breath of Fresh Air

Sorry to miss Friday's Blogtober post, but I knew that there was a photo opportunity coming up on Sunday! We went to help my parents out at Blackwood. They have a small holiday cottage up there and every year before the summer hits, a property clean-up is in need. Our family has long had a connection with the town - my grandfather was born there in 1905. It was a goldfields town in the nineteenth century and very different to what it is now, back then it even had its own skating rink! Now, it is a very peaceful place with lots of lovely walking tracks surrounding it. I took the time to snap a bit of the pretty native foilage yesterday - the gumnuts above, for example.

As well as taking a walk to the local cemetery where there are lots of beautifully ornate Victorian gravestones and memorials.

This is called broome, I think. So pretty - I brought a bunch home.

A lovely ivy grove which has developed quite spontaneously under a huge gum tree. I am quite sure the fairies live here. I was always told not to knock over toadstools (of which there are many at Blackwood in winter) when I was child because fairies lived under them.

Another native...not sure of the name (sorry!). This plant lived on our balcony when we were still renting and died a sad death - my mother has resurrected it.

Such a nice day! Hope you had one too.