Home thoughts for me, indeed. I remember going to pick bluebells in the woods near Sidcup and the crocuses spiking up in our garden.
We have had some lovely Autumn days in Western Australia, unlike the terrible storms that have caused chaos in the Eastern States.
I have been enjoying the sunshine and doing little jobs in the garden. We plant in the Autumn and prune a shade tree in front of the sitting room window to allow light to penetrate in Winter. It will grow again in time for next Summer.

I'm still a bit in shock to see green and growing things after so much unrelenting snow. The forsythia and daffodils are in full bloom, the lilacs are starting to show leaves, and one of my early azaleas is showing a few purple blooms. We've also had a lot of rain lately, but as it's not snow, I consider everything to be wonderful :) Spring has sprung!

* And not one hour after I first posted this, it started hailing. What did Mark Twain say? If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait 15 minutes?

Yesterday, friends and I drove to Brookgreen Gardens, founded by Archer Huntington and his wife, artist, Anna Hyatt. The backdrop for her sculpture was exquisite beyond words, with so many trees and flowers in bloom. Among the flora we saw Red Buckeye, Icelandic poppies, larkspur, roses,magnolia, and iris. Weather was perfect: 70's, breezy, full sunshine. If anyone ever comes to coastal SC, I recommend touring this sculpture garden. It is amazing and the natural settings unforgettable.

This morning we had big fluffy snowflakes tumbling out of the sky and I see my birdbath has a skim of ice on it.

SO....in my neck of the woods Spring is but a weak promise.

Spring is here in Texas, which means roller-coaster weather temperatures and a higher chance of tornadoes. It does also mean that we have some flowers out (including the Texas bluebonnet) and the open-air pool is now open. Wheeehh!

We have a older neighborhood called Audubon Park that has a dogwood festival
during the third weekend each April. The residents spotlight their prettiest
trees, azaleas, and shrubs and some people dress in antebellum clothes, and it's really lovely. We weren't able to get to it until Monday afternoon when the festivities were over, but the trees were the
prettiest I've ever seen them. Sometimes the bloom is either too early
or too late, but this year they are perfect.

On the home front, DH moved the azaleas we bought last year that turned
out to be "summer azaleas" of which I never heard and that only have a
few scattered blossoms later in the season, and we bought some real
azaleas to replace them. They are pretty small, but I saw a few little
blossoms peeping out this morning. It is cool this whole week so that has slowed things down a bit, but
things just popped up last week. Saturday's high was 81. Two of my three rhododendrons are blooming, and one is a rather pitiful one that
nearly died last spring. I'm proud of it, but it's still pretty
straggly looking. My daffodils and forsythia are past, but the peonies and iris are budding. My neighborhood is older, too, and is looking very pretty.

The typical NE "if you don't like it, wait 15 minutes" type of day. Luscious warm sunshine, then snow showers, then sun, then hail (and I vowed I wouldn't turn the heat back on, but I did).

I have no flowers yet, but a few buds on some of the bleeding hearts.

I was telling a client this afternoon that St. George's Day is the day to gather dandelions for making dandelion wine. I have an old recipe from a local farmer that specifies "Pick the dandelions on St. George's Day before the sun shines on their faces". What he didn't say in the recipe was let it age for a year, otherwise it's nasty!

Malna, the writer assumed you would know that part. That is the worst of old recipes. I mentioned before that a marinade recipe with Gunpowder referred to a type of tea!

Maina, some of those old recipes for home-made wine are very powerful. We still have a bottle of something (parsnip, elderflower, cowslip . . . can't read the label) made by my late grandmother, who died in 1932. We dare not open it. The collective name of these wild-flower brews is tangle-foot.

Yes, dandelion wine is some powerful stuff. Funny story - the last time I made it (it was about 15 years ago), I asked my dad, who was visiting, if he wanted some. Yes, it was the well aged vintage LOL. It was as smooth as silk, if I do say so myself.

He took a sip or twelve, grinned and said "My, doesn't that bring back memories!" Now I had never heard any of these so-called memories re: dandelion wine. Turns out his father (my grandfather) and his grandfather (my great-grandfather) made lots of it in the secret room in the basement during Prohibition. Of course, it was for medicinal purposes only :-)

I always knew I inherited this cantankerous streak from somewhere in my gene pool, and now I know where it came from. In that same conversation, my father casually said "Oh, of course you know about Grandpa M getting arrested for..." Amazing how a few glasses of dandelion wine broadened my genealogical history :-)

Homemade brews......not my favorite !

A man we know proudly makes his own wines ( oh yes, several varieties all equally awful) and frequently offers us a bottle. Horrible stuff which my hubby privately describes as tasting like panther piss. Aren't men poetic !!

We were offerred a glass of wine made in England and told it would be as good as Australian wines, which are very good. As you say, yoyobon, men are so poetic....mine said it would strip paint and we tactfully disposed of our horrible stuff when our host wasn't looking.

So, have any of you read "Dandelion Wine" by Ray Bradbury (1957)? It was one of my best reads in the past year or so....

Ann.....

Ya gotta do what ya gotta do !! That's why they have potted palms :0)

We have friends who consider themselves to be so sophisticated that they bought half a row of grape-vines somewhere in France. To enjoy the bounty of these grapes they have to travel to the vineyard with a collection of plastic buckets which are filled with the so-called wine. Of course they don't know if it came from 'their' grapes and don't seem worried that the liquid will be open to the air or have sloshed around on the sea journey and long car ride back to their house. At the end of the day it might make quite good drain cleaner.

Ann there is now quite a business in English white wine. So much of its quality depends on the weather, it will never have the consistency or marketability of Aussy wine.

And Spring turned back into Winter last week with apple blossom shivering on the trees and ladies smock and cow-slips cowing in the grass.

Vee, Speaking of wine again, I wrote to mystery author Simon Brett who kindly writes back when he has time and commented on the change of the Fethering Ladies tipple. He now has them drinking a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc which I also like. He said that he decided to move them from the usual Chilean Chardonnay after he tried it!