A year in Greenwich Park: February

Well the story of this month is lighter evenings - yay! That's been a real treat and long may it continue, and I'd rather this than more Doris, but more on that later. Let's start at the beginning of the month, and at the northern edge of the park. It's this gate that I've been using most mornings leaving the park, and you know how partial I am to some ironwork. It's full of character isn't it?

Close to the gate, quite early in the month there was signs that Spring was coming, it was lovely to see a blast of pink.  I've been walking past the tree below regularly too, and this month it's been the trees that I've seen most often. I've missed the man with the Jack Russell for most of this month, I think that's partly a timing thing and partly a route thing, but I'm hoping to bump into them again.

Good news is that I've started to see the man with the black spaniel again, but I think it's a different black spaniel, a younger version if you see what I mean, and it's fun to watch them as they take their walk. I think the new spaniel has its owner well and truly trained and wrapped around their figurative little finger already, and I expect the owner is enjoying his new companion.

It's been a dull month mostly, weather-wise I mean. There have been blue skies but not so many and at one point I thought I might be struggling for photos for this post, but the lighter evenings turned that around. With the lighter evenings came some gorgeous sunsets, the photo below was on my first evening walk through Greenwich Park on the way home. That hasn't happened since October/November last year, so it was quite a treat.

Relishing walks home through the park I decided to make the most of it and instead of leaving at the Maze Hill exit I carried on towards the flower garden and across the grass on my most-usual summer route. It was still a little damp, but it was nice to walk that way again. This tree had me puzzled as I approached it. 

The dark circle you can see is in fact mulch, and I presume it's to give the ground around the tree a feed and a boost. It's not something I've seen before, but it does make sense. While I was pondering the mulch I noticed a couple of tree stumps in the distance, where up to fairly recently there'd been trees.

The evidence m'lud:

Bolstered by two visits to the park some days, when Doris came along I was keen to see what impact she would have. And that's Doris the storm, not any other Doris. And it was pretty windy, my hair was going everywhere so I thought I'd capture that. Doris, the little minx, had other ideas and threw my scarf up into my face. Indeed.

Yesterday the blue skies were back and there was sun too. Feeling the sun on my back as I walked down the main avenue towards my tree - well I couldn't not include it could I - was very welcome. You can just feel the warmth can't you in the shots below.

So that's February, still full of action despite it being a short month. I'm already looking forward to March and to seeing the bulbs spring into life as along with autumn, spring is one of the times of year I enjoy most.

How's your February been?

Spring is on its way - hooray!

Last weekend was the first time in a while that I've ventured out into our garden. Part of my garden was forced as I knew I should be planting those tulips I'd discovered a few weeks back, and because from the house the greenhouse was calling me needing a water. As luck would have it Sunday was a relatively warm day so layered up I headed out with my phone in my hand. 

The other reason for taking a look around the garden was to see if Doris had played any of her havoc in our garden, as I'd spotted a neighbour's fence was down, both front and back. I was hoping that another neighbour's trampoline hadn't bounced into our garden, it hadn't. And thankfully Doris had left us alone, maybe she too, marvelled at my lone daffodil instead, and took pity on us!

It's a beautiful daffodil, but just a bit lonely I'd say.  I'm hoping there'll be a few more to come as I've plenty of shoots coming up, so I could be lucky.  Back near the house I found some of my own snowdrops nestling amongst the black grass. Every time I see a snowdrop I'm still amazed at how delicate they look, but how hardy they must be to be out there right now.

I spotted a dot of yellow at the back of the garden and soon afterwards snapped this, it's nibbled petals and textured leaves and if you look closely the promise of more flowers to come.  

And then I spotted my hellebores. I mean I've been seeing some pink from my seat at the table and hoped it was hellebores, and it was. We started with one plant a good few years ago and it's been self-seeding ever since, so now I have a row of these gorgeous plants spreading across the garden. 

One day I'll get brave and see if one of them fancies a change of scenery and try it in another part of the garden. With multiple plants that are self seeding it's easy to be brave like this. They seem such shy flowers with their heads downcast and their almost paper-like leaves. I was keen to photograph the inside of the flower as naturally as I could, but without looking a total loon and laying on the grass. Shoving my iPhone quite literally under their noses seemed to work.

Well for a bit, and then I decided to take a proper look. This flower is done and it's starting to set its seeds - see the bulbous bit in the middle - they'll burst and scatter their seeds when they're ready, and then hopefully next year I'll have a few more plants which I'll need to protect from MOH's over zealous weeding tendencies.

Ah hellebores, too pretty to be hidden away. But also a sure sign that Spring is on its way - hooray!

Tweet tweet little birds

I've noticed it more and more lately, and it's been a joy. Yes, I'm talking about birdsong. It could be, just could be that Spring is starting to take hold of the more wintery days and the birds feel it too. I've been out in my garden this weekend checking on the bird feeders and topping up the fat ball supply. We've one on the trellis close to the house and it's great to see the small birds almost queue up to take their turn at it. 

The other thing I've spotted is there seems to be more birds around on homewares too. Maybe all the birdsong has been getting to me, who knows?

I've been looking at Love the Sales and there's a plethora, or perhaps that should be a flock, of bird items available in the Home & Garden section. So if you're rather partial to a parrot, hankering for a heron or have a requirement for a redshank - ok, I'll stop - it's definitely worth a look. 

I'm quite taken with these bird planters from India Jane, I think they're just the type of planter that would sit quite happily in our conservatory, and be quite versatile little pots, they're just 16cm high. At times, I might even put some herbs in them, or some pine cones, or one of those column candles. Actually instead of a candle they'd be great with some of those battery fairy lights in, and would be great to bring an unusual light source to outside dining, but perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself as I think it may be a while before we're dining al fresco, don't you?

Tweet tweet little birds by lifeat139a on Polyvore

And the blue and yellow bird, how cute is that? It's a quail - also from India Jane - and is a box, the top of its body lifts off and reveals a hidden storage space. Just the sort of space where I'd put something for safekeeping and promptly forget about, then find months later (if I'm lucky, if not years) and wonder how on earth I could be so daft as not to look in the perfect hiding place.  

You have those kinds of spaces too, right?

* Via Love the Sales