A quiet day, which is not saying a good day or a bad day. Blue skies again, but chilly by this evening. I was busy all morning, but I don’t seem to have a lot to show for my efforts. My Fitbit which had stopped working seems to have come back to life. I hope so. I have had an exchange of emails with Fitbit support who offered me 25% off a new device if I replace mine within thirty days. I had been asking about repairing it. It seems they don’t do repairs, and that at around two years old mine, if it dies is obsolete. That left me wondering how much of a Fitbit can be recycled. Support seems to be answering the questions it thinks I am asking rather than the ones I am asking. This might go on for some time.
One of my neighbours seems to venting her stress at this time by getting active with the secateurs. Two rose bushes in our communal garden have been pruned to within an inch of their lives, despite this being absolutely not the time to prune roses. The sage came in for a severe cutting too. I rescued a bunch of the discarded stalks, washed them, sorted and froze most, and kept several to start new plants. They are now potted with good compost. I hope they survive. In lieu of bulbs to put in the hanging baskets, the sage plants may well be put to use there instead.
No walks in bluebell woods this spring, so their urban cousins in ou=r gardens are particularly welcome.
Bluebells
My tulips still look lovely.
Red and yellow tulip
Candy stripe tulip
The hawthorn tree is in full blossom, breathtakingly beautiful. These ae said to some of the Queen’s favourite flowers.
May
The lilac is fully open and smells divine.
The bathroom amaryllis has two striped red and white flowers open and a third in bud. The red amaryllis in the living room is starting to fade, and the one on the landing is losing its petals. The bathroom one is my pride and joy as I grew it from seed having kept the heads of one of the other amaryllis flowers. Knowing nothing about botany I am surprised that it is not red like its parent.
My pride and joy
I have a vase of daffodils in the bedroom. When I buy them they are tightly closed buds so each bunch is a surprise when it opens. These daffodils are amazing, I have never seen ones like them.
Amazing daffs
When lockdown is over and we can take public transport for non-essential journeys, I am looking forward to good walks in the countryside, probably with Celia, and I don’t care how lost we get.
Keep well.
Isobel (and Cat)'s Blog 
Lovely flowers. And can’t go wrong with the healing power of sage. On my morning walk I encountered a very small Downy Woodpecker less than 6 feet away, so not socially distancing, whacking away on what was basically shrubbery. The birds coming so much closer now that the foot and car traffic is gone are such a treat. To have the time to just watch them and a bagel with lox from a local bakery we are trying to help survive concluded the up part of the day. The rest was in neutral.
Small pleasures count for so much more at the moment, and we give them more attention. The attention and appreciation they deserve?
Hear hear about country walks – I looked longingly at my walking boots when I passed the shoe rack yesterday with the sun pouring through the window.
Lovely photos as always – we exclaimed over the luxuriance of the hawthorn blossom by your door as we walked past in the afternoon and stopped to smell it. A glorious sight.
Frustrating about the rose and sage pruning at just the wrong time of year.
I shall have to look up a Downy Woodpecker. Can still see in my mind’s eye the Lesser Spotted one that I saw close to pecking away at an apple tree trunk by the house in my Brighton garden years ago.
The may has never looked as wonderful as this year. If I were a painter I think I would want to try to capture its fragile beauty again and again.
I was thinking about cuckoos and how this year I shall not be at das Boot to hear them as the herald of spring. But the water birds must be relishing the quiet, and the lack of pollution, not just from fuel but from toilets. The Great Ouse still shockingly still allows sea toilets (as you know mine has a holding tank). A parakeet has just squawked outside my window as though mocking my thought!
Wonderful photos, Isobel.
Thanks Octavia.