The Sartorialist

There comes a time in a young man’s life when his thoughts must turn to his apparel. There is no certain age for this and indeed there are some young men who never quite get the hang of what is cool and what is not.

Not so the Smallest Baby Boy who pitched up on Saturday looking every inch the cool dude…

In fact he was a dude so cool that the sunglasses stayed on in one way or another all day

During lunch

And races

And making daisy chains with Pops

Turning Madam into the Spring Princess

He was loath to remove them for any reason at all. I feel a sartorial boy coming on in the future.

In other news EVERYTHING has finally begun to emerge in the greenhouse and to date there are beans both runner and broad, tomatoes of two different varieties, spinach, broccoli, garlic, chillies, basil, courgettes and of course the obligatory sunflowers. I’m wondering if the veg patch is going to be big enough for it all as there are already potatoes, herbs, rhubarb, red currants and artichokes on the go……watch this greenfingered space! Elsewhere there is finally colour apart from the Primroses and Daffs

These are my Mother’s favourites and were grown from some bulbs that she gave me a couple of Christmases ago

They have withstood all the awful cold weather and are enjoying a bit of sunshine at last and are so delicate and perfect. It makes your heart glad to see that the Winter is finally behind us and we can look forward to sunnier days and warmth on our faces.

Apart from all of that, I have nothing more to impart Dear Reader except to show you the following. Madam and her bunny cakes. Well it was Easter after all…..

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In your Easter bonnet, with all the flowers upon it…

Easter by Joyce Kilmer

The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings.

Oh if the above were only true Dear Reader but alas, the weather even down here on the Isle is rubbish! This time last year is was glorious and we had Easter Sunday lunch in the garden and were out there long into the evening with bottles of vino collapso to sustain us. I fear that this  will not be the case this year and so I am looking forward to the following

Some cake making with the SBG ( you may remember this exercise from before) – there will be chicks and bunnies involved…

 

Some visiting of friends and family. A line run through for the play that’s on in two weeks (yikes!!). And then there’s the new project – there are curtains to be hung, beds to be made, prettying up to do and photos to be take by our mega talented mate Gav (who can be found here http://www.gavinprestphotography.com ) – He is  looking at ways of marketing and publishing his photographs – so if any of you guys out there in blogland have any bright ideas, let me know – or better still if you’d like to buy his work or have fabulous wealthy contacts let him know!

There is so much to do over the holiday I may spontaneously combust and all my plans of lazing around and doing bugger all have gone out of the window. I may manage to sqeeze in a small lie in or two and we are out on the lash with Mr & Mrs Folly this evening to kick proceedings off.

I wish you a happy Easter Dear Reader with plenty of whatever takes your fancy.

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On Bluebell woods and Easter chicks

Well Dear Reader, how lovely super smashing to have had four whole days off. I considered for a nano second being totally idle for all four days but then the gardening guilt took over and so on Friday and most of Saturday I gardened myself to a standstill, the net result of which was that I had somewhere lovely to sit and read awhile today.

Down at the bottom of the garden, my stolen  acquired copse is in full bluebell bloom

I do love a Bluebell – they are to me quintessentially English flowers and their delicate scent wafts up from the garden on the warm breeze during the evening.

But it wasn’t all work and no play this weekend. The ACL and I always cook on Easter Sunday – a ginormous roast regardless of whether it’s just the two of us or a cast of thousands. This year we invited a couple of friends from work and one of their boyfriends and we had late lunch in the garden and then sat and chatted and drank far too much wine (me) until late on in the evening. It was a lovely day and I really felt (despite slaving over a hot stove) that I’ve really had some proper time off.

Meanwhile across the drive at Chicken Towers there have been some additions to the flock.

They are ever so cute and needless to say, The ACL is completely besotted with them to the point at which I have to remind her that they are in fact chicken and not human…..

So that’s about it from here on the (very) sunny Isle. I have had a very nice weekend doing nothing much. Have got the garden whipped into shape and even planted some veg in the raised beds. Back to work tomorrow *sigh* but just for the three days and then we get to do it all all over again! Woo hoo!!!

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A rather belated happy Easter

…only belated because of slaving   working in the garden with my slave driver friend the ACL, toiling working at the pub (honestly it SO isn’t the season of goodwill isn’t Easter – so many grumpy and rude folks about) and learning thinking about lines for the play. So a little visual Easter treat from my humble abode on the sunny Isle (and yes it is sunny today – well it would be wouldn’t it, I was working!)

Am just off for dinner cooked by the ACL – she’s not so bad really!! Happy Easter folks.

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A Spring in my step…

This is Amber the chicken. She is orange (obviously), fat and at times unbelievably stupid – I know I should be hugely insulted but hey, how many of you out there have a chicken named after you, orange, fat, stupid or otherwise? She (or her sister Clarissa) managed to squish the new born chicks that the ACL was trying to nurture not once but twice and so to that end the ACL, or rather her husband  Harley Man, has purchased an egg incubator to see whether they’ll have more success…watch this space for cute fluffy chicks, fingers crossed.

I was thinking about baby chicks which led me to think about Easter, which in turn led me to remembering school assignments which centered around ‘things I like best’ themes (it’s a long way from Yarmouth to Newport at stupid o’clock in the morning) - and so on that basis in a Spring stylee here goes:

The Spring bulbs pushing their way through the soil and becoming a splash of much needed colour in a still very bare garden – the snowdrops, hellebores, daffodils and then later bluebells carpeting the copse at the bottom of the garden. The primroses that I have unearthed from their Winter slumbers buried beneath the debris of the Autumn and which are now yellow and pretty.

The million birds that live in my garden and seem to get up at 4 in the morning busily nesting – since the demise of the cat they are around in abundance unlike last year when they abandoned me in the face of a prowling and very naughty ginger nutter. They swoop and flutter all day singing as though their very lives depend on it and it’s a joy to listen to.

Blue skies and enough warmth in the sunshine to make you feel that Spring might just have arrived. Friends are digging gardens, planting seeds and making vegetable growing plans and it feels like the very long and cold Winter that we had might finally be over and we are coming out of hibernation.

And randomly and therefore in no particular order, newly cut and neat hedges, bright polyanthus in the shops, bunches of daffodils and tulips, 4 days off (ish) at Easter to look forward to, lighter evenings, the clocks going forwards, putting my Winter coat away, planting the vast quantity of seeds that I seem to have acquired, feeling the need to lose some of the Winter blubber (I succumbed to a chocolate brioche this morning…) in order to look lithe and lovely marginally thinner by Summer because those layers of clothing will all too soon be gone, getting some colour in my pale Winter cheeks, apple blossom and seeing Mrs Wren teach her babies to fly (she lined them all up on the pergola and pushed them off one by one last year).

I feel more positive as Spring is here and there is the promise of Summer in the offing. I feel energised and enthusiastic. Long may it last!

P.S. Happy Paddy’s Day!!

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