Hot off the Needles - May Flowers

 I knit this for a friend. I left it a bit late to start something, because we heard so early that she was expecting - probably the best bit of news I got all last year. If I'd had more time I'd have thought about knitting a large cot blanket with jungle animals which was a great hit with both recipients who have got one in the past. I was showing C a couple of possibilities on Ravelry, and instead of any of them, he picked this one out. By the end there were 750 stitches on the needle - I had to order a 60" one, I didn't even know they came that long - and one ball of wool knit about 7 rows. (Editing to clarify that it was knit on circular needles in the round. I hadn't known they came in that length - I couldn't source one in Ireland at all.) It was hard to get a good photo. It's approximately 36" diameter. The pattern was called May Flowers

We had atrocious weather yesterday, heavy downpours - C's motorcycle ride-out was cancelled. I'd warned him that if the weather was half decent this morning, I was hoping for a quick trip to the Botanic Gardens to smell the lilacs and see the peonies. It was very overcast and grey looking, but we headed out anyway. I'll have to swing back with another post for the peonies, whenever I get time for a bit of editing later in the week. But here are some of the other treats we found...the hawthorn in full bloom, a little moorhen chick, rhododendrons. beautifully backlit gunnera. The robin was perched on the border hedging in the peony walk, and so close I could have touched him. 

The herbaceous and annual borders were both pretty bare, with just sand marking where the different seeds had been sown in the annual bed. But it was a worthwhile trip - and it started pouring on our way back, so the timing was good. 

Farmleigh

My sister says we are lucky to have Farmleigh within our 5km limit, and she's right, we are. But with the walled garden normally closed, I'm not sure that she didn't find more colour in her local 5km walk in Cork which she shared with me recently. However, I took a trip to Farmleigh on Thursday, and for the first time the walled garden was open. It wasn't an ideal morning for a visit, but I needed to get out of the house and finding the garden open made it worth it. The hyacinths smelled gorgeous, and in fact on the sunnier mornings I can smell the flowering trees on the way to work. I've had a bit of grief with the bicycle but hopefully everything is running smoothly again. That was another reason for taking a leisure outing on Thursday, to make sure that all the gears were changing smoothly again and the chain no longer coming off.

This one was so strange, because the branch stuck out at right angles from the main trunk and was just covered in blossom for the entire length - like a floral cotton candy!

There are some more photos in a March album HERE. They are from two visits, and were too many to overload a blog post with. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day

 No particularly appropriate photos this year, due to the 5km travel restriction and the fact that when I am out, I am usually on my bicycle, no camera.

But a Spring flower card (the daffodils are out in full force here, sometimes so massed together that if it's sunny and warm you can smell them from a distance, and some good Irish green. The greengrocer did give me two pots of shamrock when I went down before work yesterday, but I didn't get as far as taking a photo of them. I think I'll probably plant them in the garden. Until he gave them to me, I was going to green up my current crop of alfalfa sprouts for my "green". We will see what today's weather brings. Yesterday started grey and damp, but by the time I was working from home, it was so warm and sunny that I had to get the spotting scope out to reassure myself that a sparrow on the wall was sunbathing and not dead. The scilla photo was taken when I walked over to get a part for my bicycle in the afternoon, still beautifully sunny. 

Spring is on the way...

 C is getting over oral surgery and I've had a sore back for the last few todays but this morning was mild and sunny, so after breakfast we took a quick trip to Farmleigh. At least lockdown #3 allows a 5km radius for exercise;  last year the first time C was able to get to Farmleigh was on our anniversary in June, because initially, if I recall, it was only 2 km. The walled and sunken gardens are still closed off, but even just walking along the drive and round the lake was very pleasant with some warmth, plenty of bird song and spring bulbs. The magnolias are all budding - we missed them last year. 

Frosty Borage

 We had a sharp frost overnight and a foggy, misty morning - still at midday there is no sun. I had to bring the bird feeders into the back porch for the ice to melt before I could open them and fill them. I've pulled up most of the flowers in the border at this stage, but the borage was still there and looked beautiful in its frosty attire.

Utility Boxes

 A couple more utility boxes - one from Cork, when we were down a few weekends ago before we were, once again, limited to travel within Dublin. No expedition to the Galway/Clare border to look for sloes this year: when the park where we have gathered them before proved fruitless, I bought some raspberries and we will try raspberry gin instead. This utility box is one of a series, but by the time I passed some more, I was fully laden and less inclined to stop.

The other one is on the main road outside the Botanic Gardens, and I've always wanted to take a picture of it. Last weekend C went back to the car, and I went out the front gate and walked back along the road.

And just a couple more photos from the Botanic Gardens, since I'm revisiting it...

Feeling Blue?

I walked over to the local post-box yesterday to mail a few cards. There's a little cluster of trees in the green area, and I spotted these Spring (and other) blues nestling in amongst them.  Actually, I'm kicking myself for not having stocked up on gloves when I knew we were nearly out a month ago. I'm not fussed about wearing them for protection now, but I regularly use them for messy techniques, any time I'm using Tack it Over and Over glue, and jobs like changing the filter in the cooker extractor hood (needs doing) and taking bottles to the recycling. And C usually has a couple in his jacket pocket in case the chain comes off the bicycle.

The mixed media challenge on SCS yesterday was a faux blue-print. I took the blue literally (something I have never done with my actual blue-print style stamps. I hated covering up most of my background, but went ahead and did it anyway. 

More autumn colour

A quick look at the forecast and Saturday promised to be a lovely sunny morning - at least as far as current weather conditions go. So we set an alarm, got up in good time and took a visit to the Botanic Gardens.  Disappointed in the sculptures compared to previous years, but that wasn't why we had gone - we certainly enjoyed the rich colours and the warm sunshine. Today, in stark contrast, has been grey and drizzle or downright rain all day. We're glad of our dose of sunshine yesterday.

The bracket fungus looks like the porch for a little fairy house, I thought. And C thought the colchicums were so pristine that they were one of the sculptures.