More Flowers

'cos I'm still busy. This time it's part of my daffodil bed which is on top of a garden wall outside my back door. The daffodils are a bright splash of colour and the perfume of the sweet alyssum edging the bed is glorious. The whole space is abuzz with bees and, as you can see by the greenery amongst the flowers, once the daffodils are done red poppies will take over the bed and with luck there'll be heartsease or johnny jump ups (Viola tricolor) scattered among them, too.

Ooh I was just looking to see the proper name of sweet alyssum - it turns out it was Alyssum lobularia and is now Lobularia maritima - and found to my surprise, that because it's a member of the brassica family, its flowers and leaves are edible. I love edible flowers and grow as many as I can. At the moment as well as sweet alyssum there are roses, society garlic, johnny jump ups, nasturtiums - we eat the leaves as well, onion chives and calendulas in flower and others that will come on soon.

I have an ambition of being able to walk around my whole garden, not just the veggie patch, picking fruits and flowers to eat. It's amazing to me how many people are nervous, even afraid of eating flowers. I once took a salad with all the ingredients picked from my garden to a potluck dinner and included some heartsease, calendula petals and nasturtium flowers with the salad greens and no-one was game to try it. It was actually quite delicious but the flowers freaked them out. Weird.

Stuff

Things got rather out of hand while I was sick. Pisces is well intentioned but not well organised so a lot of the stuff I do on a regular basis simply didn't get done. This includes maintaining the garden - he did water the pots when we had a brief dry spell - and general housework.

So today, as a distraction, I bring you one of the glorious bearded irises which are out at present in my garden - this one is beside the frog pond where the tadpoles are looking fat and healthy - while I set about restoring order. Enjoy.

                            

Hello Again World

I have been sick and not just any old sickness, the kind you're over in a few days. No, this was the really, truly flu, much worse than the bad colds that often are claimed to be the flu. It started with a sore throat, progressed to what I thought was just a bad cold the next day - and then it really attacked. High fever, sweats, aching muscles and I was so weak I couldn't stand up without support. That was my life for a full week. I am actually up and walking around again but it's left me so weak that I'm still not able to go back to our regular exercise classes. Next week, I tell myself, next week.

That this all happened during the school holidays was even more frustrating because it's when I usually get to catch up with our granddaughter. The last thing I wanted was to pass it on to her or her parents - or anyone else for that matter so I had to put them off.

But towards the end of last week I thought I was past the infectious stage and so we could have visitors - and very enjoyable that was, too, although I wasn't able to do any of the usual fun stuff. Still I think I've been forgiven to judge by the cuddles I got.

On another topic altogether there's a great idea going around on Facebook whereby people are agreeing to write personal letters and send them through the post. Emails or Facebook messages don't count. The plan is to put an invitation on your Facebook page saying you will write a letter to the first five people who ask for them in the comments and they in turn are to write and send out letters to five more people when they receive yours. I was too unwell to take part when this turned up on my Facebook feed but I think it's such a great idea I intend to try it. Want to join me?

Daffodils

                                        


Here's one of my unseasonably early daffodils taken when it stopped raining for a bit and the sun came out for a brief spell. It's a trifle blurry because sunshine doesn't mean no wind and that is whistling around the house, setting things rattling and blowing over my neighbour's bins.

While the daffodils are very pretty - there are five out now - they are around a month earlier than I'd have expected. It seems our once predictable seasons are completely confused and what will happen next is anyone's guess.

Daffy-down-dilly

My first daffodils are out. The jonquils have been in flower for a few weeks starting with the white ones that I posted about at the end of May which came out unseasonably earlier about six weeks ago. Those blossoms have long since died back and we now have the common jonquils along the front driveway in bloom and two pots - one paperwhites and the other yellow - bringing brightness and perfume to the back patio.

But while the jonquils have been up for in some cases for months, the daffodils have been really slow to even shoot - and given I had planted over a hundred I was getting a little concerned. Then, a couple of weeks ago I noticed the first leaves and yesterday buds. Now today I have flowers. I would like to show you a photo - I may later - but today the rain has set in and since we need every single drop after an exceptionally dry summer I'm not complaining even if it's preventing me from getting outside.

Seeing the flowers has reminded me of the old children's rhyme Daffy-down-dilly of which there are several variations. The one I grew up with was

'Daffy down dilly went to town
 In a bright yellow petticoat
And a green gown.'

This is not very far from the first recorded version which appeared in Mother Hubberd in 1593 but differs from some other later versions. Although the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne is often credited with creating the term daffy-down-dilly in his novel Little Daffy-down-dilly published in 1843 the term had been in use for much longer and was generally used as an insult. This leads to the question of how this verse became a children's rhyme, something I doubt we will ever know. Mind you many nursery rhymes began as verses intended for adults and have since lost their original meanings so maybe it's not so surprising.

If you want to know more about Daffy-down-dilly you can find it here.