A time of firsts

I am sadly aware that I have slipped well behind with my blogging, this is mainly due to life appearing to move at a far faster pace than I can keep up with and to feeling very tired, not that I should be surprised about that, it does go with the territory.  In the meantime I have been watching an astonishing number of spring firsts emerge as the weather has finally warmed up a little.

We have had the first blossom on lots of the trees - wild and flowering cherry, plum and magnolia all out together - cherry and magnolia shown here outside our house.



The first cowslips flowering, they have taken to the garden, from the two plants put in a few years ago we now have nine in the garden, in addition to the couple we have given away.  My dad is a great advocate of the cowslip and I do love their cheery flowers, yellow is so sunshiny, although we also have the genetic rarity of a red cowslip.



The first bees emerging, I adore watching the bumble bees proceed from flower to flower.  They are nigh on impossible to photograph however.  This year there have been many flowers out awaiting them, including the lungwort, not the world's most prepossessing plant perhaps, but a hit with the bees over many weeks.  The other evening the cherry tree pictured above was abuzz with bees, such a joy to see.



The first fritillary of the year, part of the William Morris theme to the garden, fitting in with the period and style of the house.



The first days of sunshine and sitting outside, watching the birds and remaining still so that they will approach and feed while I am there.  As always the robin is first down, often coming very close in the holly bush to see what I am doing and to twitter softly and sing, but blue tits, dunnocks and even the gold finches have been joining him.  I love seeing both robins together at this time of year, one has started feeding the other with choice titbits and various birds have been spotted with nesting material.

All this has brightened a tough few weeks, with spiritual and physical struggle all ongoing.  On the knitting front (this is supposedly a knitting blog after all), I have finally finished a cardigan, but not managed to photograph it, and started a new one, double v, from an Interweave knits magazine a couple of years ago, in Vinni's Colours Nikkim, which being a cotton can be hard on the hands.  The colour is wonderful though, called peacock, it is rich and deeply saturated.  Hopefully it will not take as long to knit as the last cardigan, which I started last May.



Onwards and upwards as they say.