colour on a grey, damp Sunday afternoon

The alpine clematis on the fence is dripping with fat blue flower buds - gorgeous. It's a bit chilly to 'garden' even though hubby has gone off this afternoon to Durham for the first cricket match of the season - warmly wrapped! I snipped off the dead daffodils and admired all the new growth - even the hostas are peeping out. Due to rain, rain and more rain since the last time I blogged, the grass is looking a bit sorry for itself, but amazingly, the little Acer which I thought was dead at the end of last Summer is covered in buds/leaves, good job I didn't bin it!! On a different subject, we're looking forward to Tuesday evenings for the next ten weeks, because J John is coming to a huge tent which has been erected at the Flower Festival site behind Emmanual College, Lobley Hill (it holds 8,000 people) for a series of talks on the Ten Commandments. If you're interested please take a look at Hillside Church web site by clicking on their link further down the right hand side. If you want to go but don't want to go in on your own, let me know and we'll meet you at the Hillside church 'meeting point' at Lobley Hill

I wonder how long the Hosta shoots will last until the slugs gobble them up?

Small flowered clematis dripping with blooms

Good old pansies - still flowering, better than ever!
The Aubretia really brightens up underneath the tall conifer. I grew these from seeds three years ago and they've been excellent value for money
Last year's wallflowers are blooming well, but they're a bit straggly so they'll have to come out and go to the compost bin when they're finished. Talking of compost, I lifted the lid on my compost bin to put the daffodil prunings in, and inside was crawling with ants - oh dear! One day soon, I have to be brave, get a spade and take out the bottom layer!! As you know, creepy crawlies and me don't get on very well. I'll have to wear gloves, tuck my trousers in my socks and use a very long handled spade in case something yukky crawls out. This is my first time composting in one of these bins with a trap door in the bottom, but I am hoping for something resembling compost when I eventually get around to emptying the bin.

Yesterday I made twenty small pink sugar roses which will become part of flower sprays for a three tier wedding cake. Andrea was taking photographs of them, sadly this is the only photograph she managed to take because just after this she knocked the whole lot over and I thought it was best to rescue a whole mornings work before she smashed them all!!!