(More Than A) Saturday Morning Bike Ride

Tempting Fate...

1. I had a concert on Saturday. While chopping potatoes earlier in the week I thought to myself wouldn't it be awful to cut a finger before a concert... cue 0.5cm diameter piece of skin sliced off index finger of left hand. (I find the plasters marketed as being suitable for sensitive skin to be best for such circumstances - they stick well to the skin and aren't too slippy on the surface so you still get good contact with the instrument strings, so there you go...)

2. I was just congratulating myself on managing not to succumb to illness this winter... cue shakes, aches, shivers and sniffles - fortunately it all started on Sunday ie after the concert, I also seem to have had a fairly mild dose as others I know have been much more severely afflicted. I am having to miss orchestra practice tonight though which I'm a bit miffed about as we get the new music and next concert we're doing Brahms 2nd Symphony which is wonderful to play, here's a little snippet:-


Sigh...

Here's a bit of the poster from the last concert...

....to be honest, the programme didn't thrill me, the only redeeming feature is the second movement of Beethoven's 7th Symphony, part of which was used to great effect in The King's Speech, snippet here:-



Now to the bike ride photos. I wasn't feeling very energetic (the virus was probably there but biding its time), and the weather was keech (you'll need to scroll down a little), so it was a fairly short affair.

Tree silhouettes are always a reliable subject .

Wooo, a chaffinch, and I managed to get a photo of him.

Notice anything odd here? (the answer is at the bottom of this post)

Three tree mound views.

Looking back.

Three big puddle views.

You can tell it was a half-hearted effort!

On to more colourful things. Yes, it's all stuck together in one post. If I were a better organised blogger this would be three, possibly four, nicely segregated posts. Best I think just to include everything while I can, before the moment has passed...

Look, I made some muffins and took a nice photo of them, it seems to have been a sunny day.

A felt cat made by A. I sewed on the eyes and mouth and helped thread the needle (numerous times), otherwise it was all her own work.

The latest state of the diasies. I haven't done any for a while - too much crocheting makes my left index finger hurt so I tend to lay off the crochet if I've lots of bass playing coming up, and since being unwell I've just not felt inclined.

Earlier last week I did some charity shop rummaging...

Ten Small Thoughts On Charity Shopping:-
1. It's like going on a treasure hunt.
2. You have to look through a lot of rubbish to find the treasure. Having said that…
3. Everybody has “their things” to look for – mine are bric-a-brac and books.
4. Sometimes you're lucky, oftentimes you're not.
5. The fashion for "vintage" means that many more people are now looking, plus...
6. Charity shop stock has been adversely affected by Ebay
7. A very tidy shop is not a good sign
8. The small local shops are often the best
9. Sometimes what looked good in the shop looks plain awful when you get it home.
10. It's all for a good cause.

I've mentioned before how much I love Jane Ray's illustrations, so I was pleased to find a book of hers we don't yet own. £1.50.

This is a similar book illustrated by Susan Field, the illustrations in this are lovely too. 30p

Various, £3.50 the lot (except for the strawberries, they're "stylist's own")

4 x 25g balls of acrylic, not a great bargain at 50p each but I liked the colours.

Off now to dose up on some more Solpadeine (wonderful stuff, tastes vile though (I use the soluble tablets)) before going to help hubby with the children's bedtime - prompts another random thought: why do children cry/whine so much, or is it just mine... drives me bonkers!

Oh yes, and the answer is...
...there's a car on the road. I think it's the first time ever on my blog. So there.

Sunny.

What a difference a couple of days and a bit of sunshine makes...

One little anemone blanda surprises me, I'd forgotten I'd planted it in one of the pots lurking at the back door.

A ladybird comes out of hibernation.

Skeletal holly leaf with dramatic shadows.

Soft new buddleia leaves. I'll be pruning the buddleias soon. I love pruning - instant tidy effects, though I'm not so keen about clearing up the cuttings.

Stripey crocuses (and welly boots)

Honeysuckle.

Daffodil - to have these flowering in the garden is one of my eagerly awaited signs of Spring.

Now we're peeking up through the hydrangea at the houses across the road, two jackdaws are perched on chimneys.

Here another jackdaw flies into shot. Lovely little puffs of cloud.

Continuing with the sky theme, we've had a few nice ones recently...

This last one was from a couple of days ago, it's late afternoon, the sun is shrouded in cloud and the heavens are just about to open. It doesn't qualify for the Sky365 group though as it includes trees and buildings, the other photos do - it seems I'm rather enjoying taking photos of the sky.

We finally harvest the purple sprouting broccoli and have it with melted butter and lemon juice (and lasagne and salad). We're hoping the veggie garden will be better this year, 2011 was overly cold and wet and wasn't a great success.

This morning, with all the clear skies around, we had a light frost.

Now inside...
...and the balls of wool on top of the bookcase catch my attention...

...they're each matched to a flower for the blanket. I hope to add these later tonight...

February Garden.

Finally, the crocuses are properly blooming.

While out snapping the crocuses I venture deeper into the garden with my camera. It'll be nice, I hope, to look back on these photos later in the year as from this point in the year the garden just gets better and better.

Crocismia remains.

Garden view, complete with various plastic bags from over the wall which I have still to tidy up.

Blown over strawberry tree, I hope it will be OK once staked.

A promising magnolia bud.

Our "lawn".

Lupins. Always lovely, even in the rain.

I planted some tulip bulbs last Autumn. I'm not sure what type was in the centre of the middle pot but something has found them to be tasty, grr!

The path, with another tree needing staked leaning in to the top right of the photo.

I caught the last of the Sarah Raven "Bees, Butterflies and Blooms" programmes on the telly last week. I have visions now of me wafting through a garden bursting with wonderful plants listening to the bees buzzing and watching the butterflies. We can dream. I'll start by adding a packet of cosmos seeds to my shopping list for when I'm next in a suitable shop.

I tried taking some photos of the newly tidied house before it all got messed up again. They weren't terribly good so I squashed them into a little mosaic.

March tomorrow...